Good.
We need to start pushing back against the animal rights movement. The irrational insanity over the euthanized Danish giraffe should be a wake-up call to everyone to realize how removed from reality many in the west have become.
A wildlife animal park in Switzerland has hit upon a novel idea to ensure its restaurants don’t run out of food, by serving up meat from some of the exhibits. The Langenberg, nestled to the west of Lake Zurich, houses brown bears, wolves, elk, wild boar and other beasties, but as well as gawping at their majesty, visitors can …
Yes I too have shot Bambi and her wild boar friends and enjoyed a succulent feast afterwards.
This is all part of a regulated cull in forest management over in Lower Saxony.
Some of the meat is taken home, the rest sold. Even better during the Schützenfest the boar is slow roasted over an open fire and eaten with copius amounts of beer.
es hat mir sehr gut geschmeckt
The kids in schools around Inverness munch on venison quite a lot - the deer are going to be culled, and the meat is lower in fat and higher in iron than beef, and a lot, lot cheaper, so bring it on.
There has to be an distinction between the various animal rights activists - some point out bad practice and cruelty, and others are idiots.
I was wondering that too. I would have thought that it was a bit dicey trying to get a condom on a bear at the appropriate time (and you'd have to do it for them...no opposable thumbs + big claws so self-service isn't really an option).
El Reg should follow up on this and give Ruth Widmer a call asking for suggestions for how to implement the idea. I bet the answer would be something along the lines of "That's your problem, I just set policy" or some other -heh- buck passing.
We should certainly be eating more venison. The animal is a pest as they breed so many in the wild. No predators. It makes a lot of sense to sling them in the pot. Such a healthy meat too. (I made a big pot of Bambi Stew last weekend... yum!)
It sounds very sensible that this zoo makes good use of their excess animals. I bet there are just as many mice being breed on site that are fed to the snakes.
Ah - here we have a difference between wildlife experts and animal lovers. Actually you can give some animals long term contraceptives, but then you have to catch them first, which doesn't do much for their stress levels. If you leave them you'll get all the problems associated with habitat loss and overcrowding.
Culling is a good solution - as long as it's done humanely and let's face it, venison and wild boar are very tasty. Saying which, it's Woodpigeon breasts for dinner tonight :-)
This park is doing the right thing, as long as it is not done for profit.
Just as man has done for the last 250 000 years, I hunt. Recently I was lucky enough to have reloaded my own bullets, stalked, killed, skinned, gutted, butchered, cooked, served and then enjoyed eating some deer.
When you go through all of these steps you are reminded at every stage about where meat really comes from. The brutal facts exist, if you eat meat, then you have directly or indirectly induced the death of an animal.. Many people seem to forget or push to the back of their minds this fact...
When you kill and eat an animal you gain far more respect for animals than most people would like to believe.
I doubt very much that man would have survived if he had not been a meat eater.
By the way calling a deer, "Bambi" is a tactic in order to induce sympathy.. Dead Bambi would taste just the same as dead deer. Would it please the Defend the Animals crowd if we gave lettuce and tomatoes names too ?
Well, there are some among the more extreme vegan sects who would take offence to you doing all the dastardly things you've described...to a tomato or a lettuce in its prime.
We'll have none of your genocidal picking, harvesting and other barbaric practices.
Only fruits and vegetables which have already died a natural death may be eaten.
I say - show some respect to Tommy Tomato and Lisa Lettuce.
"I was lucky enough to have reloaded my own bullets,"
Umm, rich bastard - most of us do not have a loader. Anyway, re-usable bullets - that's ecological.
Fascinated that using bullets is hunting as man has for thousands of years. Gives me a new perspecitve on our forefathers up to about the 15th century. So life was not as tough. I suppose they had decent waterproofs too.
>Fascinated that using bullets is hunting as man has for thousands of years. Gives me a new perspecitve on our forefathers up to about the 15th century. So life was not as tough. I suppose they had decent waterproofs too.
Let me have a think about that, this will be my poor attempt at justification.
Man once used his hands, got bitten and probably eaten - Darwins law is progress here.
Man found that throwing stones was better but still not effective enough - the mass was there but not speed, oh shit here comes Darwin again.
Man realised that using a sling improved the speed of the small stones at least - but they lacked knock down power. ( Knock knock, hello Mr Darwin its you again)
Man had fire but didn't yet know how to mix it with stones.
Skip forward a few 100 thousand years.
