instead of Uggs, mukluk boots

[Owlie]

Whoa. I don't participate in the "what did you eat" threads ... is there that level of judgmentalism there, too, against those who eat meat and/or dairy products?!

I think it's less the shearling and more "fur from cute, non-domestic animals"

[shootingstar]

I really hope some people if you feel so strongly then write to the manufacturer --- it's in northern Manitoba...and they hire aboriginal artists for some of their designs.

Yup, I eat meat several times per month. I've never been vegetarian. I could be if I couldn't have meat for whatever reason. But I haven't done it.

I like finished leather hide shoes..particularily for dress shoes. My feet feels the difference in how leather shapes properly around the foot.

[OakLeaf]

I think it's less the shearling and more "fur from cute, non-domestic animals"

And the convenient forgetting of what happens to animals when you buy petroleum-derived clothing.

[Owlie]

And the convenient forgetting of what happens to animals when you buy petroleum-derived clothing.

Well, yes.

On the other hand, it's much harder to throw fur in the washing machine...

For shoes, leather all the way. There's a reason it's still being used. The fur...well, I dunno. If it's byproduct, and someone's eating the rabbit, I'm okay with it. Same with any hide or fur, really.

[shootingstar]

Hey, Oak good point but where I live..in a province that is so frickin' tied/in bed with to the oil production (which include tar sands), I probably wouldn't overfocus on that line of argument in my part of country....Alberta is also Canada's biggest beef producer. Lots of beef/large steak eaters in our area of country.

Not that I consider myself part of the pack..when I lived in Ontario for several decades of life plus B.C. where fish and seafood are plentiful.

There are limits for me..I was a bit horrified that sport fishing includes catching and throwing the fish back into water. Really? The fish is already hurt..and probably won't survive well thereafter.

When my present boss blithely told us and loud enough for other employees to hear, that her hubby taught her daughter how to shoot deer. They go on hunting trips --father-daughter. I really didn't want to hear that..she (boss) is born, grown up and lived in Alberta all her life. They do um...eat the deer.

But I honestly don't agree with urban folks hunting deer --as a sport. Better way up northern Canada, where it's so frickin' expensive to get fresh food. I hope people understand how flippin' expensive it is to have fresh veggies and fruits, shipped in the far Arctic. So people do have to hunt animals there.

Off topic: I have NEVER thrown shoes into the washing machine. I think the thought never entered my mother's head. I'm trying to envision washing running shoes for her 6 children in washing machine. Just after aload of sheets and cloth diapers? (Seriously?) We put the shoes in a bucket of water. But then we rarely washed shoes. We never walked around inside house with outdoor shoes. (And I ask guests to take off their shoes in our home.)

[lph]

Just curious - why do you have a problem with someone hunting for sport if they actually eat the meat? If you eat meat yourself (and I do, too, don't get me wrong) you "hunt" too, you just don't actually hold the gun. And especially if you eat regular chicken or pork, the total suffering involved is significantly higher in store-bought meat - in my opinion.

I don't hunt myself, but I try to buy game whenever I can, sometimes in stores, sometimes from colleagues who hunt deer and moose.

[shootingstar]

I seriously wonder how much people from big cities hunt...meanwhile with their gun collections.... (which shockingly was revealed after we had a river flood. The amount of guns kept for safety by the police when people were evacuated from a town south of our city. Not far from us.)

Lph, the issue of gun ownership and hunting is abit tied to my tendencies for gun control. If it's difficult and expensive to get the food, then hunting, fishing can be viable.

[lph]

I get the gun control bit. Gun ownership here is mainly hunting rifles and strictly controlled, hand guns are very rare. There's a strong traditional component to hunting here, to the extent that some rural counties will postpone all administrative meetings in September until after moose hunting season :-) And quite a few urbanites who have grown up in rural places will go home to hunt in the fall.

[Owlie]

Just curious - why do you have a problem with someone hunting for sport if they actually eat the meat? If you eat meat yourself (and I do, too, don't get me wrong) you "hunt" too, you just don't actually hold the gun. And especially if you eat regular chicken or pork, the total suffering involved is significantly higher in store-bought meat - in my opinion.

I don't hunt myself, but I try to buy game whenever I can, sometimes in stores, sometimes from colleagues who hunt deer and moose.

I guess what I disagree with is the macho posturing part of hunting, but that's a very small subset and I think is played up by the media. If you kill it and eat it and happen to decide to have its head taxidermied, I have no problem with it. (Keeps the deer population down--my only concern would be chronic wasting disease!)

[OakLeaf]

What Owlie and Irulan said. Don't forget that since we wiped out all the other large predators in most of North America, humans are the only predators of deer.

Not that the game laws in most of the US encourage responsible culling of the herd. And not that they *don't* encourage macho posturing. I think that unfortunately, among gun hunters at least, that's way more common than Owlie suggests. If the gun season weren't so short, IMO there wouldn't be such a hoorah of people - yeah, mostly men - taking off work to "get their deer," having not aimed a firearm for the other 50 weeks of the year ...


(And as far as food shopping in rural areas ... I'm very surprised that a town of 2,000 is too small to have a full-service grocery store within 100 km. I was thinking about towns with populations of 100 to 500.)

[lph]

I guess what I disagree with is the macho posturing part of hunting, but that's a very small subset and I think is played up by the media. If you kill it and eat it and happen to decide to have its head taxidermied, I have no problem with it. (Keeps the deer population down--my only concern would be chronic wasting disease!)

Ok, I just wanted to tell this - last winter a friend and I went halves on a third of a moose (these are BIG creatures) that a co-worker had shot. I wish I could post a photo, but this hunting co-worker is 24, petite, a little shy, cute as a button, has long glossy dark hair down to her waist, wears make-up, stylish clothes and boots with heels every day, and has guys falling over her wherever she goes. She's also a bureaucrat like me. She loves to hunt moose and is very skilled at it. I rather doubt she has the taxidermied head of anything anywhere.

I don't the like macho look-I-can-kill-things mindset either, but for many people it's really not about that at all :-)

[TrekDianna]

I guess what I disagree with is the macho posturing part of hunting, but that's a very small subset and I think is played up by the media. If you kill it and eat it and happen to decide to have its head taxidermied, I have no problem with it. (Keeps the deer population down--my only concern would be chronic wasting disease!)

Agreed. Last year there were so many photos on FB of guys with their just killed deer etc that a few friends and I started posing with our kale, leeks and other things just hunted down at the grocery store. Posing with a photo of what you killed just irritates me. Yes, it's the posturing. You killed it with a weapon, you did not wrestle it to the ground in a feat of strength. I have nothing against hunting for food, I do not like trophy hunting.