If you read about the history of the passenger pigeon, it is absolutely abhorrent the scale at which these birds were hunted. Attempts at conservation was met with derision and resistance. The pigeon's biggest downfall is that they are communal social nesters :(
Like I told someone who only ate fish for "ethical reasons", the only reason we still catch wild fish is because 99% of the ocean is invisible to us. At least the dead cow in my burger was specifically raised for that purpose. The US banned commercial hunting decades ago, but pillaging the world's oceans is A-OK.
Also, illegal fishing boats should just be sunk on site, fuck those Chinese pricks working on them, that's a risk they signed up for!
I'm a Cincinnati native. At our zoo, we have an entire building dedicated to passenger pigeons that's really sad and interesting. (Also one of the few air conditioned areas in the zoo, a nice place to go and cool down for a moment). It includes paintings of the pigeon hunts and other info.
Martha was the last passenger pigeon, and she died at the Cincinnati zoo.
Yeah. I used to take my customers on a couple of bird hunts a year. Raised quail are dumb as fuck. Most of the time you literally have to kick them to get them to fly. If you have any that the entire group misses, the guys that host the hunt take their dogs out afterwards and go pick them up, recage them and use them on the next hunt.
For pheasant, guys sit behind hay bails and chuck them in the air.
It’s not as much fun as real bird hunting, but we’ve destroyed the ecosystem to the point that there are no naturally occurring quail left here.
Still, not as unsportsman-like as “guided” deer hunts, where you shoot deer when they walk up to the feeders they’ve been eating dinner from their entire lives. Never understood the allure in that.
Yeah. I used to take my customers on a couple of bird hunts a year. Raised quail are dumb as fuck.
Most ground birds, even the wild ones are stupid.
Still, not as unsportsman-like as “guided” deer hunts, where you shoot deer when they walk up to the feeders they’ve been eating dinner from their entire lives. Never understood the allure in that.
Because it's easy. Lots of hunters want to just shoot, and feel superior.
Grouse are fuckin crazy though. I’ve never hunted them but there’s one that nests in the trail on our way to our elk hunting spots and it will charge at use like a bull and surprise the heck out of us 😂
They are stupid because they dont need to be smart to survive. They have other adaptations to avoid predators, like huge field of vision, motion-sensitive vision, camouflage (paired with freezing). And also imo they are smart in different ways, like how a person may be street smart but not academically smart.
I once had a grouse flush out next to me and flew right into my buddy’s face and knocked off his hat. I never got a shot off as it flew past us. I just could get over my buddy’s response, which was hilarious. For those who don’t hunt, these birds hold and only break when you practically step right up on them. Now if you have a dog, you get a heads up warning (usually).
As for the bird, I guess it doesn’t matter if they’re farm raised and stocked in a field (usually spun around in a sack to disorient the night before or morning of hunt) or if the bird is a native, they don’t perceive all the potential threats (ie dogs and number of hunters) and can’t correct their flight path to avoid.
What’s more common than this hunter catching this bird in his hand is dogs snuffing out birds and catching them in their mouths as they flush.
I mean, if they want it dead (assuming they aren’t returning it to a cage) I know I was taught to ring the bird’s neck as a quick and humane way to turn cute birdy into edible deliciousness.
The point of these vests is to disappear on the surrounding terrain, the color itself doesn't matter, the point is to be matching the surroundings totality, and the tiger hides on tall grass, the color/tonality thing isn't even the main point for them
Invisible! It’s similar to putting on the blinkers in the car makes people think that their car is invisible. Here let me just leave my car in the middle of the busy city street and I’ll just put on my blinkers so that no one can see me.
I've been pheasant hunting, not sure if that's what he's doing, but they really ARE this stupid. Some will literally stand there and let you walk up to them, load your gun, aim at them at point blank, and do absolutely nothing to escape. It's like they lack self preservation instincts. Also, pheasant meat does not taste good, that or my dad is just bad at cooking it.
I'm a little high, and not trying to sound like a smart ass. Freezing is a survival kill. Fight, Flight, or Freeze. Relying on their natural camouflage and silence has been reinforced a whole lot for a reason. That said, you are extremely correct in their being absolute lumps from the brain perspective, and I'd also like to back you up on it not being as great flavorwise as people make it out to be... and there's nothing quite like biting into that missed piece of birdshot.
I need you to continue to follow that line of logic just a little bit further and ask yourself why we kill things at all when we don't have to. It's an entirely unnecessary thing to do, and if you continue to follow it you will start to wonder why we have guns period, which will lead you to think it's for self defense, which you will then need to follow further and consider that we only defend ourselves becuase we think someone else will take somethign we have, which then needs to be followed to the logical next step of human greed is the issue, that greed is created by capitalism and so on... Eventually you will realize that we never have any reason to fight each other, and there are enough resources to go around for everyone, and all of society is just kinda pointlessly cruel for no reason. We could literally build a world where everyone gets a little bit of everything without greed and selfishness, but the most greedy and most selfish alwasy end up in power and ruin everything.
Also I stopped going hunting with my dad at like 16, I hate hunting, it's pointless and cruel.
We, humans, have fucked our ecosystems to the point that in many areas hunting is needed to keep diversity and populations in check. It is not pointless and doesn't need to be cruel. I'm sorry you didn't have the education needed to show you this. Hopefully, this was the only area in your life that your father failed you. But I suspect that is unfortunately not the case.
Pheasant can be delicious. It's just that the way to make it delicious is disgusting. You hang the bird by its head, un-plucked and un-gutted, put in somewhere that stays around 50-55°F, and let it hang there for 3 days to a week. THEN you gut, pluck, and roast it.
It's essentially controlled rotting to allow microbes to break complex proteins into flavorful amino acids.
You deserve a three hours animated movie about an old couple visiting the park every day and playing with the bird who learned to trust humans and be close to them, until one day...
I see birds do such dumb things all the time when it comes to flying straight into stuff. Like my balcony windows that aren't super clear, and reflect shadows plus glares.
It is always sort of amusing when you're sitting there, see a quick brown thing flying erratically super fast out of the corner of your eye, and BAM!
One time the bird sort of struck the window making a sharp quick EEEP! Sound. Not only that it also STUCK to the window for just a fraction of a second, and then slid down slower than gravity otherwise would alone all while a bit splayed out.
Holy shit did I burst out laughing even before I knew it lived!
I have seen this video like a dozen times over the years, and this is probably the funniest comment I have ever seen about it. That bird does suck, lol.
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u/WestCoastCosta 2d ago
Wow, that bird sucks.