Man then goes through a long slow period of learning/creating bows and arrows, crossbows ( small projectiles on a stick), catapults/trebuchets ( slow large projectiles ), maces and clubs etc.
Et voila , the miracle "gunpowder" arrives, now we could mix fire, small projectiles and develop enough energy to knock down, ie kill, living things.
The progression has always been comprised of small projectiles being thrown at increasinlgy higher speed an developing increasing amounts of energy (Joules).
But even today I still have to go out in the cold and rain, often returning empty handed, require the patience of a sloth, and when possible manage to cleanly hit a running, jumping small framed 20 kg Roe deer whilst it darts between the trees and bushes and all within a 3 second time frame. That part has never changed.
Most importantly though, it gets me away from the screen for a couple of hours on the weekends, which is never a bad thing.
... many years ago a friend of mine was living in a single room in a shared house. Someone gave him a rabbit that had been sprung from an animal lab. Unfortunately the rabbit used to keep him awake at night by running round his room, so he gave it to the local wildlife centre.
It turned out that the local wildlife centre was feeding rabbits it was given to the other animals. Or, as my friend put it, 'Wilfred was eaten by the weasels'
Someone gave him a rabbit that had been sprung from an animal lab
"Enjoy your Ebola."
The great thing is that these wildlife springers are exactly the people that complain that ultra-cheap safe drugs are not being dropped en masse on outbreak areas, probably because "no profits in this".
It must be nice to have a choice of avoiding melted cheese. Swiss cuisine makes 20th century British look cosmopolitan. Perhaps this'll reduce their suicide rate! Be interesting to see what the consequence of a Swiss population explosion is as the locals flock to the zoos.
I would say, in response to the overwhelmingly anti-animal lover response, though, that the same arguments apply to long pig. Otherwise, as anti-animal rights arguments are more-often-than-not, it's speciesism, one of the few remaining prejudices. And, after all, they do have Dignitas and surely not everyone who goes there has the kind of illness that makes them inedible (I mean, not like, say, a gammy leg).
I live in Switzerland. I do not know where you were; but every town of any size has at least as good a range of food as most of, for example, Britain. Of course, the coffee and wine tend to be better here. It can, in fact, be hard to find traditional Swiss food.
I do not know the figures: but I do not believe the suicide rate is that much higher. It is likely to be higher because more households here have got easy access to guns (military service), which is a known correlating factor.
I do not believe that there is any relation whatsoever between firearms and suicide.
Suicide is more generally related to social/personal problems. This is actually a very important statement within the given context.
The Swiss in general do not like to publish anything negative about their country, they prefer to not discuss their internal problems - they like to keep things secret ( they don't like to speak about their drug problems/addicts either but they do have them too).
It's a great country when you have money, it is depressing/lonely when you don't. There are now over 500 000 millionaires ( a lot of expats !!!!!!!!), from a population of 8 Million, to help remind you every day that you are not one of them.. Social pressures are huge.... go figure about suicide..
When our kids used to take packed lunches to (junior) school venison sarnies (much cheaper than beef!) were one of their favourites, not just because they were yummy but because when somebody asked them what their lunch was they could answer "Bambi".
Or even better, "Bambi's mum" -- cue squeals of horror from kids who think meat comes in plastic trays from the supermarket...
I like both, it all depends on the cooking and the sauce, if any..
As for the deer....It's hard to beat a piece of backstrap cooked to perfection. Simple recipe as follows.
Medium to high heat oil in a frying pan.
Place backstrap steaks in oil - 2 minutes on each side - just leave them to cook on their own
Remove, put on plate, cover with foil for 10 mins.
Return to frying pan, but butter this time and a little fresh parsley. ( about a minute per side - basting with the butter).
Some lightly boiled, slightly salted carrots on the side.
Red wine of course, venison is usually too strong for white, difficult to advise but you can't go wrong with a Cote Rotie. ( Condrieu is just south of Lyon, it's worth dropping in for a bottle of two - maturity after the 5 year mark).
Just delicious....
I'm irresistibly reminded of someone I once knew whose name was an acronym for Soup: he never forgave me for reminding him of it. Voila!
http://www.cartoonistgroup.com/store/add.php?iid=26906
"A magical Wasilla evening after the post-prom MOOSE SHOOT with Sarah Palin. The loons, Sarah! Can you hear the loons?"
Then there was the photo-opportunity of him and Sarah Palin about to chow down on a tourist they had downed with bow and arrow ... but I'm afraid I don't have that cartoon strip any longer.