Big game

[urbpan]

Some good discussion developed on Facebook (of all places) when I posted a link to this: http://deepseanews.com/2013/02/this-is-why-we-cant-have-nice-things/


"Why is it that we seem to have moved away from celebrating images like the one above left (a big game hunter posing over a dead African lion) yet seem to have no problem with the the image above right (a fishing party with their 1,320 pound dead Blue marlin caught off Ascension Island in the South Atlantic Ocean)?...Why do we seem so resistant to seeing fish (marlin, shark… whatever) as wildlife?"

Or the way I put it: Is posing with a dead, hunted predator tacky/classless/unacceptable? What if that predator was a fish?

Comments

[jimi45.livejournal.com]

I see both as tacky/classless/unacceptable, but quite frankly, I think humans empathize with other mammals more easily, and so are more alarmed at their destruction. Also, the more cuddly-looking, the easier it is to see them as deserving of protection.

[urb-banal.livejournal.com]

I don't think humans feel as bad about killing cold blooded things because it is easier to feel a lack of kinship.

As a Buddhist I am not supposed kill for food any animal that "nurses its young", and to not kill intentionally any living being except to eat or to prevent someone (or animal) killing us.

Perhaps it is because we don't like to think of ourselves as being trused up as a trophy. Humans do this though. We have done, though out history. I think there is a sort of insanity that takes over when we are killing.

My father caught and killed a marlin off the coast of Mexico back the 60's when it was not an unusual thing for a White Man with Money to do. He put hours of effort into it. It wasn't a fair fight but it was a fight and he got an adrenelin rush from it. He got a picture just like the one on the right. He did not however have any interest in hunting the whole time he lived in Africa, even though he hunted and killed deer as a young man in the Yukon. I never thought to ask him why. He was older and perhaps more aware of endangered species by then.

I saw a deer get shot once when I lived in Northern Ontario. It totally freaked me out. It was going to be eaten BUT NOT BY ME, of that I was sure! I couldn't get my head around it. the animal seemed more lovely and it's death more of a shame than anything I could imagine at the time.

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

I don't think I see the images as particularly differently unacceptable. They're both expensive hobbies involving killing photogenic animals, in both cases I'd rather the people were using an HD camera and a long lens rather than a long rifle or a long line.

[mmsword.livejournal.com]

I think a large portion of this is mythology and culture. Fish has been squarely "Food" for humanity since pretty much day one. Mammals are easier to anthropomorphize and we have more complex relationships with.

Also as an interesting contrast, imagine if those fishermen were posing with a dead orca or whale and the reaction that would garner.

[badnoodles.livejournal.com]

I agree. Killing a lion is exclusively about the trophy. They aren't a food (or at least, generally not to the person who did the shooting). On the other hand, a large sailfish or marlin are widely thought of as delicious.

[autumnfox.livejournal.com]

fish is good, nutritious food, though. what is the purpose of hunting a lion?

[kryptyd.livejournal.com]

I really have no idea what you're talking about. Both images are equally grotesque. I suspect I have more sympathy with the fish due to my habitual dislike of all cats

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

actually both those pictures kind of distress me :/

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

possibly they'll eat the fish? or sell it to someone that will?

#

[fromthecity.livejournal.com]

This attitude to fish vs other animals also fascinates me on a smaller level. I know a lot of vegetarians who proudly tell me how cruel eating meat is, and how bad it is for the environment, but don't give a thought to giving up fish, or even checking if the fish they eat is caught sustainably.

[shimmerngspirit.livejournal.com]

They're both kind of awful.

[belldandychan.livejournal.com]

I have problems with both ;-;. They bring tears to my eyes.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I think urb_banal has it; I think it's a cold-blooded/warm-blooded bias, and maybe also on top of that a familiarity thing: we walk the same ground as the lion, but we don't swim in the water with the marlin.

But yeah, as everyone is saying, they're both pretty horrible because they show people delighting over a creature's death--and not a creature that was threatening them in some way, but a creature they set out to destroy unprovoked, as it were.

[wraithfodder.livejournal.com]

I worry that people are going to go nuts killing sharks in New Zealand after the film producer was attacked and killed. Sharks are wild animals. It's what they do.

I've never seen the appeal of trophy hunting. Shooting an animal (or hooking a fish) just because it's big. Killing off all the big animals also removes them from the gene pool, which isn't good (with the exception of the feral hogs, which are not indigenous to the US and cause incredible destruction - of course, they were imported here by people).

As long as states/countries make big bucks off selling licenses to shoot animals, it will continue, and I guess one day the elephant will go extinct in the wild due to poachers. Sigh.