Do you eat what you kill?
 

I was just on the Outdoor Life web site. On the home page there is a article abouta possible new world record inland grizzly bear. I don't know the full story, of if the lucky hunter ate the bear or not. There is a lot of comments bashing hunters for not eating what they kill. Like bear meat for instance. I'm not sure if the people doing the bashing are anti's or not. If they are hunters, why are they acting like that???? Thats is stupid. I generally eat what I hunt and kill. But if I hunted Bears or maybe a mountain lion or bob cat, or coyote. You can bet your bottom dollar I wouldn't be eating it. I might try the bear, but I hear its not very good. I know all critters need to be hunted and populations kept in check. Keeping bear populations in check allows other species to do better. Just some thoughts.

RE: Do you eat what you kill?
 

Here in Wyoming our G&F sort of takes care of this topic for you. You see . . . bear and mountain lion are a seperate designation from deer, elk, moose, antelope, etc (BIG GAME). They are called TROPHY ANIMALS. I would not doubt that this distinction is at least in part due to the fact that they are not thought of as "table fare". Therefore there are different regs governing them. For instance, it is a G&F violation to wantonly leave or fail to retrieve BIG GAME meat. However, there is no such penalty for leaving bear or mountain lion meat. Yoiu also sare required to contact G&F personel within' 72 hours of harvesting a TROPHY ANIMAL.
Certainly there are those who have and will eat bear and mountain lion, but they are not thought of as food, but as a trophy.

Long and short, If I ever do harvest a bear &/or lion, I WILL try some at the table.

RE: Do you eat what you kill?
 

I think it is bad medicine for hunters to slam other hunters in public. This just gives the anti's grist for their mills. Personally I think a hunter ought to eat what he kills. I do not understand why one would hunt an animal having no intentions to eat the meat. But I also know that hunting bear and not consuming the meat is legal, and I know that I do not understand everything, that my ethics are not necessarily the last word in ethics. So I am tolerant of trophy hunters and have no intention of bashing them in a public forum or even a private forum for that matter. Who knows, in some time my thinking may change.

One thing that comes to my mind is that while we hunters look at our hunting as a way to commune with nature and to take excellent meat for the table, I think the view of state fish and game officials of hunters is quite different. I think hunters and hunting regulationsare viewed by state authorities as means of efficiently regulating game populations. It may be that hunters killing trophy animals figure into the management plans of the state fish and game officials. If it were not permitted, for example and speculatively speaking, to hunt and kill grizzly bears in Alaska, the population of grizzly bears may grow out of proportion. I don't know, I'm only suggesting this may be an element of this subject that should be considered.

RE: Do you eat what you kill?
 

I believe in Alaska that you are required to recover the meat of black bear, but not brown/grizzly. I eat everything I hunt, but not everything I trap. Have had beaver and muskrat, and they are good table fare. Generally save them for bait for trapping, or to feed temporarily caged fox for urine collection. Would do the same with bobcat meat. Fox, coon, skunk, and coyotecarcasses go in the chicken yard and the birds peck the bones clean, process, and return the favor in the form of eggs....or they get left in the wilderness where something else eats them.

General waste is not a good thing, but what really goes to waste in the wild? Killing ground, squirrels, prarie dogs, gophers, etc... generally goes along way to keep disease in the populations in check, as does trapping for many predators and furbears. A carcass will get consumed. If not from us, than by other mammals, birds, insects, etc.... That brown bear carcass did not last long after the hunters left it.

RE: Do you eat what you kill?
 

Bear meat has the misconception of not tasting good...in fact I believe it is better than venison...One HUGE factor though is you must render it correctly...The most critical part is to render it immediatly! They have much fat which insulates the meat and the meat is so thick in areas it does not get a chance to cool properly...thus tainting the meat and giving it a bad rap! A local meat market will not except "all" game meat, and says he rarely does bear because it is spoiled by the time people bring it to him...Just thismonth my cousin shot a boone and crockett black bear andHE weighed 535 pounds. He has already had ahalf dozen meals and I was invited for one. It was excellant! As far as the cats...IDK never had the privelage!

RE: Do you eat what you kill?
 

