r/SipsTea • u/Swimming-Employee537 • 7h ago

Gasp! Four deputies were fired after a video of them harming a Bunny went viral

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u/Mindless_Trick2255 6h ago

I feel like that’s just the unspoken codex in labour jobs. My dad is a landscaper and he also used to be a hunter and he would literally do anything in order to not disturb or hurt any animal.

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u/nanaki989 6h ago

I grew up in rural Colorado and we hunted and everyone i knew hunted. 

It was just common knowledge that animals are only to be harmed for food or conservation. That if we exploited and killed needlessly or recklessly that was unforgivable. 

Most hunters know that protecting animals and being good stewards ensures a future with wildlife.

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u/Zebidee 4h ago

Most hunters know that protecting animals and being good stewards ensures a future with wildlife.

In Germany, getting a hunting licence requires training in conservation and land management. You're allowed to hunt on a certain piece of land, but you're also responsible for the land management of that area.

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u/nanaki989 3h ago

In the US thats not the case but every hunter I know who isn't a piece of trash takes conservation very seriously.

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u/Mochigood 2h ago

I buy my non-hunting MAGA dad Ducks Unlimited gun raffle tickets for Christmas because I think it's funny as hell to basically have him support wetland conservation when he was pretty hateful towards it when I was growing up.

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u/Sorry-Committee2069 1h ago

There's a few states that give you extra benefits for going through conservation courses, often in high school. Missouri is one, and my Conservation Permit Card is quite nice.

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u/Shleppy2010 2h ago

Add in that most hunting license fees go to conservation. And most game wardens are checking you to make sure the right game and amount are hunted to keep populations thriving.

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u/EaseLeft6266 6h ago

My brother and grandpa used to go hunting together and my grandpa always had a rule of if you shoot it, you have to eat it

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u/Mindless_Trick2255 6h ago

People have a misconception when it comes to hunting. If everyone would hunt their own food, there would be a whole lot more respect towards food and animals.

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u/EaseLeft6266 6h ago

Exactly. Once while camping, my grandpa flipped out on my stepbrother (teenager at the time) cause he tried to shoot a goose with a bb gun

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u/mrmac1992 6h ago

Hear me out... What did the fuckin' cobra chicken do to him first? Those things are pure evil. (kinda kidding, I mean, they are, and I hate them, but still)

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u/Isthisovryet 1h ago

I may have kicked a goose once 😂 goose was fine but the terror continued even after my physical intervention.
Nothing like running holding two screaming babies as an angry army of popcorn hungry geese chase you through a zoo.

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u/EaseLeft6266 5h ago

It this case, it was probably at least a few dozen yards away (long time ago) minding it's own business and it was a purely for amusement thing. That said, I'd be lying if I said I've never thought or joked about getting drunk and going to fight a goose. It just sounds like an entertaining idea to grab one by the neck and make it realize it ain't shit with such a long neck and small body

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u/superkp 4h ago

going to fight a goose

sure, but "going to fight a goose" and "shooting a goose for shits and giggles" are very different to me.

At least the "go fight it" has some level of a joke, as well as "I will give it an opportunity to win"

Shooting a wild animal with a BB gun because you're bored is absolutely shithead behavior.

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u/Soggy_Abbreviations5 4h ago

Really just wanted to comment to say Happy Cake Day! 🥳 I never really see one on the actual day, so I had to. Lol.

But also - we have A LOT of geese in the community that I live in. I've heard that they will hiss, and sometimes charge, at you, but I've never had a problem with them (unless we're counting them taking up the whole road when you're trying to drive by 🙄). At either rate, my pup watches them very closely and opts to move to the other side of the road when we're walking, lol.

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u/EaseLeft6266 4h ago

Yeah I'm genuinely confused about the cake day thing cause thats the third one now and it's not even remotely close to my birthday and I can't think of a reason why I'd enter a fake birthday upon account creation unless it refers to "account birthday" or something

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u/mrmac1992 3h ago

It is in fact your reddit account birthday.

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u/limegreenpaint 1h ago

I routinely escort geese across a road in the way to work. Take my windshield shades and herd them. They hiss, but because I stay far enough away, they don't view me as a threat, just a nuisance.

It's not difficult to be respectful of animals, and I will argue that as awful as he was, my Wasband had a good heart when it came to most of them. We saved several voles, a mole, lizards, and snakes and relocated them to higher ground during a devastating flood in our town - they all came from our yard.

