NZ town cans rabbit-chucking contest A New Zealand town has cancelled a rabbit-chucking contest in which local kids were invited to see how far they could hurl a lapine carcass. The fun event was to have taken place this Saturday in the rural commmunity of Waiau, roughly 120km north of Christchurch, as part of the annual pig hunt. Any rabbits also killed during …
I, for one, look forward to variations on the theme:
On leather: "If someone skinned, tanned and wore your grandmother after she died you wouldn't like it."
Demanding an apology from the FA for past crimes: "If someone took your grandmother's bladder out and kicked it around for fun after she died you wouldn't like it."
On non-vegetarians: "If someone ate your grandmother after she died you wouldn't like it."
On Damian Hirst: "If someone cut your grandmother in half and pickled her after she died you wouldn't like it."
Not quite getting the parallel with grandmothers: "Grandmothers are pests* killing them is not fun, it's a necessity."
* the feral grandmother population is currently unknown.
I also would not be happy if she was shot in the head and made into pies, but that does not mean I see a problem with doing that to pigs.
Rabbit chucking might seem a little quaint to us city types, but that is only because the only animals we ever see are wrapped in clingfilm or shitting on the pavements.
I really do hate it when they compare *animals* to real people. The value of some random dead rabbit is no where near the value of my grandmother, for that matter is no where near the value of the some random dead old lady out there.
we eat animals, we do NOT eat old ladies. Playing with a dead rabbit is the same as playing with food, both acts are morally wrong. But neither acts is anywhere near to playing with a human corpses.
What next? Banning the slow torture of spiders by pulling their legs off one by one? Where will the SPCA go next? The animal's dead, it doesn't matter what happens to it afterwards. If the SPCA are looking for respect towards dead animals then why aren't they fighting to have the carcases of rats treated properly rather than the usual just chucking them into a bin bag in the back of a van. Rat's dead bodies should not be desecrated and should be individually placed in coffins and buried in the ground near to where they died so that their fellow rats can mourn them.
How could any rabbits be "humanely" killed during a pig hunting contest? As pig hunting in NZ is done with a pack of dogs that corner and hold the pig until the hunter arrives with a large knife, the bunnies could only be killed by dogs tearing them to pieces. That is decidedly u(i)nhuman(e).
I feel that this is just the first step in stopping pig hunting and letting another destructive animal continue wiping out native flora and fauna.
"Robyn Kippenberger said ... 'If someone threw your grandmother after she died you wouldn't like it.' "
Not that rabbit-carcass lobbing is a particularly sensible activity: the rabbit would be better casseroled and a ball would fly better ... but someone who can't tell the difference between a grandmother and a rabbit has got problems.
This prig is presenting herself as a morally serious person, but her comment is proof of a decadent and morally trivial attitude.
"...Playing with a dead rabbit is the same as playing with food, both acts are morally wrong...."
So that's why my Mum and Dad got annoyed with me when I used to make a gravy lake in my mashed potatoes........ I always wondered.
How about if they went ahead with the idea of the kids throwing bean bags, but the bean bags were in fact stuffed with rabbit's feet (for luck)? (Luck for the kids, not the rabbits, obviously).
......when they're done with the body, who gives a fig what they do with it?
I love my ol' Granny to bits and would defend her from any harm but after she's dead and gone, I couldn't give two hoots what they do with 'her'. It's just meat after that. Set it on fire and swing it round your head for all I care.
She's not in there any more and she's certainly not looking down tutting at any
supposed ill-treatment of her carcass. The only people who might care are those left behind and they're just being irrational sentimentalists if they get offended. So there.
What does bother me is another fantastic treat for kids, teaching them that just 'cos it's dead, you can desecrate somethings body for fun! Chuck it around for a laugh! So next time their's nothing dead about, let's grab a neighbourhood pet and torture it before kicking it's dead corpse up the road...
Local lads were I am, got 9 months for grabbing a cat, tying it up, pouring it with lighter fluid and setting it alight! HA HA! How we all laughed so bloody hard! You see, ( LOL! HA HA! ) as the owner ( ROFL! ) had found them dragging the poor little sods dead body up the road by a string!
Yeah, abusing animals is bloody good laugh isn't it?! No?! Oh I see, pets should not be killed and abused but you can do it to wild animals?! Oh I see, sorry!
Abuse of a dead, animal or human is not fun, it's simply sick and humanity should have moved on by now! If you have a pest problem, get your twelve-bore out and blow the little critter to pieces, over almost instantly. Then take the pile of dead carcasses and bury or burn 'em. Don't play with them!
throwing dead rabbits is no fun - how about live ones instead? you could even have a group of people holding a sheet, in which to catch said flying furries? (I've always wanted to fly - I reckon rabbits probably feel the same way).
plus it sounds like the spaniards mentioned above would be well into it...........
