quote:

---

Give Him the Bird
The Humane Society is not happy about Vice President Dick Cheney's recent choice of entertainment. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Air Force Two landed Monday in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, and "Cheney's security detail loaded him and his favorite shotgun into a Humvee" and drove to a private hunting club. There, the club released 500 farm-raised ring-necked pheasants, which Cheney and nine buddies proceeded to shoot. In all, the group killed 417 birds; Cheney alone slew 70, plus an unknown number of ducks. The Humane Society called the escapade "deplorable" and said, "the vice president should be ashamed to have patronized this operation and then slaughtered so many animals." No word on what one man will do with 70 dead birds -- or what happened to the 83 that escaped death.

---

quote:

---

kill things for fun

---

I guess I just fail to understand how people find killing things fun.
 

---

Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
Cheney has never struck me as a man with any particular moral inhibitions.

Just as a forinstance, his company when he was at the helm circumvented US laws against doing business with Iraq by channeling money through a European subsidiary. Oddly, I think that doing business with Iraq would have been better than the trade embargo, but that doesn't stop the action from being at best borderline legal.
 

---

Posted by Ayelar (Member # 183) on :
 
My boss hunts deer and all sorts of critters. My fiance is a life-long vegetarian.

As an omnivore, it would by hypocritical of me to complain about someone killing a game animal if they intend to eat it.

But maaaan, if he doesn't eat every one of those pheasants....
 

---

Posted by msquared (Member # 4484) on :
 
Who said it was for fun? Maybe he plans on eating the meat. Pheasant is good eating. The birds were raised for this. I am not a big fan of just releasing the birds and shooting them, I would rather walk through my unlces farms in Kansas and find the Quail and Pheasant myself.

msquared
 

---

Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
With that many birds, I get the vision of this poor soul's employees all getting a blood-stained box as a Christmas bonus.
 

---

Posted by Frisco (Member # 3765) on :
 
I just feel sorry for those ducks. Man, if there ever was a worse case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, I can't think of it.

Makes me think of Yossarian&Co. and their milk run to Bologna.
 

---

Posted by Traveler (Member # 3615) on :
 

quote:

---

Who said it was for fun? Maybe he plans on eating the meat.

---

I sure hope so....but let's see 417 birds split between 10 people??? That is alot of birds. If Cheney didn't want to share any of his own kills then he would have 70 all for himself. I seriously doubt that he is going to eat or freeze that many birds.

I'm not against hunting for dinner..but killing for just killing is just wrong. I, for one, am not willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one...

[ December 11, 2003, 03:02 PM: Message edited by: Traveler ]
 

---

Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
 
Did they say how long it took for this hunt?

I mean the man had a HumVee. Did he also have a military grade automatic weapon?
 

---

Posted by Frisco (Member # 3765) on :
 
To kill that many birds, it seems like he called in an airstrike.
 

---

Posted by luthe (Member # 1601) on :
 
here are the articles about this story that were in the two major pittsburgh papers.
The Post-Gazette
The Tribune Review

It is worth noting that the post's article mentions that "The birds were plucked and vacuum-packed in time for Cheney's afternoon flight to Washington, D.C."

Hunting is a major activity here in PA, in particular deer hunting, the school district that I attended actually gives everyone the first day of deer season (monday after thanksgiving) off.
 

---

Posted by msquared (Member # 4484) on :
 
Pheasants aren't all that big and you can freeze their meat. I know my Grandfather and his boys used to go out to the Dakotas to go hunting and they would bring back enough meat to put in the freezer so that it would last the year.

msquared
 

---

Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
Hey, anything at all that lets Cheney kill things without invading somebody is an improvement over the alternative, as I'm concerned.
 

---

Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
I can believe this was for the meat from the pheasants, actually. I'm wondering more what happened to the ducks. Also, I'm generally in favor of using more humane methods to dispatch animals for food.
 

---

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
 
Don't get me started on humane societies at the moment. While most of them do good deeds in rescuing dogs, a lot of them have gone towards the PETA extremist wing of things. They refuse to work with purebred rescues because they hate all purebred dog breeders.

THe rescue arm of my particular purebred dog club has a waiting list a mile long for rescues. However shelters will still not release a dog to us even with track records, referrals from other shelters and documentation of spending $1000s on rescue medical bills.

