Episode 44 New Zealand Hunting

Episode 44

New Zealand Hunting






Then I'll never visit Las Vegas. Hello, welcome to episode 44 of Jay Wont dart's podcast, where I talk about sad parts of New Zealands culture. My intro was from This Week In Tech episode 211. Recently I've been covering a lot of New Zealand news stories, I hope to help this information get out. Right now there are a lot of "white baiters", people who go out catching tiny fish known as "white bait" in nets along riversides. What we in New Zealand call Whitebait is actually the juvenile form of a certain kind of fish, not sure how to say the name, Galaxiid. The babies, White Bait as they are known, look like slimy little white worms. In Southland, a fairly rural area, its a big thing to go out "white baiting", a bunch of guys will go out to "the river" and catch these baby fish in nets. I find it revolting, but it seems to be a cultural thing here, and its nearly impossible to get people to agree that they are standing about a river, getting drunk, all to catch tiny little baby animals in nets. The newspapers and local business market for White Baiters, its just an accepted part of Southland life.

In New Zealand, its fairly common, or at least portrayed in NZ popular culture to be common, to go out hunting. I doubt the average New Zealand bloke goes out hunting a few times a year, but its part of our image, as being tough hairy men, all New Zealand men are portrayed as big strong hunters, even when catching baby fish in nets. The most commonly killed animals would probably be deer, ducks and pigs. For this episode , Ill mention all three. I have opinions from two other vegans to play on this episode, as well as many sound clips from youtube and New Zealand news stories.




To start off, heres some great advice comes from fishandgame.org.nz , a government body regulating hunting.

"Now comes the fun part, gutting it, drawing the bird, eviscerating it, whatever you want to call it. Grab that sharp knife and make 2 cuts. The first is in the throat area. This is so you can poke the hose or tap into it and flush the cavity out. The second cut is from below the breastplate bone toward the anus" Sound like fun to you?

The fish and game site even has a youth section, its kind of like a rugged boy scouts image, the idea of kids who know how to live off the fat of the land, so to speak. Its pretty sick, getting kids indoctrinated that hunting=good at a young age. Its a shame these kids arnt playing more violent video games, otherwise they might have learnt that hunting isnt something to be proud of , . Well said Solid Snake.

My first clip, is about pig hunting, I'll play back some of the sounds.



In one form of pig hunting, a pack of dogs track down a wild pig, then bite onto it any way they can, to hold the pig. Then a so called "pig hunter" will walk over, and cut the pigs throat.

In some forms of pig hunting, the hunters shoot the pig, I guess they need to shoot the more dangerous larger boars. But, in many of the videos I saw on YouTube, the big brave hunters rely on a 5-10 dogs to find, chase and catch the pig, and hold it down for the big brave hunter, as he cuts its throat. Sometimes, the pig manages to fight back. When they do, I bet the hunters act as though the pig's broken the law "hey mate, you're not meant to defend yourself, you should just let us kill ya mate!"

Heres an example of that, some idiot hunter had his finger bit by the pig, and yeah, its bleeding quite a lot, but its hardly equal to the damage done to the pig. Listen to him bitch about it.



So, when hes surrounding a single Labrador sized pig with a bunch of dogs, with a bunch of his friends, and hes complaining that the pig bit him on the finger? Dude, you're trying to cut its throat, why should it make it easy for you?

I asked for some help making this episode, and my friend Linda sent me a few pictures of injured pig hunting dogs. Heres what Linda has to say.




Thank you Linda for helping me with this hunting episode.

Some of these hunting videos I've got from YouTube have good production, with titles and different effects edited in. Some are set to music, making out a good time with rock music, or a large dramatic piece you may recognise, set to southland duck shooters. Those are real gun shots, not sound effects.




When you are out hunting, you are not meant to be drinking alcohol, but I would assume that most duck shooters etc do. Even tv pieces have highlighted "the boys havin' a few" as they stand around all day in camo gear, waiting to kill a small bird. This is just one of many mainstream news pieces about hunting in New Zealand, I really dont know why people want to go out hunting if this is anything what its really like.



Another person to get back to me about this episode was my good friend Sam, from http://nzdairy.webs.com/ .



Thank you very much Sam, Im always glad to have you on my podcast. You can see one of Sams websites at nzdairy.webs.com.

I have two further clips. This one is from a local Southland TV station, Cue.



So that just goes to show that its a fairly traditional to hunt among many rural families, but that doesnt make it acceptable to me.

This is a Campbell Live piece about making your own meat, apparently more common because of meat being too expensive at the local supermarket. I honestly doubt that many people in New Zealand hunt for all their meat, but maybe to the hunters it seems that way.



Kinda sick hearing that resturant guy at the end promote wild game meat as "responsible, organic" and as "controlling pests". This is what animal welfare has given us, a load of ways to describe a nice way of killing animals. Some animals are pests? Why, because they want to eat a bit of grass, a couple leaves off a tree or two? Get real, its not like they are dumping toxic waste into rivers.


The point of this episode has been to highlight hunting in New Zealand. Its not a very normal thing in this country, I dont think most people go out hunting, but its still seen as something to be proud of, catching baby fish in nets, training dogs to viciously grab pigs by the testicles, and shooting at cute little ducks. I really hope our attitudes change away from this, and that we learn to give animals the respect they deserve.


My outro will be a remix of a certain clip from Trading Spouses, Bacon is Good for me.

Thank you for listening.

You can find the script for this episode, as well as downloads for every episode of Jay Wont darts podcast at jaywontdart.blogspot.com

If you want to contact me, even just to say you listened, send an email to jaywontdart@gmail.com, j a y w o n t d a r t @ gmail.com, I'd appreciate it.

Have a super happy day, bye.





sources
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"now comes the fun part" fish and game
http://www.fishandgame.org.nz/Site/Harvest/Ducks.aspx

pig hunting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shPLfGjEF5w


cue tv footage duck shooting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeFCuaJ4K-0

kill your own dinner campbell llive
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBwf1XzxNkw


pig bite
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Cg-rPpQFoY

duck carnage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_Pao5GJYYI