Humane dispatch.

[Hank001]

That "caveman" diet I've been hearing about? Please tell my oncologist about it. I'd die for a Big Mac... no wait... I probably am.
Oh well...

[Morkonan]

...It already did. Years of experimenting with trying to manage UC without drugs has taught me that a low fiber diet works best. Meat goes through me gently. Even lots of meat is not a problem.

OK, I get that.

But...

You ate the equivalent of a... baby.

A whole baby!

[ external image ]

Get Into My Belly (Language Warning)



I can imagine things get a bit complicated with UC, so no problem - You gotta do what ya gotta do. Cooked meat is basically 100% digestible and some veggies just aren't. So... one fully cooked baby a week would probably be just about right for you.

[Hank001]

I think that the heathiest thing is not to stress too much over diet.
I'm beginning to believe that's became a modern neuroses.
When we all really have no clue what's in most of the food
we eat.
(We really can't without degrees in organic chemistry).

Stress over it all too much and you'll run into REAL problems.

[greypanther]

Can there be such a thing as " humane dispatch " when it comes to killing an animal? It has always struck me as odd concept, surely dead is dead? As long as no intended or extended cruelty is involved, does it matter?
.......
Lastly, I am confused by the use of the word Humane in all this. Just what is Humane and how does it fit here? My opinion of humans is generally very poor, so I find it all odd. Does it matter how someone or something dies? It is going to happen to all life after all.

You see it was the whole " Humane " thing that I was trying to get a conversation about... Ah well at least mrbadger and maybe Hank got the idea. The vegetarian angle was just an aside. ( I will have to learn to express things better... )

Pellet guns can easily kill a squirrel. Not the sort of "BB" gun you'd buy at Wallmart meant for plinking cans, but a decent BB/Pellet gun meant for hunting rodents.

Not in the UK. Over here they restrict the power of the ones you can buy without a license, never mind the fact that even a .22 pellet has no real momentum behind it. Even a slingshot would be more effective, indeed there videos about such on You Tube.

Good stuff and:
why should a chicken have more right to life than a turnip?.

Well I like your post, mostly, but find this bit odd to say the least...

I would like to emphasise that the thread was not intended to be me having a go at meat eaters, I am no vegetarian, militant or otherwise. I am a Pescatarian. Never mind the fact that I prepare and cook meat for my wife and child.

( No I do not live with Bishop! )

[Hank001]

Let's see. No pellet guns in the UK?
How about DIY firepower? You know, Y shaped stick,
bicycle tire inner tube, patch of leather and any handy
small rock does the trick.

A bit of practice and your in business.

[Morkonan]

...Not in the UK. Over here they restrict the power of the ones you can buy without a license, never mind the fact that even a .22 pellet has no real momentum behind it. Even a slingshot would be more effective, indeed there videos about such on You Tube.
...

I'm not proud of it, but I have killed squirrels with a pellet gun, youtube videos or not. Birds too, unfortunately. (Best shot, bird in flight, 100+ yards with a pellet handgun when I was a dumb kid... Good shot, though.)

Would a slingshot be better? Yes. More mass, more energy. I've used a "real" slingshot, too, but I don't think I ever tried to hit a squirrel with one.

I do understand there are restrictions on BB/Pellet rifles in the UK. There should be more restrictions on those in the US, IMO, too. I still have scars from childhood "BB gun wars." Kids are idiots...

[Nanook]

...
I'm not proud of it, but I have killed squirrels with a pellet gun, youtube videos or not. Birds too, unfortunately. (Best shot, bird in flight, 100+ yards with a pellet handgun when I was a dumb kid... Good shot, though.)...

Uhh, right! I've owned a number of different pellet guns, both .17 cal and .22 cal. The pellet won't even fly 100 yards, let alone be powerful enough to kill a bird. Assuming, of course, you mean an air-powered pellet gun, not one propelled by gunpowder.

[Hank001]

Well I had a Daisy CO2 pellet rifle that sure could. For all intents and purposes it was a .22 short. (I think pellets were .17 though).

(Suppose it depends on the size of the bird too)

[Morkonan]

...
I'm not proud of it, but I have killed squirrels with a pellet gun, youtube videos or not. Birds too, unfortunately. (Best shot, bird in flight, 100+ yards with a pellet handgun when I was a dumb kid... Good shot, though.)...

Uhh, right! I've owned a number of different pellet guns, both .17 cal and .22 cal. The pellet won't even fly 100 yards, let alone be powerful enough to kill a bird. Assuming, of course, you mean an air-powered pellet gun, not one propelled by gunpowder.