I eat everything I kill so my hunting is limited to animals I eat. I don't feel strongly about others not eating the kill but just worry about myself. I have been at this game for too long to get a huge charge on killing a chuck for intance just to say I did it and hit it at long yardages. IMO that is a waste but don't care if others feel differently. I ice fish all winter and see pails of rotting fish near the access at times. Why catch and kill them if you aren't going toeat them, sell them or give them away. Seeing a dead chuck, coon or coyote left in the wild is the same for me. If I shot a coyote for instance I would feel compelled to use the animal for something like the fur or a mount. Killing it and leaving it in the field is not the way I would do it. I hunt deer, caribou, elk and small game and eat all of it.

RE: Do you eat what you kill?
 

As far as the main topic of the post....

I have not hunted an animal that I have not ate..Although I have neverhunted anything too weird!

RE: Do you eat what you kill?
 

I do hunt to eat. And I eat what I harvest. There were a lot of clients when I was guiding that had no intention of eating their trophy Elk, Deer, Antelope, etc. But the meat still got consumed. In fact there is a very handy organization here (and elsewhere I believe) that takes game meat and distributes it to wanting underprivelaged families. Great program.

There is a distinction between trophy game and "Trophy Animals" here in our regs. And I find it cooinsidental that the Trophy Animals are those that aren't usually considered table fare. Hell, every animal I've ever taken was a trophy! (lol)

RE: Do you eat what you kill?
 

Everything except sparrows getting into the bluebird boxes. The idea of eating a land roaming omnivore doesn't do much for me, and it reallydoesn't bother me that some people don't.

RE: Do you eat what you kill?
 

I've read in a number historical writings that the old mountain men considered the mountain lion the best eating out there. I wouldn't think it would be, but I've also read that african lions are great eating though most don't try them.

Anyway, in our house, all we eat is what we hunt or catch. I'm a lucky man to be married to a wife that will eat what I get. I know alot of guys whose wives won't eat anything they bring home.

Mickey Nierdieck
Outdoor Connection
www.oc-adventures.com

RE: Do you eat what you kill?
 

I love elk and moose, eat them babies up in no time at all. As for deer well i get 3 tags but only eat my doe usually making her up into sausage and jerky. I give my 2 bucks to my neighbor who loves deer meat so it works out pretty good. As for bearI have only shot a few as more of a nusiance or crop protection killing andreturned the carcass to the forest. I know if i had to eat everything I killed i wouldn't have shot many of the animals. I do not take an animals life for fun, behind everything i kill there is a purpose even if that purpose is not meat.

RE: Do you eat what you kill?
 

I eat what I shoot. I really like Black Bear meat. I do not eat any of the cats, I have never eaten a Grizzly, mainly because the outfitters had use for the meat and I don't like the hassle of handling meat out of real remote areas. Probably 50 percent of out meat each year comes from hunting and fishing.

RE: Do you eat what you kill?
 

This isn't true... When it comes to bears, Alaska gives you a choise, either take the meat OR take the hide no matter if it's a brown or a blk..

Some blk. bears are good to eat others aren't... it depends on what "they" have been eating... I eat them if their good and also have always taken the hides too... Same with big bears... Some are good, some aren't...

I won'tshoot a moose any longer, after many years of shooting them and eating the meat, i no longer care for the meat... My first choise is deer, second caribou.... BTW, if there's room ialways take those hides too...

DM

RE: Do you eat what you kill?
 

Mt. Lion is one of the best game meats you can have. I shot mine and just kept the backstraps thinging it would probably be gross. When I got the nerve up to eat it I could not believe how good it tasted. I have been kicking myself ever since for not keeping the whole animal.

RE: Do you eat what you kill?
 

chiefks..thats whya hunterinvented the freezer..

RE: Do you eat what you kill?
 

There seems to be plenty of game out there that tastes great. . .Not sure I understand the kill only for trophy thing. . . .;)

My boys have been taught you kill it you eat it. . . .

RE: Do you eat what you kill?
 

My neighbour ate his grizzly all up, mostly made into saucage. I didn't eat either of mine and my friends don't eat grizzly either.

RE: Do you eat what you kill?
 

I choose not to eat bear or mountain lion, so I'll never hunt them. I'll also never go on safari for the same reason - I'm not flying across the Atlantic with a cooler full of water buffalo, so I'm sure not going to kill the thing.

I won't look down on others for doing that, but for those reasons I'm stuck hunting North America for herbivores. I'm definitely OK with that.

RE: Do you eat what you kill?
 