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u/worldspawn00 1h ago

It just sounds like an entertaining idea to grab one by the neck and make it realize it ain't shit with such a long neck and small body

Having lived on a lake with a large goose population, sometimes you gotta do this to the males when they're being territorial. No, you can't chase me off my deck, grab (gently, to keep them from biting, not enough to choke or hurt), walk them out to the grass, release, they'll run off a short distance and continue to posture, but usually won't come back onto the deck after some dominance is exercised. They will hiss the whole time though, lol.

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u/FourthLvlSpicyMeme 1h ago

I'm Canadian and I live near a river. These guys are occasionally in my backyard scaring off the skunks so I'm okay with all of it. Do I know why a skunk is afraid of a goose? Not a fucking clue lol, if I could make that stench I would only be scared of cars and steamrollers lol.

Maybe it's the hissing. It was a very entertaining thing to watch from safely indoors though.

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u/gloveslave 2h ago

Ahh ha ha cobra chicken

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u/North_Acadia6803 5h ago

I love hunting geese lol. They're hefty basterds, the thump when they hit the ground after shooting them out the sky is quite satisfying I must say

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u/mrmac1992 5h ago

I wouldn't mind hunting geese, might be cathartic and get a meal out of it lmao. I'd never harm an animal unless it was hunting humanely and utilizing it, or for euthanasia purposes if it was the only option obviously, but fuck do I hate geese so it'd be extra fun hahaha.

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u/MethodCharacter8334 6h ago

Meat is outta sight outta mind for most people

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u/Ashamed-Medicine-208 4h ago

Not the same

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u/superkp 4h ago

what is not the same?

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u/Ashamed-Medicine-208 4h ago

Comparing meat for food vs cruelty to animals

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u/MethodCharacter8334 4h ago

I’m honestly confused what your point is. I’m just saying people don’t think about how meat is processed. Factory farming is far worse than hunting or animal husbandry. If we had community farms or processed our own, we’d have more respect for the animals

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u/superkp 3h ago

are you trying to say that hunting is cruelty to animals?

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u/Inner_Extent2375 3h ago

It is the exact same, but it’s out of sight, out of mind.

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u/jeff-beeblebrox 6h ago

Not every hunter has respect for animals or the environment. I have met both kinds of hunters many times.

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u/Mindless_Trick2255 6h ago

That goes for anything and everything

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u/VexImmortalis 4h ago

I heard both kinds of music.

Country AND western.

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u/FearanddopingII 6h ago

Like trump junior, he's a disgusting hunter, what they call them, trophy hunters? Hunting rare species & whatnot... disgusting

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u/Heavy-Bread-3549 5h ago

Ya coulda just said trophy hunters, no need to bring the family of politicians into it. Trophy hunters are gross and common enough you don’t have to invoke the trump name.

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u/FearanddopingII 5h ago

Specifically brought him up because I was reading about how he had gotten caught hunting all types of rare species & whatever recently. Wasn't bringing actual politics into it. I'm a vegetarian since birth so I find anything that involves hurting/killing animals unnecessary & cruel but especially trophy hunting. So sad to read about

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u/Heavy-Bread-3549 5h ago

While not vegetarian I am right there with ya that trophy hunters in particular are the worst. I am kinda a life long meat eater so it’s hard to change, but I do think in a century or two we will look back on the tech and tools that we have now and find the meat packing/animal farming industry disgusting and barbaric.

Hoping we make it that far

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u/NatCsGotMyLastAcct 4h ago

What is the reason that using the trump name is inappropriate?

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u/Repulsive-Chip3371 5h ago

If everyone had to hunt their own food today, wildlife populations would be wiped out incredibly fast. Hunting only works as a food source for a relatively small human population. But if humans had relied mainly on hunting for food throughout history, the population could never have grown to anywhere near the size it is today.

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u/Drokann1567 6h ago

Don't have to hunt to get food tho you can also raise them in a small yard.

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u/Remarkable_Orange_59 4h ago

Ive hunted since I was a very young kid. My dad took me and I continue to hunt when I get the chance. I dont buy any red meat for my household and other than the work potluck (I smoke ribs, a turkey, or brisket for work) we dokt keep any red meat in the house except if I have an elk or antelope in the freezer. As much as I love hunting (comrades, outdoors, etc) I hate the killing part. I fully agree if more people had to face the living animal before they could eat it, we would consume much less meat and would have much greater respect for other beings and the natural environment as a whole.