Tonight I'm going down as a "private citizen" to make a rescue from a shelter that would not release the dog to our rescue organization. I feel bad for the deception, but what it is really doing is helping the shelter save another mixed breed dog, by putting the pure bred dog a place where it is already wanted.

AJ
 

---

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
 
Also there are so many formal dinners in Washington, that I could see them all getting stuck in a freezer until the next one comes up, and Cheny being able to say "yes you are eating pheasants I hunted myself" as a conversation item.

Perhaps at a dinner with important NRA types there...

AJ
 

---

Posted by Traveler (Member # 3615) on :
 
With this many birds I can already hear his guests saying, "Pheasant? Again??"


 

---

Posted by ana kata (Member # 5666) on :
 
People who eat meat being opposed to hunting is sort of odd. Have you ever visited a slaughterhouse? We who eat meat tolerate those, for the sake of our convenience and pleasure. I'm not sure any of us can complain about hunting.

If you are vegetarian and worried about animal suffering, which is the greater ill? Hunting, or the rail and truck transport of live animals for slaughter, and their experiences in slaughterhouses? This is leaving alone the whole question of their treatment and living conditions from birth to slaughtering age.

Once we get all that stuff straightened out, the overwhelming mass majority of animal suffering that we humans cause, then I will worry about all the stray cats and dogs, and abused pets in the world, then way down the list is hunting. It's a tiny drop in the bucket.

[ December 11, 2003, 07:27 PM: Message edited by: ana kata ]
 

---

Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
I should point out that many people promoting humane treatment of animals DO protest how slaughterhouses are run.
 

---

Posted by Sugar+Spice (Member # 5874) on :
 
I can understand killing to eat. I think that everyone who eats meat should kill something and eat it once at least, so they know what it is they're doing when they pick up knife and fork. A lot of people I know seem to think that chickens grow pre-packaged on freezer shelves in the supermarket.

I was talking to a couple of fox-hunters the other day who were comparing the chase and kill to sex. Now THAT is disturbing. There are some weird people out there. I just backed away slowly and suddenly 'remembered an appointment'.

That was a lot of birds he shot. Duck casserole, duck stew, duck a l'orange, duck sandwiches...
 

---

Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
 
...duck soup...


 

---

Posted by sarcasticmuppet (Member # 5035) on :
 
...duck salad...
 

---

Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
Peking duck! yum!
 

---

Posted by Feyd Baron (Member # 1407) on :
 
So, um... Since I'm a Texan I'm supposed to enjoy killing things? Wow, I never knew. I suppose I better run by Wal-mart and pick up a shotgun at my earliest convinience so I can remedy this. I'm 23 years behind on my appointed slaughter.

Feyd Baron, DoC
 

---

Posted by Frisco (Member # 3765) on :
 
Heh...you forgot Idaho. On Thanksgiving at my Aunt and Uncle's house, all the "men" went out to shoot rabbits after dinner. Not for food. For fun.

I stayed inside with the girls and ate all the pumpkin pie.
 

---

Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
"Hunting, or the rail and truck transport of live animals for slaughter, and their experiences in slaughterhouses?"

You know, I'd actually argue that hunting is STILL less moral -- because while slaughterhouses are a necessary evil, hunting teaches the ENJOYMENT of killing.
 

---

Posted by Frisco (Member # 3765) on :
 
Be nice, Tom. These people are going to be the rebel leaders when ungulates finally rule the world.
 

---

Posted by luthe (Member # 1601) on :
 
Well I don't really know about anywhere else, but in PA deer hunting is something of a necessity as due to the number of deer that live in state, and the lack of predators (yes I know this is our fault).
 

---

Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
I'm trying to imagine Jim the Hypothetical Hunter struggling out of bed, groggy and not feeling well, and telling his wife -- over her objections -- "Sorry, honey. I don't WANT to hunt today, but somebody has to kill the deer."
 

---

Posted by ana kata (Member # 5666) on :
 
Tom, you eat meat? You need to visit a slaughterhouse. Hunting is something you don't understand, quite obviously. You want to ban it because of that. Yet your practice (eating meat?) entails the existence of a slaughterhouse, which is an unspeakable barbarity of unbelievable magnitude. To say that hunting is worse than slaughterhouses is like saying that gang violence is worse than Auschwitz. I do not apologize for comparing the Nazi death camps with slaughterhouses. That is exactly what they were. Slaughterhouses for human beings.