I tend to eat what I kill but then again thegame where I livehappens to beedible,
On the other hand, in a more global sense, I'm not all hung up about it either.

I'll go where I go, and
I'll pursue what I pursue and the "eating thing" will fall where it may.

RE: Do you eat what you kill?
 

So far I have eaten everything I have ever killed.

Well, except that doeI hit with my car a while back, because our state won't let you pick up road kill.

Oh, and a bunch of ground squirrels back when I was hunting them for the local ranchers.

And a few skunks, woodpeckers, rattlesnakes (though they taste like chicken), various birds, frogs, muskrats, minks, coyotes, badgers, beavers, bobcats and hedgehogs..

If you really want to sample meat from different animals, look for a wild game feed in your area. I've sampled a few on the list above at these shindigs, along with some other interesting dishes.

Nothing compares to Rocky Mountain Oysters though...yummy yummy!

RE: Do you eat what you kill?
 

I have been fortunate to have taken a variety of Big Game & have eaten all except TWO. Black Bears of mine were delicious.
Two animals I did not eat were Sheep-I tried it & thought it was horrible BUT I did give them to a couple families that loved them-they made tacos or tortillas from the meat so none went to waste. I have also not hunted certain animals because I did not think I would eat the meat.

RE: Do you eat what you kill?
 

Hell I lick the Bone!!!!!!!

RE: Do you eat what you kill?
 

Hunters MUST condemn those that don't eat what they kill because it tarnishes all of us and the actions of a small minority could ultimately put all of our hunting privileges at risk.

Let's face it, hunting suffers a serious image problem among a large percentage of the public. Hunting isn't a god-given right and our legislators are capable of passing some incredibly stupid laws on the basis of Disney inspired sentiments - the recent passage of a bill banning the slaughter of horses for foreign markets is just one prime example. The probability of our privileges being curtailed are only increased as the number of hunters decreases. We have to care what about what non-hunters think.

Hunting doesn't have to have the image problem it has. I live in NYC, where I encounter about 10 vegetarians/vegans for every hunter. Whenever I find out that someone is a vegetarian, I tell them I hunt and engage them in a discussion about the ethics of killing and eating an animal that has spent its life living according to its own free will as a part of a natural ecosystem, and contrast that against how meat is now raised in the U.S. IN EVERY SINGLE CASE I've managed to convince them that eating animals that I have killed in the wild is more ethical than buying it in the grocery store, and most of the time they say that if they started eating meat again, they'd only eat wild game.

We need to start addressing our image problem, and it starts by condemning those that don't eat what they kill, participate in canned hunts, etc. Hunting isn't a god-given right, it is a privilege granted to us by the public and we mustn't forget this.

RE: Do you eat what you kill?
 

I refused to eat the skunk I killed with my truck.

RE: Do you eat what you kill?
 

I do eat all that I 'harvest'. When my freezer is full, I will then give the meat to our church pantry.I would try bear meat, however, I think that I would draw the line at baboons

Regards,

BWJ

RE: Do you eat what you kill?
 

Most definitely. I intend on eating every animal that I intentionally harvest ( forgive me I am not eating road kill). I have had on occassion where some of it has gotten freezer burned or I had an emergency one time and let a turkey thaw way too long I didn't eat those. That is why I quit hunting squirrels because i never got around to eating them and they got freezer burnt.

RE: Do you eat what you kill?
 

I'm guilty of killing a few things I didnt eat, specially in my pellet gun toting days. But later in my years I just cant seem to kill it if I aint gonna eat it. Even the damn black birds in my back yard that are eating all the dog food. LOL
If woodchucks need to bekept incheck then keep them in check, but dont do it on a tv show hooting and hollering and smacking high fives after youblast one to smitherines. Appreiciate the life you took and show it some respect.

RE: Do you eat what you kill?
 

Will hunt for food. Most of the meat in my house comes from the animals I harvest. Love Elk, Deer, Antelope, and small game including Jackrabbits. Have eaten coon, beaver, and turtle. I shot a big 500lb black bear last year and couldn't get to it until the next morning. I think because of this the meat picked up a bad smell, none the less I have gone through most of the 200lbs of meat. Once it was cooked it tasted pretty good, the best was the Bear Brats I had made. Yummy.

This year I hope to harvest my first Mt. Lion and plan on eating all of it. I tried crow once, wouldn't recommend it.

Happy Harvesting!