Hacker News Reader

Comment by crobertsbmw | Hacker News Reader

I have a weakness in that I always give people the benefit of the doubt. So I suspect that people are shooting these birds “for sport,” not realizing they are protected birds. I wonder if posting more signage to educate shooters that there are bald/golden eagles or whatever in the area, if that would help mitigate this at all. Maybe I’m too optimistic.

View on HN

I have a weakness in that I always give people the benefit of the doubt

I had that too. Grow out of it. 30-35% of people are assholes.

I think sociopathy is a spectrum and at least 10% of humans are members

All birds of prey and migratory birds are protected under federal law and I've never met anyone plinking at birds that didn't already know it was illegal.

Why would you shoot any bird sitting on a utility pole, protected or not? There’s no sport in that.

The hunting urge runs deep. I've felt it.

That’s not hunting. It’s target practice.

Our ancestors who evolved to hunt did not "play fair", they killed animals any way they possibly could. Running them off cliffs, into pits, setting fire to the forest to burn them alive. Might as well say guns and knives aren't hunting, that you have to use your bare feet and hands and that's it.

Our ancestors, although containing the equivalent or even greater intelligence as us, were unlikely to consider morality or ethics when it came to survival.

And neither does the evolutionary drive to kill animals consider those things.

Both comments above sounding much like Victorian era post Darwinian drawing room expressions of "Nature red in tooth and claw" and other aphorisms not sourced to either Darwin or Wallace, all running contrary to the actual considerations of actual hunter and gathers (Pintupi Nine, San Bushmen, etc) who repeatedly stress the importance of not killing off your food supply by over taxing breeding and regrowth abilities.

I'm not entirely sure what you're referring to regarding my comment, which was effectively addressing the non-comparative examples of hunter-gatherers killing for pure survival versus modern humans killing out of annoyance or so-called sport, where food is just around the corner, except in extreme cases of poverty and such.

It's also not clear whether the last bit of your comment is entirely accurate. Is there not plenty of evidence of ancient humans overhunting fauna? That was my understanding and a quick search seems to verify that.

No, a lot of animals kill for fun (not just "pure survival"), including early humans, some apes, and quite probably our common ancestors.

No to what? I didn't state that ancient humans only ever killed for pure survival, although it likely consisted of the vast majority, aside from warfare.

No to the notion that it was a "non-comparative example" of hunter-gatherers killing for pure survival.

Our ancestors didn’t have grocery stores…

Ah, the deep-seated caveman urge to hunt down utility poles, shoot the electricity out of your neighbors, I mean, enemies, and hear the lament of their melted ice cream ...

The urge to hunt? Are you kidding? Plinking a bird off a pole is about as close to hunting as playing go fish is to catching dinner.

What you are describing is sadism and/or mental illness.

grouse are tasty, but hitting utility equipment can be quite expensive.

If someone has no idea what they are shooting at then maybe they shouldn’t be wielding a weapon at all?

Shooting road signs is illegal. Go to any rural area and count the bullet holes in any road sign with a deer on it.

Where I used to live, when we took a road trip, we always looked forward to passing the sign where some joker had stuck a round red reflector to the nose of a prancing deer road sign.

Used to live by an area with a 'caution falling cows'[1] sign. Was never there longer than a few hours before being stolen again. Sure, you can buy them, but I guess it's not the same?

Never did see it more than a handful of times over many trips/years.

[1] https://www.roadtrafficsigns.com/caution-falling-cows-funny-...

There is a freight train grade crossing nearby, and there is an official sign which reads "NO TRAIN HORN" and then below it, there is very meticulous lettering reading "EXCEPT SOMETIMES" and I swear I have never quite figured out whether it is official, or some joker's joke that's been permitted to stay there for years on end.

Pretty much all birds in the US have been protected for over a century.

Many of them since 72 anyway. [1] The birds I've had challenges with are Magpies. They kill the Finches including one breed that is the state bird Western Meadowlark that I feed but I found that if I can lure some Crows here they scare off the Magpies. I wish I knew how to keep the Crows around all the time. It's fun listening to them talk to one another. Farmers used to get paid to turn in Magpies but now they are under federal protection.

[1] - https://www.audubon.org/news/the-history-and-evolution-migra...

That has nothing to do with education... Education is in an egregiously pitiful state at this time. Why would you expect people to even know birds are protected when a quarter the country can't read and another quarter can barely do so?

Just as likely someone's shot at them due to killing chickens or something. Not that it makes it right. We had a neighbor back home get a huge fine for shooting at black vultures after they'd killed several calves one year (unlike turkey vultures, black vultures will kill, rather than just eating carrion).

How is shooting animals for sport any better then shooting them because they are a nuisance? Sounds way worse to me actually.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com