And if not that - burn em! In stockholm they are culling 6000 rabbits this year, and burning them for energy - so this would be good for climate change too.
at a lab my then-girlfriend worked for, one cut-up put up a poster advertising a (spurious) sailcat tournament (a sailcat being a cat that had been run over by a steamroller, that was to be tossed like a frisbee). She was told any athletic events had to be scheduled with management.
Firstly, there is a world of difference between torturing an animal and chucking it about if it is already dead. Secondly, if you were to shoot a rabbit with a 12 bore, you would be unlikely to find all the pieces. Much better to kill it with a rifle shot to the head, then you don't have to burn it, which is bad for the environment, or bury it, which is a waste of perfectly good food.
I suspect, from your attitude towards killing animals, that you are a vegetarian. Not everyone shares your self-righteous attitude to eating meat, nor should they in my opinion. However, I shall leave that argument there, as I have found some vegetarians to be about as rational as right-wing Christian fundies.
If these were Central Asian nomads and they were tossing around a dead sheep / goat carcass on horseback (as they like to do), nobody would complain. Unless (I suppose) they were doing it in NZ, or the goat was a NZ citizen (as I understand it, there is a good deal of fondness for sheep there <wink>).
Desecration has different meanings for different people, some would think organ donorship is terrible too. And others would condemn burning a body (or for that matter feeding it to worms). Myself, I am for recycling it (feed the vultures at the zoo).
Tossing a dead rabbit is not worse than shooting a live rabbit, from the rabbit's point of view. What happens to it after death is immaterial, if the kids enjoy the contest and there are no health concerns, let them have their fun.
A dead body is just that, a piece of meat, unless you knew it personally (a pet) or were related to it (a human). It is somewhat disrespectful to toss a dead animal, but I can see the benefits too (the kids will be more inclined to think of rabbits as vermin).
You'd be hard pressed to find a working farm in NZ that doesn't hunt rabbits on the side to feed the dogs. The damn things are everywhere. And trust me, after you've chucked a couple of dozen carcasses in the back of the ute for the freezer, they become much less precious little Thumper and more a heavy smelly mess that you'd rather freeze asap.
I can't wait to see what el reg thinks of the Waimarino Easter Hunt events, the social pig races are hella impressive.
Rabbit stew is fairly tasty too, though with respect to David 63 above, it is pretty unlikely even in a backwater like NZ you'd find people eating an exclusively lean meat diet...
Wasn't this the country that gave us midget tossing?
Maybe we should try a PETA throw. Or just turn loose some wolves, bears, and rattlesnakes in their HQ. And really, New Zealand has rabbits like the Midwest has squirrels and Washington, DC, has sycophants. They need culling. And so do the rabbits.
BTW, rabbit is delicious, but it can kill you, as was discusses at length on QI. It has very little oil or minerals, so if you eat nothing but rabbit, you'll die from malnutrition. Luckily, as Phil Jupitus pointed out, kestrals enjoy peas and carrots, so they're alright.
So rabbit meat is tasty, but not good food because if you eat to little of other foods with it, you have health problems?
You sir, are a putz extraordinaire.
Name a single other food that wouldn't do the exact same thing! How about tomatoes? I doubt you'd last long on an all-tomato diet. Or eggs, or beans, or fish, or whatever. Hell, drink enough water and it can kill you (look "Water intoxication" up, and then decide to never drink water again)
A balanced diet (and yes, you veggie lovers, for most of us that includes meat, which is why we have pointy teeth, as well as flat) is what does the best job of providing all the various things you need, from the biggies like protein and carbs to the trace elements and amino acids.
As the old saying goes, moderation in everything, including moderation.
My coat is the one with the grocery bags next to it.
A few years ago at the Whangamomona Repuplic Day celebrations* one of the entertainments was a pretty much continuous demonstration of posssum skinning.
At least one father was taking the opportunity to have his young (I'd guess about 9~10) son taught the basics by a skilled professional.
*A toy poodle was elected and sworn in as the new President, but regrettably died in office from injuries received when tagging along on a pig hunt.
Thankfully we don't have cane toads in New Zealand. You are thinking of Australia, a desert island full of unpleasant poisonous creatures which is about as far from NZ as Newfoundland is from Ireland. We do have rather too many rabbits, and also possums, both species having been unwisely introduced for fur and "sporting" reasons.
"dragging the poor little sods dead body up the road by a string!"
I honestly don't see the problem with that. Now the petrol-dousing and fire-setting part of the story is different. That can be seen as cruel and gruesome I guess. Unless the cat had been declawed beforehand of course. Those things are sharp.
Re: Dan 10 and the article author, myxamatosis wasn't introduced by the government, it was introduced by some disgruntled farmer (?) who was tired of waiting for the government to do something. It's ineffectiveness was, in no small way, due to being introduced near the start of winter.
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