Shooting bears

[Worms]

So where would you think is the recommended part of a deer's body to place a rifle bullet to ensure a kill? And how long would the animal take to die?

Did you mean a bear? Anyway, the same place.

 

That depends on range of course but for example let's take a roe buck at 100 yards in the open with good visibility using a .243. I'd take a shoulder shot. The likelihood is that the bullet or bone and shrapnel would hit the heart and at least it would put the animal on the ground where, if necessary a second shot could be taken to kill the animal. So hopefully death would be instantaneous or within seconds.

 

All of the above is supposing I were to shoot roe with a .243. I don't, I use shotguns for pigeons and bunnies mainly.

 

As it happens, having witnessed a friend of mine culling Sprinkbok from 150+ yards with a .243 they are usually dead before they hit the ground and, as the bullet travels so quickly they are hit before they hear the shot.

[Emma two]

I wouldn't have wanted to shoot that bear, I would feel deeply ashamed of myself for doing it. however I find it difficult to readily criticise the women for doing do without feeling an awful hypocryte. I have shot lots of things, some of them were preditors too, Foxes, Mustalids, feral dogs and cats. I had to make moral decisions (excuses?) to justify my actions, significantly it was pest control however I don't imagine that I would have starved to death had I not killed them. There was a real possibility that on one occasion a pack of feral dogs would have killed me has I not had a rifle with me. Gunfights verus other humans is another issue (isn't it?).

 

Our relationships with animals and the attitudes towards killing them is an aspect of human nature which fascinates me. I know that we have engaged with the subject in earlier threads. That bear had a better life and arguably a better death than the pigs which furnish our breakfast table and end up in the tins of meat taken fishing (recent thread on this) and yet their death doesn't cause the same outcry, it that because they are labelled 'food' whereas the bear is percieved as 'beautiful wild creature'?

 

American shooters do assure me that they eat bear, and tell me it is very good too. I have seen wild black bears while fishing in the Canadian Rockies.

 

Linking this to another recent thread, the differences in the use of the English language. For me hunting is the pursuit of a quarry (esp Fox and Deer) with hounds, so one cannot go 'duck, goose, pheasant hunting' until flying hounds are bred, shooting a deer with a rifle is stalking, not deer hunting.

 

Perhaps this episode has gone some way to underlining that despite a (kind of) shared langauge and that our senses are bombarded with American medias, we do not share a common culture.

[Emma two]

am i the only one that finds it strange to see his sexual organs "fuzzed out" in case it offends?

While hes shredded like that? strange.

 

I find it a bit silly too, but it's not especially surprizing, we see lots of horrible stuff, some real like this and some served up as entertainment, for some of us seeing soldiers killed can be difficult to watch, yet the kids are shown that in films, a 'knob' on the other hand isn't (usually very upsetting but images of them are heavily censored. Remember when Janet Jckson's 'escaped' tit horrified America?

Edited June 4, 2009 by Emma two

[Emma two]

So where would you think is the recommended part of a deer's body to place a rifle bullet to ensure a kill? And how long would the animal take to die?

 

Heart and lungs or cranium. At best especially with the latter death could be instantanious. However qa range of variables could impact upon that, significantly the age, species (comparing a Muntjac with an Elk doesnt work) calibre of the round and the range.

[corydoras]

Did you mean a bear? Anyway, the same place.

 

That depends on range of course but for example let's take a roe buck at 100 yards in the open with good visibility using a .243. I'd take a shoulder shot. The likelihood is that the bullet or bone and shrapnel would hit the heart and at least it would put the animal on the ground where, if necessary a second shot could be taken to kill the animal. So hopefully death would be instantaneous or within seconds.

 

All of the above is supposing I were to shoot roe with a .243. I don't, I use shotguns for pigeons and bunnies mainly.

 

As it happens, having witnessed a friend of mine culling Sprinkbok from 150+ yards with a .243 they are usually dead before they hit the ground and, as the bullet travels so quickly they are hit before they hear the shot.

Just to be pedantic, most rifle rounds, of any calibre trvel at supersonic velocities so the quarry will never 'hear the shot'.