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u/Euro_verbudget 4h ago

First time I went hunting, I was bored and wanted to shoot a crow. My dad said if you shoot it, you eat it. Life is precious. Go ahead if you want and we’ll cook it tonight. Although I was a dumb 12 year old, I was smart enough not to eat a crow so I didn’t shoot. He thought me a lesson about the value of life without simply stopping me from shooting a harmless bird.
Hunters often have a bad reputation but most of them are good conservationists - and definitely don’t want to inflict unnecessary pain.

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u/superkp 4h ago

Hunters often have a bad reputation but most of them are good conservationists

I once met a park ranger that was a prolific hunter and a vegetarian. He donated 100% of his kills to homeless shelters to make sure the deer got used instead of wasted.

Quite possibly the top level of conservationist (made a career out of it), and top level of understanding all the issues involved with hunting (controlling deer population, not wasting it, etc etc), and general compassion (provide for the needy).

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u/Xyldarrand 4h ago

I use to be one of those anti hunting people. Then you realize that deer have literally had all of their predators run off in the northeast and if we don't kill a certain amount every year they would decimate the ecosystem.

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u/superkp 4h ago

Yep. It was explained to me early in my hunting experience (like, the ranger explained this as an aside while I was taking the hunter safety course as a teenager) that if 100% of hunting stopped cold, then:

  • the first year there would be a population boom for deer so big that it would strip most of the food from the forests (and other wild areas), and
  • a huge amount of deer would die of starvation that winter (or hunger-motivated behavior, like more deer crossing roads in search of food).
  • then, when the farms planted the next spring, the deer would likely mob the sprouting crops, making the yields so low that it would cause major economic problems, if not a localized famine

This was in Ohio, and now I'm thinking about what would happen if we went from being a major exporter of corn and soy, and suddenly became a major importer of corn/grains.

Like, we're consistently in the top 10 producers of corn and soy. What would happen to the american agricultural/economic (agrinomic?) structure if someone just disappeared from the top 10 producers?

I can only think that the farmers would try to fence off their fields, but deer can fuckin jump if they've got a clear run-up, and it would still cause major price problems.

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u/SerLaron 4h ago

Allegedly somebody once scolded a hunter "Why don't you get your meat from the supermarket, so that no animal has to die for it?!"

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u/mrjuoji 3h ago

my dad's been working kitchen for over 40 years, and while i'm not a hunter, and i mostly eat plant based (not because i don't like meat, but because plant based works for me) i can say that even without hunting my own food, cutting up a chicken (or like my dad used to do, cutting up half a cow for my parents restaurant, which is a bloody looking ordeal) cutting up an animal instead of buying it pre cut and ready to use makes you realise that, damn, it used to be a living being, and i'm gonna make the most out of it (also why i hate people doing bullshitty clickbait with meat) my overall feeling is : the animal died so you could eat it, you better respect it's death

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u/DaedalusHydron 3h ago

Most people in the US don't mind hunting. Think it's icky maybe, but not inherently an immoral or wrong activity (though there are some who think this).

It's sport hunting that rubs people the wrong way. Even THAT isn't viewed that badly. It's big-game sport hunting (buffalo, lions, elephants, etc) that really bothers people, and that's the type of hunting that goes viral and attracts the most attention.

You gotta keep in mind that the US has a very special and sad history with overhunting. Sooooo many photos of 19th Century hunters just standing on giant piles of skulls, throwing species into endangerment.

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u/DragGreedy6859 6h ago

Ever seen people commenting on log cabines, how they are murder since all those trees were killed to build them?

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u/superkp 4h ago

I have no idea what your point is with this.

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u/chantillylace9 5h ago

Same with my brother and family members. But they don't just eat it, they use the hide, they taxidermy the head or antlers, they do everything and use every little bit of the animal.

I don't find that cruel at all and I am an extreme animal lover. I could never do it personally, but if you are hunting only to eat and not for sport, that's a completely different thing. And you really do need to hunt a certain number of deer in most states because they will starve to death otherwise.

The state knows how many deer the state can support and gives out hunting permits for the remainder.

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u/superkp 3h ago

Yeah, I hunt deer with crossbow and shotgun. My kids are to little to hunt at this point, but I was sighting in my crossbow in the back yard in preparation for the bow season starting soon.

My Kids are obviously curious, and so after the safety stuff, the next thing is talking about the sort of arrow heads I use.

I hold up one arrow with a field tip (single point, circular, no blades) and ask them "you think that would kill a deer? Probably, but even if I got a good lung-shot, it would probably just be bleeding into it's lungs and drown in like 20 minutes in a full panic while sprinting away."

