Just a few remarks here.
1) Funny coincidence. There's currently massive protests going on against our royal family for wanting to go boar hunting in a way that is forbidden to anybody else.
2) Being killed by a bullet or a spear or an arrow doesn't make much of a difference. All is dependant on the skill of the hunter. Chunky, an arrow or spear can kill as clean (or as dirty) as a bullet. There's actually a bigger chance for a spear to kill clean, as the hunter has a larger killing instrument.
A .22 gun is more likely to wound (or maim) than kill, unless the hunter is exceedingly skilled.
Which brings me to point 3.
3) Forresters killing deer (or other animals) to keep populations balanced and healthy is fine by me. People with little or no skill shooting at anything that moves isn't.
Now I know this is probably somewhat exaggerating, but there is a need for a serious amount of skill to kill cleanly, that just not every 'hunter' has.
Note: This includes royalty hunting elephants in Africa or tigers in Asia.
4) A forrester required to 'maintain a population' of animals will go by a set of rules that will include culling weaker, older and sick animals, as will animals that live on prey, like hunting cats and wolves.
Many of those that hunt for sport will just shoot at anything that moves. I'd say there's a significant difference.
5) As for animals being bred to live short lives and be killed for food. I haven't been able to find a sound moral ground for that one, however, with diseases like BSE running wild, it sounds likely the number of vegetarians will grow.
6) For the record, this from someone who was not very happy with having to do doing geological fieldwork in Belgium in late autumn, i.e. when all the locals were out there shooting at...well...whatever moved.
I moved...
Angel Jayhawk
Eyrie, Pharaoh Heaven, Caesar 3 Heaven, Zeus Heaven[This message has been edited by Jayhawk (edited 11-26-2000).]