Comrades:

HUNTING cats?!?! - who would waste the ammo? Trap them and use them for AP Bio classes around the world!... It's a little bit like squirrel hunting - why? Cats are a little different for me though. Allow me to extrapolate (yep-that's a word that might be too expensive for me)- I think killing an animal that some consider a pet (more hypocracy to follow)- might encourage the sort of behavior recently found with the porpoises off England...now read this -

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=661594

No respect for the living or the dead...It hasn't been reported yet - but this guy walked around with the dead guy's tuxedo on...it's called psychosis..

[in an uneasy segue]

I come from a hunting family 4 generations deep. I started when I was 13 - I'm more or less immune to the weather now - hunting in my family means being in the 'elements' 10 below or worse (IMHO) sleet and wind. Sunrise to sundown. I have killed 3 deer - one doe, 2 bucks - over the course of 12 years - (just because you have a rifle doesn't mean you're fishing in a barrel) - so to speak :). The first one I killed was a 6 pointer bounding down hill about 200 yards away from me. I shot it in the heart - it took 2 more leaps and died.

In stark contrast - my cousin shot a spike horn (legal length) in the spine and it bleated like a lamb - that did it for him and it would've done it for me..The reason I stopped is that, for whatever reason, I stopped working for employers who offered 3 weeks vacation. Spending one week on some remote hill where nothing (including the game) is around - isn't much of a vacation.. I'll go next year though- my 'elders' are passing away and I owe it to them..I may not hunt though...

Cats & Rabbits

Mike Moore made a great documentary called Pets or Meat...Deer are meat to me...there's a socio/economic divide among 'hunters'. The rich go on safaris and kill animals - they get dropped off by a helicopter and then get ferried by snowmobile to kill elk that are in a herd in the canadian tundra...that's shooting in a barrel...and then there's the 3 deer 12 year ratio guys like me.

After I got out of college, a friend of mine asked me to go hunting with him for rabbits. I got the 12 gauge and went along - what I didn't understand is that Vermont has 2 types of rabbits - snowshoe (big as a beagle) and cottontail (smaller than a cat). We jumped a bunch of rabbits and my pal asked me why I wasn't shooting them - I said 'They aren't full grown!'

Fish and Game fees around here comprise most of the land conservation budget...It's fun to shoot guns and whatnot - please forgive me for hijacking this part of the thread, Gene - but everyone I know who owns a gun doesn't own a pistol-that's a weapon you conceal...

Now - to re-iterate - there's a moose lottery - $30 to get in - no guarantee of sucess - BUT - in the event of a permit - there's 400 lbs of lean meat. I enter every year. I have no qualms. Don't know anyone who's killed one with a pistol - or relished an animal suffering...

I always felt bad when I hit a deer (I've driven/been in a car that's hit at least 3 deer) with a car. I was a little gob smacked when a member of the AUS contingent/continent (Al?) talked about running over a 'roo...I think 'roos are beautiful - exotically beautiful perhaps...but when you're going 60+ and one hops into your path - guess what happens?

Those are my thoughts about food/critters - my 6 year old boy won't eat meat except for hot dogs (?!)- and it's fine with me.

Thanks for reading this far.

Lee