You must have had crappy BB/Pellet guns, then. Sorry, that's just a fact. I owned several, way back when I was kid. And, typical of a juvenile who hasn't really thought out a great deal, I shot stuff, some of it living, after which it was dead. Birds, squirrels, snakes, maybe a turtle.

I have also been shot by them. I have permanent marks on my body from wounds proudly received in combat... Sure, these were from BB-Gun wars, but still - I even have a raised area of bone where a BB struck me hard enough to cause the bone to bruise/spur. I can feel it, still, by pressing down and running my finger along the bone... That's powerful enough to kill a bird, squirrel, rat, snake or just about any small varmint you can think of.

Your weapons were substandard. Those foreign arms-dealers will rip you off, every time, since they never expect you to live long enough to complain about it.

The shot I made of the bird in flight was done with a Daisy or Coleman? 1911 look-alike single slide-pump pistol with about a 20 shot magazine or so. It was one quick shot. You could say I "no-scoped" it. It was flying across my friend's neighbor's yard, across the street, and I shot from the top of his high driveway all the way down to a few feet in front of their front door, a good hundred yards or so. And, I wasn't thinking about it, since I could have easily put a BB through their window!

Could your old BB guns shoot a hole in a window-pane? Car windows? Mine could. And if your's could, too, how can you say they wouldn't kill a bird or a squirrel?

[Hank001]

I thing growing up in the country left it's mark an me, though not from B&B's or pellets. I was 12 when we moved to town. The BB and pellet guns got put away. People in town fed squirrels back then. Though they were red Fox Squirrels. Now I haven't seen a Fox squirrel in decades. They say most died out from something when I was in the service. Seems it's all gray squirrels, raccoons, coyotes, deer and bobcats in the woods now. What woods are left. When we debate being humane in the dispatch, it wasn't the animals that got us to the point where it needs debate. It was humans mucking about being humans. Now when it's a problem the debate starts. Once again it's humans asking, "Okay now what do we do about it?" Which is usually the prelude to causing some worse problem down the road.

[greypanther]

Yes, the Red Squirrel is disappearing fast over hear too, caused in the main by the Grey, non native interloper, which was foolishly introduced. Which is also why the culled the Greys from Anglesey, completely, though it take 18 years! There are several other areas where Greys are destroyed as the awful vermin they really are.

[Hank001]

Over here the fox squirrel got gotten in there burrows by some disease and took just two winters for them to almost vanish. The gray didn't seem to be suseptable. They say they are making a come back, but not so I've seen.

Edit: This got me asking myself: Was this true? Plenty of "Woods Rumors" around here. Unfortunately it's all too true. From one Google check:

"There are three main reasons why greys are a threat. Grey squirrels carry a disease, squirrel parapox virus, which does not appear to affect their health but often kills red squirrels. Grey squirrels are more likely to eat green acorns, so will decimate the food source before reds get to them."

[greypanther]

Pretty much the same over here too, they are carriers of that, but do not suffer the full blown effects. Other human affecting disease too. They also out compete their smaller cousin for food. They are also a threat beyond the Red Squirrel. They damage trees and other plants; will eat pretty much anything and will actively eat/hunt young birds. They are tree rats. Except they are worse than rats.

Oh and they once annoyed Morkonan...

[Alan Phipps]

"Oh and they once annoyed Morkonan..." So not all bad then? (Just kidding!)

In urban parts of the UK, the grey squirrels are just about all the non-scary 'nature' some families see in the concrete jungle (along with urban foxes). The squirrels entertain by tightrope walking on overhead telephone cables, by solving cunning squirrel-proof feeders or deliberate assault course tests set for them, and by generally being considered cheeky and cute.

For many here the red squirrel is just a memory (if that) and so the grey is considered by many as more its 'natural' successor in the wild rather than as its mortal enemy and still a threat. They are even fed attractions at rented chalets in woodland activity parks where the internal shops sell 'squirrel food' to the holidaying residents.

For these reasons, many would be uncomfortable with a general cull of the greys. Having said all of that, as with finding a wild bird flapping around your bedroom, very few welcome them into the house and most will call pest control if they do get in.

[Observe]

General rule of thumb: leave animals alone and let nature take its course without human interference; even if our actions are well-intentioned.

This can be hard to do. When we see a creature suffering, empathy drives us to helping it. Trouble is, sometimes (almost always), we unintentionally upset the natural balance (bird food attracts rats). One thing leads to another, and we end up with a mess on our hands.

On the other hand, we humans are also part of the natural world. As such, perhaps it is our 'job' to help relieve the misery of those less fortunate whenever we can, regardless of species or being. We just need to know how and when to help and when to leave things alone.