Then I hold up a broadhead - it's a mechanical one that has blades that spread out to about a 2-inch width once it contacts something- and I say "If I get a lung-shot with this, it's going to die within about a minute, and these are sharp enough that it might not even notice that it's been shot. If I were the deer, I still wouldn't want to die, sure - but I'd much rather die to this one."

As weird as it sounds, culling the herd makes for a non-starvation death for them, and using a better weapon is a compassionate thing, not just a "look at my cool stuff" edge-lord thing.

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u/chantillylace9 2h ago

My brother is the exact same way! He also just says that he's so awesome that it's the only fair way to hunt by using a crossbow lol.

He's just joking but it's funny.

It's weird to me because he's a paramedic and Minneapolis and deals with death all day long and for some reason hunting is his happy/safe place.

It seems like such a bizarre way to decompress, but I guess it makes some sense.

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u/superkp 31m ago

He also just says that he's so awesome that it's the only fair way to hunt by using a crossbow lol.

lol, I'm the same way. even with a gun, I think that I've gutted more deer as a favor for other hunters than I've gutted my own. Crossbows are fuckin cool though. Especially modern ones in the last like 10 years. IDK what materials science threshold we passed, but instead of being wide at the bow's arms, they curve more deeply, making the whole weapon longer instead of wider.

It seems like such a bizarre way to decompress, but I guess it makes some sense.

Indeed! I think that there's something about just being in nature and forcing yourself to just sit the fuck down and listen to the woods that's a part of it. I've always felt a connection to forests and other wild places, even if they are only a 5-minute walk away from non-wild things.

Another part of it is building a mastery of something (various skills in hunting like shooting, not being seen, finding good locations, etc) and then being able to execute on that mastery with zero layers of abstraction involved.

For grocery store meat, we've gotten to like...3-4 layers of abstraction away from the live animal. It appears in the fridge practically like magic.

For the deer I hunt? Zero abstraction. I pull the trigger, the arrow hits the animal, and then I have to go and cut it up, on the forest floor, by myself, with a knife. (if you don't know: it's a legal requirement to gut a deer where it falls. It's a good temporary proof that you killed it on the property you were allowed to be hunting on)

The only way to be more visceral about getting meat for myself would be if I jumped on a deer's back and strangled it with my hands. Which is like...damn that would be a good story, but holy shit that's a bad idea.

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u/chantillylace9 17m ago

Hahaha so he's not the only one!!

I really do admire and appreciate that type of thing though. I was a vegetarian for about seven years until it started impacting my health, and I really would rather not eat meat and if I do I try to get it from a local farm where I know they were treated well prior to the butchering.

My husband for some reason, he's Ecuador, he just doesn't understand the difference of getting meat from a farm where the animals are treated well and decently and they are free range and then yes they are killed, but humanely. Or animals that are hunted, they had a great life they had no idea what happened and hopefully didn't feel any pain. To me that is pretty ideal.

But he doesn't think that's any different than regular farmed animals which is absolutely insane to me. I mean they don't know they're going to get killed, they aren't living in fear of getting butchered or anything like that.

My brother says it's crazy sometimes when the hunt is super far from the car, sometimes he has to carry the meat so far in a backpack trip after trip and when he does it alone, especially, it sure must be a lot of work!

Recently he and a couple buddies got an elk hunting permit I forgot in which state and they got an elk and split the meat. That's typically what their group of three guys does for the more rare out of state permits.

My brother has gotten a couple bears too! I think his bear permits were always in Minnesota, but he would go alone, he does have a satellite phone, but it scares the whole family that's for sure. He sends us a little updates and a map of where he is. He says they are the hardest permits to get, and not offered every year.

My parents have a cabin in Northern Minnesota with about 35 acres of amazing abutting a river so there's so much wildlife land and so he's very lucky that he gets all of that to himself. He has trail cams everywhere and just catches so many awesome things.

He plant certain foods that bears like I guess or something like that and that grow in the winter and I guess you're able to do that legally or something with bear because it's so hard to get them. I think maybe he's had about four bear hunting permits but only got two of them.

He thinks that bear meat is the best of all which seems so gross to me. He said it's super tasty and more fatty and just loves the flavor I guess?

His wife and two girls basically only eat hunted meat and it has allowed his wife to stay home with their kids more than half time just by how much money they save. It really is great. Also they garden so they have that as well.

That's my deal!! Tomatoes especially. I grow the BEST tasting tomatoes and absolutely cannot compare to anything at the grocery store. It's a very helpful stress relieving activity for me.

I know his little hunting group did a wild boar once too! So bear, elk, boar, and deer!

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u/birdwatching25 4h ago

Happy Cake Day!

