I know this is more of a "chatter" topic, but I felt more comfortable posting it here.
I just watched a news bit about turkey bowling. I've never heard of this before, but it's apparently a popular "sport" around the holidays. I was horrified! The turkey was a beautiful, living creature, that was killed, frozen, and tossed around for fun. It probably wasn't even eaten afterwards.
Why dont people THINK about what they are doing anymore? What kind of person uses a dead animal as a toy?
Why dont people THINK about what they are doing anymore? What kind of person uses a dead animal as a toy?
What kind of person uses a dead animal as a toy? The same one who wouldn't think twice of eating a dead animal, and in fact would indignantly. defensively argue with anyone who suggested it might not be the best thing to do.
That is just sad. The ultimate lack of respect for an animal.
I was trying to think if other animals do anything like this. Cats will sometimes play with dead, or soon-to-be-dead mice, and not necessarily eat them. (I suspect this applies primarily to well-fed domestic cats that don't need to consume their natural prey.) Oh and then there are the dogs that like to roll in dead squirrel or dead seal here on the coast.... I couldn't come up with any other equivalents. Maybe I just don't want to think about it too much. Still, people have a bazillion choices of things to play with. There is no need to resort to this.
Last edited by Spinymouse; 11-23-2007 at 12:22 PM.
I believe this started with very bored grocery store employees, who had to work on Thanksgiving Day. At least that's what I heard from an older cousin (who was a bagger in a grocery store) one Christmas. He was about 16 at the time, I was 9 or 10, so it was about thirty years ago. Grocery stores (at least in our small town) were just starting to stay open on Thanksgiving (before that most closed at noon). The store was "dead" because everyone was home celebrating Thanksgiving with their families, and the store employees were bored and resentful and with no supervision (because the store manager was of course staying home with his family) so the turkey bowling was sort of a protest. I know the turkey bowling wasn't invented by my cousin and his coworkers, as one of them had heard of it being done before. I don't know what is generally done with the bird, but I know that in my cousin's case, they put the bird back in the freezer, so some unsuspecting customer apparently took it home and had it for dinner. Since they didn't play long enough for the bird to defrost at all, I don't really know if there would have been any physical difference from any other frozen bird.
In college, I also heard of turkey bowling again, but not in reference to Thanksgiving, but to (again bored) college students working the night shift at the big 24/7 grocery store in town.
I was watching a documentary on television Wednesday about a small village in some country where they kill and dress a goat (not in clothes, I mean they take out the innards, and cut off the head) and play a game with it on horseback. The first person to get the goat into a chalk circle wins. They win the goat and in celebration invite everyone to a party where the goat is served for dinner.
I do think a lack of respect for a dead bird, and even the act of eating meat itself does not necessarily indicate a lack of respect for living creatures. My father was raised on a farm, and hunted as a young man. He has more understanding and respect for living creatures than anyone I've ever known. I've also known very ethical hunters (at least since moving to Wisconsin were most of the men and a good number of the women hunt). In an area where deer frequently suffer the effects of overpopulation (starvation and disease), it's almost seen by some as a duty and obligation to kill and eat (not waste) deer. I think it is interesting to know that there are more deer alive today than ever before, because deer don't live in deep forest, they live at forest edge. With human populations come more forest edge, not less. That and we've eliminated predators, so to a certain degree, people here feel that we have to do some of the job that predators naturally do.
My mother told me yesterday of what she heard on the news about some father and daughter deliberately raising a turkey to be raced against each other at Thanksgiving Day....now, they each fed this turkey to the point of extremes, where one turkey weighted in at 70 pounds! Don't ask me how that turkey could even race, let alone get off the ground. I find this appalling, and honestly, I can't believe how much popular support there is for this kind of thing....
on pogo.com (one of my favorite gaming sites) during Thanksgiving *USA* it has a bowling game where the pins are dressed up like turkeys and make a gobbling sound when you knock em down. Kinda cute though and not the as horrifing as raising turkeys as bowling balls (sad). For Christmas they're dressed up like Santa's Elves.
I do think a lack of respect for a dead bird, and even the act of eating meat itself does not necessarily indicate a lack of respect for living creatures. My father was raised on a farm, and hunted as a young man. He has more understanding and respect for living creatures than anyone I've ever known. I've also known very ethical hunters (at least since moving to Wisconsin were most of the men and a good number of the women hunt). In an area where deer frequently suffer the effects of overpopulation (starvation and disease), it's almost seen by some as a duty and obligation to kill and eat (not waste) deer. I think it is interesting to know that there are more deer alive today than ever before, because deer don't live in deep forest, they live at forest edge. With human populations come more forest edge, not less. That and we've eliminated predators, so to a certain degree, people here feel that we have to do some of the job that predators naturally do.
I can understand this argument somewhat, but I still think two wrongs don't make a right. People see it as a "deer overpopulation problem" when I think it's really more of a people overpopulation problem. We, after all, have decimated the native predator populations and cut down the forests for agricultural and commercial development. Then of course, there are hunters like my cousins who shoot coyotes because they are "pests"
Sorry to be OT! Bowling with a turkey carcass is kind of gross, but not more gross than eating one.
turkey bowling?
What kind of person uses a dead animal as a toy? 
lol
