I'm with you, and I'd prefer a quick and clean death that I didn't see coming...or at least I thought I was until I read this.
It'd never thought of it in those terms, where an ambush hunt doesn't give an animal the opportunity to get away. You can miss the shot, but that's on you, and has nothing to do with their relative fitness. They don't have the terror, but they also don't have a the ability to give it their all to survive.
If I knew I was going to be hunted that day, would I want to go out by sniper fire? Or would I rather have one last chance to make a run for it?
The thing is, few people (or animals) know they're going to die today, so it's not exactly a fair analogy. And I've never hound hunted, but I'd imagine the proportion of animals that live to see another day once the pack of hounds is hot on their trail is vanishingly small. I'd guess their chances are actually better with a missed shot on an ambush hunt.
Still, I like the idea of hunting how you'd like to be hunted, and killing like you'd like to be killed. Now comes the difficult task of really figuring out what that is...
Lots of things to think about here, thank you so much for sharing!
When I worked on a buffalo ranch in colorado for a winter my boss was a lion hunter and he would be out with his hounds after every snow. Anyone that thinks it's lazy or unfair hunting hasn't followed these guys. they would easily be following those dogs 20 miles in a day at ~10000 ft or more in elevation (the valley floor where the ranch was was at 7000 ft so it only went up from there). It's not something I seek to do personally but it was very interesting to witness.
I see our game happy and living life... no stress then with a quick shot it ends. Much better than a long trek in a truck to a slaughter house full of stress.
I'm with you, and I'd prefer a quick and clean death that I didn't see coming...or at least I thought I was until I read this.
It'd never thought of it in those terms, where an ambush hunt doesn't give an animal the opportunity to get away. You can miss the shot, but that's on you, and has nothing to do with their relative fitness. They don't have the terror, but they also don't have a the ability to give it their all to survive.
If I knew I was going to be hunted that day, would I want to go out by sniper fire? Or would I rather have one last chance to make a run for it?
The thing is, few people (or animals) know they're going to die today, so it's not exactly a fair analogy. And I've never hound hunted, but I'd imagine the proportion of animals that live to see another day once the pack of hounds is hot on their trail is vanishingly small. I'd guess their chances are actually better with a missed shot on an ambush hunt.
Still, I like the idea of hunting how you'd like to be hunted, and killing like you'd like to be killed. Now comes the difficult task of really figuring out what that is...
Lots of things to think about here, thank you so much for sharing!
When I worked on a buffalo ranch in colorado for a winter my boss was a lion hunter and he would be out with his hounds after every snow. Anyone that thinks it's lazy or unfair hunting hasn't followed these guys. they would easily be following those dogs 20 miles in a day at ~10000 ft or more in elevation (the valley floor where the ranch was was at 7000 ft so it only went up from there). It's not something I seek to do personally but it was very interesting to witness.
I see our game happy and living life... no stress then with a quick shot it ends. Much better than a long trek in a truck to a slaughter house full of stress.