[Morkonan]

"Oh and they once annoyed Morkonan..." So not all bad then? (Just kidding!)...

"(Just kidding!)" No you're not.

On the scourge of the Fascist Grey Squirrels, don't discount the effect of the common housecat that many people consider to be an inside/outside unsupervised "pet."

There used to be a lot of chipmunks around here. Well, enough so that it wasn't unusual to see them bouncing around in the yard from time to time. So cute! Several fat neighborhood housecats later... no more chipmunks. Though, they can't do the same thing as easily with groundhogs. A goundhog will @$@$^ up a housecat. (Had a big one living under my deck for the longest time. Haven't seen him in a couple of years, though. )

Interesting factoids: Red squirrels. It seems the rapacious and neo-fascist-marxist-anti-vaxxer-lobbyist grey squirrels devour green acorns, which are the only acorns that red squirrels can digest, leaving them with little food supply.

(I once rescued a baby grey squirrel when I was a kid and nursed it back to health and released it into the wild. Et tu Brute? I should have named him Iago...)

So, I was interested in the subject of "Pescetarianism" and did a search on it. This is the first thing I clicked on: Huffingtonpost - Chloe Spencer - Pescetarianism.

...

There is so much BS there that it's difficult to read that article above the stench of the writer's own fart-sniffing proselytizing...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMTkedIUX8U

Do people actually believe this crap? This kind of thing always bothers me. Someone who is intelligent enough to string words together with some sort of comprehensible intent surely has enough brain cells to be able to interpret even casual experiences as either factual or not. Yet, for some people, all one has to do is add one variable that makes them think they're part of some "special group" and they'll start just plain making up complete garbage and citing it as "fact."

I don't even... Why are people dumb? I don't mean "ignorant." Ignorance is fine and everyone is ignorant about something. But, why are people just plain friggin' stupid in an Age where information and real science is so accessible? I mean.. when you're talking about scientificky stuffs, doesn't it make sense to actually look at the scientificky answers people have discovered?

The writer of the above article is a moron. There, I wrote it. I will happily await my "Cease and Desist" letter and threat of a Libel suit so I can say the same thing in an open court. With pictures, even. <southpark-fartsniffers.jpg>

So, yeah, I was actually interested in this whole "fish thing" and tried to find out more information about it only to run into a culture of ignorance that makes me want to go out and eat a giant steak in order to cleanse myself.

[greypanther]

Not sure if that is aimed at me Mork, doesn't matter either way.

For me I was a Vegan for a long time, I will not go into the reasons why, they are irrelevant. Then I became just a Vegetarian, ( living without Leather is very difficult for instance! ) Now I eat fish and eggs ( free range, allegedly, ) because if for no other reason my health an the fact I love fishing! I only heard the word pescatarian after someone labelled me as one, a year or two after starting fishing again.

I have no need to " belong " to any social group, that is odd, as am I mostly I guess...

I care little what other people think about my habits, including the Vegans who could not fathom why, when I was a vegan too, I still prepared meat for my wife and children. Live and let live.

Enjoy your steak Mork, though I would suggest professional help if you clean yourself with it first, before eating!

[Morkonan]

Not sure if that is aimed at me Mork, doesn't matter either way. ...

I PM'd you 'cause the forum said your post had been "deleted" or some such. But, now it's back, so..

No, it wasn't aimed at you at all! You do you! I'm cool with that. My ire/rant/boggling was aimed at the functional moron who wrote that article and largely inspired by my disappointment that the first bit of information I found when innocently searching on the topic was her BS blog post that was full of bullhockey...

[greypanther]

No worries.

I deleted it because like a fool I put it in the wrong thread. I deleted then replaced it in the right one. I only got a few lines into that article, then remembering old conversations with " militant " vegans who thought I was a traitor, when I was a vegan, yet still prepared meat for my family, gave up.

I may have another look.

[Hank001]

I like that part about leaving critters alone... One big problem here in my parts are there is more than 20 state parks, wildlife preserves and national and state forests within 50 miles of here. We'll leave the 5 state mamaged lakes out of it. Each area once thought the thought, it would be great if we had _____, (fill in the blank with an animal they didn't have)... here in our area. Plus the idiots setting up hunting lodges that talked (bribed) state official into letting them import wild boars here for hunting. The black bears they brought in didn't do so well, coyotes did too well, and so on. When their playing with things blew up in their faces the state put a stop to their tinkering, and as usual way too late. Now even the pet stores are limited to domesticated animals since we now know whatever the local university student buys is apt to wind up let loose in the woods. Thus our problems with ferrets. SO I'm with you on leave well enough alone!