Originally published at: A hunter kills and skins two German shepherds in CT, thinking they were coyotes | Boing Boing
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This happened again? Didn’t something very similar happen with huskies last year? WTAF is wrong with people?!
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The German Shepherds can be annoying, but shooting and skinning them seems like an extreme reaction.
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OMG, this is like something out of a horrible serial killer (@1000YearBan 
) story.
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I don’t think hunting animals for meat is any more morally reprehensible than eating meat raised in inhumane factory farms (at least Bambi’s mom got to lead a fuller life than most domestic livestock), but there’s something profoundly fucked up about a guy who shoots canids for sport and can’t tell the difference between a coyote and a dog, even after seeing their bodies up close.
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If killing coyotes got rid of them they wouldn’t be any left in Montana after their brutal bounty program, but it doesn’t. So unless a specific coyote is causing you harm there’s no reason to kill them beyond enjoying killing them.
https://scholarworks.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4293&context=etd
Of course… the sadism of hunting seems to be the purpose sometimes.
Now, if you’re hunting deer for meat or turkey etc… godspeed. There are ethical ways to hunt and in some areas it’s desperately needed population control cause we fucked up the ecological balance of predator & prey. Interesting, coyotes are great at adapting to fit ecological niches as needed in any given area.
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I’m sorry, which part was the “accident”? He saw two animals he wished to kill, he aimed, shot and killed them, he took their bodies home and skinned them… that’s a whole series of very deliberate actions. Mistakes, yes*, but “mistakes” are not the same as “accidents.”
*Because if you do something deliberately and it turns out badly for you, that’s definitely a mistake.
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I posted an image of a coyote on public land near my neighborhood a while back and was shocked to see how much vitriol there was from people in my community who saw it as a menace that should be hunted down immediately.
A lot of people seem to think of coyotes as ravenous monsters that see human beings as a prey species, even though domesticated dogs kill scores of Americans every year and coyotes rarely attack anyone at all.
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We see them all the time around here, like wandering the streets or yipping in the hills (I live kind of on the outskirts of town, but not really). I’m also fairly certain they’ve been in my backyard twice so far this winter. But it’s been over a decade since I’ve heard of anyone being attacked around here. Now that I think about, I’ve read about more deer attacks than coyotes attacks in that decade. Yet people are more freaked out by the coyotes.
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Those would have been huge coyotes. Other than them both having pointy ears and a snoot, they don’t really have the same shape, size, or coloration. Collars are usually a dead give away they are dogs.
They practically aren’t a danger at all to people. They are pretty smart and skittish around people. I am sure there have been cases of attacks, but like you said, you’re way more likely to get attacked by a dog.
They can be a danger to pets and live stock, especially things like chickens.
Like any predator species, there has to be a balance, but you certainly don’t need to kill everyone you see.
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The collars with name tags might have tipped you off.
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I find it hard to believe anyone couldn’t tell the difference between a German shepherd and a coyote. Maybe from a distance, but after he killed them and saw them up close, he knew. My brother, when he was about 13 or 14, was outside our house in Texas one day and saw a dog slowly walking up the street. He started calling to it. You know, like “here, doggy!”, that sort of thing. Once it got close enough, though, he realized it was a coyote and ran inside the house.
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“hyperbole brinksmanship” ok fine. I actually wrote what I wrote, but decided not to post just because I didn’t want to start some shit. Then I changed my mind and posted because emotions. So here we are.
What’s this story about? Hunter kills animals on the “not ok to kill list.” Happens all the time. Luckily for the animals at the top of that list this time it wasn’t another hunter or even worse an innocent human bystander (which, again, happens all the time). Just a couple dogs. Wait, dogs are on the list too! Not as high, but still. Not good. All over the news. People are upset, it’s terrible. What if it had been 2 cats? Still terrible, probably wouldn’t make the news though if we’re being honest.
But why is that?
Hunting is a-ok if you’re “hunting for food” we’re told. Certainly no worse than passively supporting the non-human-dog-or-cat-animal-murder-for-food industry by eating a hamburger. But is it really? Is there not a difference between tacit support of an exploitative system that’s so deeply ingrained in society no single person can change it, and actively stalking and taking a life?
And how does eating your victim make a killing ok? Unless you’re a hermit mountain man you’re not hunting for survival. All these hunters who “hunt for food” still shop at the fucking Piggly Wiggly.
But all that is moot anyway because this guy wasn’t “hunting for food,” he was hunting for the trophy of the body, to stuff and display. Why would someone want to do that?
So they can look at it later to relive the thrill of the kill?
I guess the question I hyperbolically brought up for discussion in response to this story is - is hunting certain animals cool and hunting certain other animals not cool, or is it all actually murder for kicks? I know how I’ve answered that question for myself.
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We have house rabbits, coyotes have harrassed them. Also, a large number of pets in our neighborhood have gone “missing” thanks to coyotes and foxes.
I don’t like coyotes much, but I don’t want to kill them. I’m smart enough to know I share space with them, so bunnies only go outside with human supervision. As should any pet.
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I understand that losing a beloved pet is heartbreaking, but my view is that if you’re going to let your dogs and cats run unsupervised in places where they might kill wild animals then turnabout is fair play.
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In my view a person who eats hamburgers made from store-bought beef is no more or less responsible for the death of an animal than the person who makes venison burgers from a deer they killed personally. The only difference is that one person outsourced the job.
In practice the cow raised in factory farm conditions probably had a much more miserable existence than the deer. So if the metric we’re using for cruelty is “how much animal suffering was endured to produce this meal?” then the venison is the morally superior option.
If meat is murder, then isn’t paying someone else to kill your meat for you the same thing as hiring a hitman?
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Exactly. I remember a thread about people brushing off their pets’ murdering wild animals as just the circle of life, but going ballistic when their precious ball of fur gets ganked.
Boo hoo. Let you pet outdoors unsupervised (and off a leash), don’t be surprised if a coyote — or F-150 pickup — ends sweetum’s time on this earth.
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I’m starting to get an idea for a story or RPG…
The big bad wolf was actually a hit man hired by old mother Hubbard. She was out of bones, you see, and the three little pigs were such noisy neighbors….
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… given that they live all the same places we do, they must be making extraordinary efforts just to stay out of our way and not bother us 
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The way we farm and treat animals we eat is absolutely a cruelty that humans turn a blind eye to.Hunting animals to eat and use the hide is part of many human cultures. Yes a lot of us modern human folk are totally divorced from our food means of production.
I agree with @1000YearBan around sports shooting that needs for an animal to die. Why is this a necessary part of the ‘sport’.
Being ‘blooded’ is part of fox hunting for the English upper class. The blood of your first fox kill is smeared on you. One persons psychopath may be anothers English ‘old blood’ working in finance and killing on the weekend.
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