[ December 12, 2003, 11:52 AM: Message edited by: ana kata ]
 

---

Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
I have both hunted AND visited a slaughterhouse, actually.

And hunting is, in my opinion, more evil, because it teaches killing as recreation.

If we must use a Nazi analogy, compare it to the Nazis deciding that 10,000 people must die. In one camp, the slaughterhouse, the Nazis march groups of 100 into a room, club them, and bury them in a mass grave. In the the second camp, the hunt, the Nazis release 15,000 prisoners and shoot them as they try to run away, then recapture the other 5,000 to kill later; they then take the bodies home to their wives and children and describe how challenging it was to kill them.

If you operate on the assumption that these animals must die in order for us to eat -- which is, of course, not an assumption you HAVE to grant -- the first actually seems less insidiously evil to me than the second.
 

---

Posted by Sweet William (Member # 5212) on :
 
Well, I'm glad we got our Nazi references in for the week. I was starting to worry.

Hunting retains a necessary skill in the society which will become essential when the Demopublicans take over.

Oh... Wait. Um wrong forum.

SW
 

---

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
 
Sweet William

AJ
 

---

Posted by ana kata (Member # 5666) on :
 
Well, turn it around, then. Which group would you rather be in? The 100 who are shipped in a box car to the factory to be slaughtered, or those who are free out in the world dodging bullets?

If hunting is not something you ever want to do, then fine. But I don't understand anyone's justification for banning hunting before slaughterhouses.
 

---

Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
 
Cuz it ain't nothin' even vaguely resembling hunting.

Those birds have been bred for relative docility, raised in an environment too small for proper wing muscle development -- most of them fly only a bit better than a free-range domesticated chicken; with their first opportunity to attempt real flight on the kill day -- and food-trained to see humans as the source to approach for all good things.
There's probably enough gunfire around while they grow that they aren't even spooked by the noise. And they ain't even had a place to practice hiding.

More like using a shotgun on your cats in your living room at their dinner time.

[ December 12, 2003, 08:18 PM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
 

---

Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
 
Tom, Texans? And this comes from what, reading about it again?

There are more rodeos period in Wyoming than in Texas (even leaving out rodeos per capita), and hunting is more a part of life in Idaho than in Texas.

I know it's fun to have a stereotype to kick around, but this just isn't accurate.

Half the state's a desert. There's nothing to hunt.
 

---

Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
I am not opposed to hunting per se, but going to a game farming and shooting 70 pheasants and an undisclosed number of ducks isn't hunting. I don't know a single hunter who would consider it as such. These hunting farms raise captive animals, in much the same way that ranches raise cattle but rather than sending them to a butcher they let people pay to shoot them. The was a bloody thirsty slaughter, nothing less. The fact that the farm plucked and vacuum packed the meat is irrelevant -- I'm sure Pennsylvania state law requires that.
 

---

Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
 
WAAA-AAAY DOOOGGIES!!! Thems musta be some mighty fine vittles he shot.

AirForceOne's operating expenses average ~$26,000 per hour. Now AirForceTwo's a bit smaller, but then operating expenses are well more than twice as much per hour for short hops -- like the 200 miles from DC to Latrobe -- than for long hauls. So call it even in cost per hour just to get an idea of the minimum possible cost.
Then add the extra local security and the extra Secret Service detail.
Think really low and say $30grand total.

A farm-raised pheasant's dressed (ready to cook) weight averages ~2pounds, so Cheney's got about 150pounds of dressed bird. Which comes to ~$200 per pound.
Now considering that regular ol' pheasant sells for ~$2to$3 per pound...

Like I said, thems must be some mighty special birds he's afixin' to eat.

[ December 12, 2003, 08:27 PM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
 

---

Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
"There are more rodeos period in Wyoming than in Texas (even leaving out rodeos per capita), and hunting is more a part of life in Idaho than in Texas."

Given that Cheney may or may not be a resident of Wyoming, depending on his tax situation, I'm perfectly willing to accept your assessment.
 

---