10 Years After

The Bravery Of Being Out Of Range

I meant to post this beore, but I don't thinkI ever got around to it. Last week in my Dialectology class I walked in ona discussion amongst the three graduate students. Two of the three were taking a philosophy class covering animal rights. The two who were taking the class talked about how the professor was militant about animal cruelty and the topic turned to hunting. The three then began to talk about the necessity of culling out the weaker deer in order to keep the herd in good health. They used annecdotal experience to justify hunting.

I've nothing against hunting. I don't engege in it, but I don't consider it an evil. However, the argument that hunting keeps the herd healthy seems absurd to me. The deer hunted are not the weak. They are, by the nature of what hunters look for, the healthiest specimens. So the deer that are most likely to survive the season are not the ones that might otherwise survive if natural forces were being inflicted with out man's influence (not that man is somehow outside of the realm of natural forces).

Also, if I recall correctly from listening to the audiobook of Darwin's Finches, there has been an observed evolutionary change among some deer populations. The change is that being observed is that male deer are increasingly not having antlers. This makes evolutionary sense. The male deer without antlers are likely to live longer than male deer with antlers, since these are preferred by hunters. An environment where antlerless deer are able to compete with antlered deer (for mating and supremacy) makes this a desired trait.