Where I come from we use mostly .303s for Red Deer (elk to our American Cousins) and the preferred spot to hit them is in the neck.

[ColinW]

I sometimes think we have become too sensitised in this country. We eat meat on a daily basis but 99% probably couldn't kill the animal they will happily buy from a supermarket. In a country where hunting your own food is common, then obviously killing for sport will be more acceptable. Let he who is without sin throw the first stone as they say. I have stuck plenty of treble hooks in livebaits' backs and many people, probably including a lot of newer anglers brought up on commercials, would regard that as just as bad as shooting a bear. So where DO you draw the line and why? If it's not OK to stick a hook in a roach why is it OK to drown a thousand maggots? Why is it OK to cut a live crab in half? If it's not OK to kill a bear for sport, why is it OK to kill a racehorse because it's got a broken leg? All of these things are just a question of personal choice and I see no good reason to criticise someone just for making a different choice. I got as angry as everyone else about the woman who shot an elephant with a bow and arrow a couple of years back, but I'm not really sure why when I think about it.

[Jim Roper]

Heart/Lung shot is the recommended way to be assured of a kill, but don't follow it up to soon because the more you chase it the more it will run(adrenalin). Wait about the length of time it takes to smoke a cigarette, then go looking for it. Not exactly an instantaneous death, but the recommended way.

Heads can move about too quickly to be sure of hitting the target.

If it takes nearly a second for the bullet to reach the target, think how far a sprinter would be able to move in that time, let alone a deer's head, if something spooked it.

As for killing things for fun, if someone is employed to cull animals, I presume it's OK as long as they don't enjoy doing it.

[greg long]

"that wasn't any form of sport as far as i'm concerned .that stupid trophy hunting woman murdered that poor bear! "

"You don't have to see a predator to know that shooting it for fun is pointless and rather sad."

Hmm remove the words trophy hunting woman, bear ,predator & shooting from the above posts and insert the words fisherman, fish and catching and you have exactly what groups like PETA think about anglers.

Personally i'm not into trophy hunting but it is popular in America where hunting is closely linked with fishing and a lot of people enjoy doing both, perhaps the poster of said video mistakenly thought the same was the case in the UK, still I guess they won't make the same mistake again.

 

 

But roach and carp don't make good rugs..........

[kcedar]

I am in infrequent poster so I don't know all of the board's rules, but it appears my previous topic was "closed"? A couple of observations and follow up comments:

 

1. In Prince William Sound, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game requires that hunters salvage the meat from black bears up until June 1st. The black bear hunting season remains open until June 10, but meat is not required to be salvaged.

 

2. My experience is that the meat from the bears, even before June 1st, is best made into sausage, but even steak or roasts are not too bad.

 

3. I am glad to see my English mates have done a good job debating the pros and cons of bear hunting. I do find it distasteful to shoot any animal solely for trophy purposes and try hard to eat what I shoot. Some of the anti hunting posts, however, did make me chuckle and understand the loss of the hunting tradition in England; if I recall correctly didn't you even loose your hundreds year old tradition of fox hunting? I guess the more people you get, the more likely you are to get those who want to foist their morals on others. I am glad Alaska only has about 650,000 people, we have time yet.

 

So why was my original post "closed"?

[Vagabond]

the Alaska Department of Fish and Game requires that hunters salvage the meat from black bears up until June 1st. .... My experience is that the meat from the bears, even before June 1st, is best made into sausage, but even steak or roasts are not too bad.

 

I have never shot a bear, but have eaten (brown) bear steaks in Rumania - good tucker. Provided the population is sustainable (and that's why you have Fish and Game Departments - to make those informed decisions) then shooting for meat is quite acceptable.

 

if I recall correctly didn't you even loose your hundreds year old tradition of fox hunting?

Yep, political revenge by the Labour party. It took 700 hours of parlimentary time, and goodness knows how much taxpayers' money, to produce one of the sloppiest pieces of legislation ever to hit the statute book.

 

It is interesting to note that fox-hunting continues, and there are so many loopholes, and prosecutions are so difficult to pursue, that the Association of Chief Constables (these are the head police honchos - roughly one for each County or major city) has recently announced that they will no longer be expending police resources and time in policing fox-hunting.