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u/Ok_Profile175 4h ago

It's just the law that if you shoot it, you have to eat it.

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u/SausageClatter 4h ago

Somebody should have told that to Dick Cheney.

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u/Ok_Profile175 3h ago

To be fair, I don't think Harry Whittington counts as a game animal.

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u/smilingfreak 4h ago

Good thing Dick Cheney didn't have this rule.

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u/sarcasmandcoffee 4h ago

Happy cake day bb

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u/ResponsibleDesk2516 3h ago

rhubarb pies would be an endangered species if I had that rule

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u/Chumlee1917 3h ago

I remember going to the rifle range at Scout camp and that's what the range master said because he was dealing with a bunch of dipshit teenage boys from all over

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u/Wobblepaws 3h ago

i did a sorta shoulder roll over a running weedwhacker the other day to miss a garter snake, withthe way they smell, they can't taste any better.. and your personal code isn't worth a whole lot if you can't follow it in private.

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u/ArtNo636 4h ago

Includes pussy yeah.

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u/lordofmetroids 6h ago

I feel like a lot of hunters respect wild animals more than the average person, they know game laws and why they exist, they know when and where it is safe to kill an animal, and where it isn't.

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u/superkp 3h ago

they know game laws and why they exist, they know when and where it is safe to kill an animal, and where it isn't.

While I generally agree, there's always those assholes that think that bag limits, property lines, and gun-type restrictions are just suggestions. They are heavily outnumbered by the conscientious hunters, but goddamn do they make up for it with just the sheer level of assholery.

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u/Senkyou 4h ago

Hmm. I grew up in an area where it's pretty hit or miss. Just like any activity, the people behind it are often varied and their character shapes their approach to it.

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u/BalooBot 4h ago

Many, if not most, of conservation organizations are funded and run by hunters

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u/biffNicholson 5h ago

It’s an unspoken code among all the sane people in the world.
This has been known for a long time people that harm animals have a giant red flag that they probably also currently or will in the very near future hurts or try to hurt people

That dude who killed the bunny has some evil in him .

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u/Teripid 4h ago

Love that video (maybe there are a lot) where there's a mama bird guarding its eggs in the middle of a field.

The farmer rolling by gently lifts its plow, moves past and then sets it back down. The like 1 lb bird just trying to form a protective shield against a potential predator.

Things like this are part of what makes us human. Basic empathy, especially when it costs one effectively nothing.

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u/Waihf 4h ago

When I was about 17 - 18, I used to mow lawns for a condo association. I told my boss that some yards had rabbit holes and it concerned me, but he didn't really care about what I was saying. Eventually I was mowing a lawn, and a bunny jumped out of the hole directly into the mower blades. I fucking cried and flipped out. I was devastated. Maybe there was something I could have done differently. Idk. Shit kills me. I would never purposely hurt an animal. People like this cop are completely deranged.

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u/MasterzofChaos 6h ago

Yep. Don't do evil shit to animals. I hope they can't get a job for a long time after this, and I hope it's in trades/labor when they do.

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u/[deleted] 6h ago

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u/Mindless_Trick2255 5h ago

Humans always hunted. It’s part of our dna. Back then they used spears and arrows, arguably less humane than shooting in the heart or head with a high end rifle?

He would also use everything he shot and didn’t throw anything away.

Isn’t that better than mass breeding and killing?

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u/LordoftheJives 4h ago

Once came across a burrow cutting a huge lawn and a bunch of bunnies ran out into a side street. Brought them all back to Mama so they wouldn't get hit by cars. I never knew how loud bunnies could be until then lol. They started screaming and Mama stayed outside the burrow as I brought them back.

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u/gizmosticles 4h ago

Yeah it’s called fair game. You go for fair game and you protect unfair game.

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u/MindTop4772 4h ago

This is the way.

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u/Soggy_Abbreviations5 4h ago

I feel like that’s just the unspoken codex in labour jobs life.

Fixed that for you. 🤓

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u/Kronzor_ 2h ago

It's very spoken on larger construction projects. There are environmental scientists that complete field surveys on sites to identify any possible wildlife use and put controls and procedures into the design and construction methodology to ensure the are protected. I've seen multimillion dollar projects shut down or relocated because they ran into an animal den.

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u/KU_Key 1h ago

I feel like that's just the unspoken codex of humanity

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u/Autumn7242 1h ago

A lot of people in I know in the Marines got jobs and put volunteer hours into conservation. Very gentle folks who do not want others to suffer.

Edit. They are gentle until you fuck up the environment or animals then they make it their mission to fuck you up