There are countless other links, but judging by some of your posts I thought you'd rather the Daily Hate one.
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Dunno, never knowingly seen him or one of his programs to be honest.

All this wild back-woods survivalist stuff seems overtly macho to me. Over compensating perhaps?

Which posts would they be then factfile?

Not macho at all just fact. Over compensating for what?

Really?

A small post.

No sport in shooting one in the correct manner is there.

I'll make my point one final time..............
It is the shooting and killing or maiming animals for fun, calling it a "sport" and extolling it's virtues in an almost full page spread in a local rag without any counter view that I and many find abhorrent and offensive.
Nothing to do with the rearing or killing of animals for food.

So, where does the panel stand on pigeon shooting then?

Totally agree. It's the 'fun' or 'sport' element that makes it repulsive. Seen similar arguments used by bull fighters - a slow and painful death for the bulls - is this OK with the killing for fun brigade?

Never actually eaten one, so can't comment.

For me - same if done for "sport".
There should be no pleasure gained from the killing or suffering of any animal.

Shot 1000s in my time and paid to do it in a way because the farms supply the cartridges free of charge to us. Farms lose millions of pounds worth of crops to pigeons every year, crops that were destined for our consumption. I have shot on farms that have had acre upon acre of brassicas totally striped by the vermin pigeon and collard dove. Just look at them the same way you look upon rats. I'm sure if you had an infestation of rats on your property you would not care two hoots how they were go rid of. I started out at about the age of 9 or 10 with a 3 bore garden gun doing exactly that, killing rats. As long as wild-fowling is legal I will carry on doing it.

Why?
Do you gain pleasure from the killing or is it just a means to an end? (i.e. pigeons are a problem.)
Do you see it as a "sport"?

Does that mean a butcher or slaughterman shouldn't 'enjoy' his job?

I shot a few in my youth, can't say it was massively enjoyable once the novelty of shooting wore off - but I certainly enjoyed eating them and the farmer whose land I was on appreciated the downsizing of his vermin problem.

I view it in exactly the same way as a gamekeeper. He does not see it as a sport, but a way of life. When I build a hide out in the field and set up decoys to lure in the game and outwit them, not as easy as it seems, and I call them in and dispatch them as cleanly as I can I am carrying out what man has done for millennia. And I know that at the end of the day if t was the only way you could feed you and yours you would do the same.

In my experience pigeon is only generally shot for vermin clearance purposes and mostly on farmland. As Northender says, they're a pest and whilst they are a few bars down from the 'plague of locusts' category as far as the devastation they can wreak, they are not welcome on arable land.

What's the option? In some European countries the farmers will just string out a length of fishing net to protect their crop but that's 'kind of indiscriminate' and quite rightly illegal. Poison? The danger is the poisoned bird dies in mid-flight and lands on the bonnet of a passing motorist, so that's a no. Trapping? Can be indiscriminate and catch other birds that are positively encouraged on a farm.

We're not talking full-bore banging away anyway. .22 will deal with most of the pigeon problems around farms and it's all very low numbers involved. Like the other vermin, there are too many of these flying rats to keep on top of.

I accept it's a sweeping comment but it helps to generalise sometimes on these forums. And it's a two way thing. You lump all pro-shooting people under one banner and I lump all anti-shooting under another. But you seem to think anyone taking part in a shoot is daubed in blood and there has to be some sort of 'Lord of the Flies' re-enactment as our blood-lust is sated... It's a pastime but it's also a means to an end as far as getting something to eat.

Vegetarians are at least committed, but it just amazes me that the meat-eating anti-shooting fraternity are so overly sensitive and easily offended on this subject when you question them on the food that comes nicely packaged in trays in Tesco (other supermarkets are available)

Fixed that for you....

The big problem that the pro-killing-things-for-fun group is that they can't answer that basic question: is it acceptable to kill things for fun?