h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Actually Sat it's not, but there you go.

I think the fur bad leather good perception is for a much simpler reason- fur looks like dead animal, leather doesn't. In the same way as traps hit people ick factor and poison doesn't.

Actually KerrAvon, in the majority of cases, it is. That's the exact argument used by people who think it's fun to go out and shoot foxes and other wildlife...

In the majority of cases, hmm, that's a slightly more reasonable position.

Actually Sat in some cases it's not. For example in New Zealand they had a real problem with the deer population, which was getting too numerous and damaging the environment by overgrazing, so the government paid people so much per deer to go and hunt them. You may be referring to foxes, which are a pest but are not a really significant environmntal threat, but there are other cases, where culling is justified and even necessary.

Foxes are pests? That's a nice attitude to have.

There is only a cause to kill an animal for food, or for self-defence. If an animal's population is becoming too dominant...then why not capture and neuter them? Only in extreme cases should they be culled.

But no. Typical human race. We must destroy them. Must destroy. Must be superior...

Christ. We are civilised.

>Foxes are pests? That's a nice attitude to have
Well, yeah, they are. So are rats and rabbits. They destroy either livestock or crops. rats and rabbits the latter, foxes the former.

I would suppose that capturing a deer, particularly in hilly or mountainoue areas (of which NZ has plenty) would be too difficult and expensive. And neutering them would only solve the problem in the next generation, not protect the plantlife that was being decimated at the time.

And foxes are pests if you're a farmer, my family has a house next door to a farm in France and we had an upsurge in fox numbers which led to a lot of the chickens being killed, and it's not a pretty sight, I tell you.

Aside from the glaringly obvious fact that foxes lived in the countryside before humans did, and therefore they have a right to be there...

If farmers protected their livestock/crops just a little better, they wouldn't be damaged. I have heard many a discussion on this topic, and it is agreed that it's usually the laziness of the farmer, as opposed to the alleged destructiveness of the animal, that is to blame.

Not pests, just animals looking to survive. And if they are pests, what does that make the human race?

Sorry Sat, did these conversations involve farmers at any point, because i think it's a bit harsh to condemn the farmers in absentia. As for protecting crops from rabbits and rats, quite how do you suggest that might be done?

And as for foxes, when you have free range hens, it's not that easy.

"I would suppose that capturing a deer, particularly in hilly or mountainoue areas (of which NZ has plenty) would be too difficult and expensive."

Oh. Yet they manage it with lions...tigers....all sorts of other animals. If it solves the problem, then it is worth the expense.

"And neutering them would only solve the problem in the next generation."

1) Animals tend to reproduce every year. The reason why they are being culled, is because the numbers are too big.
2) Animals also have a tendency to die. Therefore, as the numbers of new offspring lessened, so would the numbers of existing animal. That would relieve the strain on whatever they are pressurising. The effects would probably be visible within a year.

There is also this thing called the Balance of Nature. It keeps animal numbers under control. When they become too big, food supplies get too small, and a lot of them starve to death. If you cull them, then the problem is more likely to continue, because there is no blanace of nature factor being allowed to come into play.

Culling should be a last resort : for example, with things like insects and rats, which make living conditions unbearable. There are no other options there.

Yes the conversations did involve a farmer. The radio host that was involved in the discussion had also kept chickens and goats at one point (in Yorkshire, I believe)...so he knew what he was talking about.

OK, so you have me on the protecting crops part. But that's no reason to go and cull animals. Remember : farming is infringing on the countryside, and using it (when it is a home for thousands of animals) without permission. All the animals are doing, is trying to find food. They are hardly to be blamed.

As for free range hens, that is p**s easy. Heard of a fence?

Yes, but when they capture tigers etc, they're not usually doing it in their thousands, so the cost does come into play there. And the balance of nature is exactly what was being threatened, once all the vegetation had been killed off, so would the deer, but perhaps a little too late. The truth is that the deer were doing irreperable damage to the environment. But there are plenty of other examples, for example rabbits in Australis, when you get non-native species displacing native species or thriving when there is no natural predator. In that case the balance of nature has nothing to do with it.

Yes I have heard of a fence, and I have also heard of chickens being allowed to range free over the whole farmyard and only being penned it at night. And I have also heard of fences being very rarely completely fox proof.

Fair enough. Thousands of deer are expensive. But then what would you rather...tranquiliser gun, or shotgun? I never endorse something I couldn't do myself. I could never kill a deer. To be honest, the animals should have been monitered : the problem would have been foreseen, and dealt with before it became a problem. Laziness on the part of the Australian government maybe? Who knows. I take your point though.

Lesson one in How To Make a Fence Fox Proof :

Make it high.

Dig it deep.

I'd love to get into this discussion, but I just can't afford the internet time

"People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it's safer to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs". - This is what you get if you go to where the online version of the Oxford University Alternative Prospectus is meant to be .

Next time I go into Sussi's Saloon in Amsterdam I'll bring some buckets of paint to throw at all the bikers

I'll have to remember that, I quite like it.

Despite what they wear I still laugh at vegetarians that eat Aeroplane Jelly... Horsefeet sugar and flavouring for me....