The problem is, who positively identifies them as poachers? Due process is in place for a reason, things are not always clear in the heat of the moment. If you're out in a field with a gun - or if the ranger has an extra gun he can plant - you are now able to be killed without the ranger facing any punishment. Does that sound like a healthy situation to you?
I agree with you 100% that killing animals for sport is wrong. But I disagree 200% with the punishment being death without trial, judge, or jury.
I say they catch the poachers, take away their weapons and then let the tigers decide how to best handle the situation. 
Not to mention it'll help cut down on the population...
PHeller
SuperDork
5/30/12 10:13 a.m.
Rubber bullets are pretty effective at telling people "no".
I'd say, shoot them with rubber bullets, if they shoot back...your free to defend yourself.
Don't kill them. Just shoot them in the hands. Make it real hard to pick up a gun.
If they are hauling a dead, poached animal........ought to be pretty easy to identify them.
I was making a light-hearted jab from the other thread....
Curmudgeon wrote:
Not to mention it'll help cut down on the population...
I seen what you did there 
GameboyRMH wrote:
Killing endangered species for anything but self-defense (although it seems *even worse* to kill for bullE36 M3 medicine) is as wrong as killing a human IMO.
I call this "city boy talk." Animals can be endangered, and still need culling. Taking it further, the licensed hunting of various endangered big game animals in Africa is a boon to both the people AND the animals of a region. Who's more interested in the preservation of the White Rhino: the man who loves hunting them, or some armchair environmentalist back in the states who hasn't ever seen one?
PHeller wrote:
Rubber bullets are pretty effective at telling people "no".
I'd say, shoot them with rubber bullets, if they shoot back...your free to defend yourself.
This is worse than the "just shoot them in the leg" people. You bet your ass if I'm going to be taking potshots at guys with guns, I'm going to do it with real motherberkeleying bullets.
PHeller wrote:
HEY!
Good for you.
Waves to you from reality land
Osterkraut wrote:
Animals can be endangered, and still need culling.
Seems like a horrible error in classification if that's true.
GameboyRMH wrote:
Osterkraut wrote:
Animals can be endangered, and still need culling.
Seems like a horrible error in classification if that's true.
Location, location, location.
Humans are the only animals capable of limiting their impact on their environment. Every other will, given enough time or population, destroy their habitat. Of course, nature SHOULD have a system of checks and balances set up, but sometimes for whatever reason there isn't one (you could easily blame humans for that).
Osterkraut wrote:
Humans are the only animals capable of limiting their impact on their environment
HAWWWWwwhahahawwww pull the other one!
The O can do that to you right now, so why not the Indians?
dculberson wrote:
Osterkraut wrote:
Humans are the only animals capable of limiting their impact on their environment
HAWWWWwwhahahawwww pull the other one!
Nice try, but think about it. Take for example, deer, the overpopulation of which is a huge problem in some states. Deer will eat and bred an area dry. Humans, at least, understand the concept of sustainable living.
Que'? Don't recall a 'shoot first/ask later' policy in place for poachers here in the Great Satan.
Osterkraut wrote:
dculberson wrote:
Osterkraut wrote:
Humans are the only animals capable of limiting their impact on their environment
HAWWWWwwhahahawwww pull the other one!
Nice try, but think about it. Take for example, deer, the overpopulation of which is a huge problem in some states. Deer will eat and bred an area dry. Humans, at least, understand the concept of sustainable living.
Understand the concept, yes. As we saw, not all of them agree with it. (zips lip, steps away from the keyboard)
Luke
UberDork
5/30/12 11:59 a.m.
Osterkraut wrote:
dculberson wrote:
Osterkraut wrote:
Humans are the only animals capable of limiting their impact on their environment
HAWWWWwwhahahawwww pull the other one!
Nice try, but think about it. Take for example, deer, the overpopulation of which is a huge problem in some states. Deer will eat and bred an area dry. Humans, at least, understand the concept of sustainable living.
Sure, in an area beyond their natural habitat. If animals weren't capable of limiting their impact on their environment, species would be going extinct left right and centre. Granted, often it takes a complicated interaction of many species together, to create the limiting effect.
Edit: reading your other posts, that's more or less what you're saying here:
Osterkraut wrote:
Of course, nature SHOULD have a system of checks and balances set up, but sometimes for whatever reason there isn't one (you could easily blame humans for that).
In reply to Luke:
Humans have the same limitation - we just have not hit it yet with the exception of locales made unlivable (Chernobyl).
I think he meant "Humans are the only species on Earth who have the ability to voluntarily curb their demand for resources". Ants are more successful at infestation than we are - they just aren't able to think very far ahead.
Luke
UberDork
5/30/12 12:18 p.m.
In reply to Giant Purple Snorklewacker:
I agree with that.
Also,
Osterkraut wrote:
Who's more interested in the preservation of the White Rhino: the man who loves hunting them, or some armchair environmentalist back in the states who hasn't ever seen one?
Some months back I read about a proposal to breed endangered animals (rhino, elephants), in reserves, specifically for the purpose of hunting. It seems like backwards ecology at first, but the idea of course is that wild populations would be completely unaffected.
In for deep-fried manatee-wrapped bald eagle bites.
Luke wrote:
Some months back I read about a proposal to breed endangered animals (rhino, elephants), in reserves, specifically for the purpose of hunting. It seems like backwards ecology at first, but the idea of course is that wild populations would be completely unaffected.
Sure they do. They increase the population and instantly decrease it. What in God's name makes you think that since they were bred in captivity they aren't wild? A wild animal is a wild animal captive or not.
I hope that anyone who breeds wild animals to hunt them gets berkeleying mauled to death by them.
/rant
In reply to Luke:
Species ARE going extinct left, right, and center. Always have been.
Osterkraut wrote:
dculberson wrote:
Osterkraut wrote:
Humans are the only animals capable of limiting their impact on their environment
HAWWWWwwhahahawwww pull the other one!
Nice try, but think about it. Take for example, deer, the overpopulation of which is a huge problem in some states. Deer will eat and bred an area dry. Humans, at least, understand the concept of sustainable living.
Deer overpopulation only exists because of human's removal of their predators. So it's really our inability to exist in our environment without devastating it that causes your example.
Many species are able to reach an equilibrium with their environment. That's how they existed for millenia before people ever came around. If there are too many prey animals, the predators breed more.
Humans don't limit their impact on the environment until they're paying a heavy price for their damage to it. The fact that we whine and wring our hands about it doesn't seem any different from - or any more effective than - the chirping of frogs.
I hunt this with a big muthaberkeleyin' gun.
Compared with animals, humans are at a real disadvantage. We are mostly hairless (can't survive cold weather), have no claws, our teeth are poorly adapted for hunting and we can't run very fast. We take too long to mate (animals do it quick because that's when they are at their most vulnerable).
Yet we are the apex predator. Why?
We created tools that not only leveled the playing field, they demolished it. Wolves don't have 30.06 rifles, deer don't carry compound bows. All they have is speed and stealth, that's not a match. To me this is patently unfair.
I'm of the opinion that a real sport hunter will strip to his BVD's, stick a Bowie knife between his teeth and bring back a buck or lion or etc to prove how great a hunter he is. Otherwise, he's just target shootin' with live targets.
Of course, after the zombie apocalypse I fully intend to be totin' some huge 'fahr ahrm' or other...
