newray hunting sets

i can't find any educational authorization for such "toys":
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Any other opinions?
I especially dislike the crossbows.

What is your question? I don't think the sets are meant to be 'educational' per se, but rather are play sets.

these toys are to teach children that killing animals is fun so that they can grow up to be big brave hunters.

i cannot imagine that these are bought by anyone other than those who hunt.

Mastiffcat wrote:

these toys are to teach children that killing animals is fun so that they can grow up to be big brave hunters.

i cannot imagine that these are bought by anyone other than those who hunt.

exactly. Brave hunters with equipment like soldiers,....
I hope they are only bought by hungers although i think it's a kind of belittlement.
"Toys for learning more about sports"
I was a little shocked.

Personally I don't hunt, but hunting is certainly a legitimate activity, at least where I live.

No one seems offended by farming toys - yet farms are by and large a place where animals are killed and eaten for food. I enjoy and appreciate animals, but I understand that animals form the part of many diets as well. I see nothing offensive in these toys.

jhudstone wrote:

Personally I don't hunt, but hunting is certainly a legitimate activity, at least where I live.

No one seems offended by farming toys - yet farms are by and large a place where animals are killed and eaten for food. I enjoy and appreciate animals, but I understand that animals form the part of many diets as well. I see nothing offensive in these toys.

oh! where can i buy my slatted floor barn-,
Or my goose-liver production-playset?
Those hunting toys are not crap just because of hunting, but the kind of hunting they represent.
Sports. Luxury.unnecessary.

Next would be a poacher or wire-snare paching adventure playset.
Or what about a Taiji Dolphin adventure collection?
Or hunting-tourism "wild african private reserve"-set?

You must be completely unfamiliar with what hunting requires, because generally speaking hunting requires the use of a gun or bow of some sort - why you think this represents 'unneccesary' hunting I have no idea. The reality is, hunters (at least in the US) not only provide for the spaces where wildlife resides, they help control populations of animals that would otherwise starve or die because of over-population.

And if neccesity is the primary concern, why buy animals figures at all? After all, they aren't neccesary to live, they use scarce petroleum based products which are potentially damaging to the environment. Should we conclude then that everyone who buys animal figures hates animals?

I do find these toys offensive because it is pushing ideas on children at a young age which will mix with their developement and cause them to think hunting is right to do.
jhudstone it is our fault that some species have to be hunted so they will not over populate. for example early on we killed all of th white tailed deers ememies so it is our fault we have to hunt them down. p.s. we should not be the ones complaing about over population the human is extremly over populated.

First off, you are assuming it is 'wrong to hunt' - humans have been hunting for thousands of years. Animals hunt. Hunting isn't in and of itself wrong.

And while I agree that a lack of predators is a factor in over-population, it doesn't change the fact that there is still over-population, and it needs to be controlled. Where I live we have succesfully introduced a number of predators, but by themselves there is no way they are going to control populations that comfortably live in near-urban areas.

Also, a lot of those animals died off because wherever humans live, whether they are hunters or not, they clear fields, they build roads, and they build houses. So focusing on hunters as the problem is absurd.

The solution to this is simple - if you don't like the toys, don't buy them.

Judstone, I suppose you live in USA ?

I fully agree that there needs to be a regulation of wildlife, or they would fight each other and/or starve to death, because there aren`enough "natural" enemies.
Also that the disappearance of habitats is much more a threat to wildlife.

The difference to attitude is enormous from where I live and in USA.
Once in South Carolina I was invited to participate in a pigeon hunt.
In my naivity I thought it was clay pigeons, and thought it would be fun to participate, but that I couldn`t, because I had not brought my permit to carry a weapon.
But I just had to sign a piece of paper stating my age, gender and hair colour, and ta-daaa, I had a permit to carry a shutgun in USA!

And further, it was NOT clay pigeons, it were real, live pigeons.
Somebody had been feeding pigeons on a field, and the poor creatures kept comming back for food, but were shot at by a bunch of stupid people who had great fun ( trying to) killing them.

Or rather some were shut, because a few of the "hunters" knew how to hit. Most of the pigeons were "only" wounded by people who had no idea how to aim!!!!!
It was the most horrible, gruesome slaughter I have ever seen !
It was treating the live creatures as ...... TOYS !

In Denmark you are NOT allowed to go hunting before you pass an exam after a longish education, where you learn about wild animals, which animals are protected, and when the others are having offspring, and with very few exceptions of course must not be killed!
The ability to hit the target is trained and you have to pass a test every year to have the permit extended.

Yes, hunting is neccesary, and I realise that many people like to go hunting.

But it is surely not a game, and surely not a toy to give to children to play with !

Serious parents who want their child to become a hunter eventually, can take children with them out to watch the animals, see how they live, teach them which animals are endangered and which are not , what they eat, when they have offspring - make them knowleable hunters, not somebody who bangs away at everything that moves, becaue animals are NOT toys .

I appreciate your view, and agree that animals should never be treated as mere sport, and that hunting should be regulated so it isn't abused. And I would say attitudes differ greatly in the US - in Minnesota where I live such education is required for youths to be licensed.

However, I disagree about the 'play' aspect. Children play at many things that are serious; they have games and figures that involve soldiers, policemen, 'good guys' and 'bad guys'. They pretend to be parents and have toys babies and drive cars and operate machinery. That is how they learn, and one of the best ways to teach. If they are going to have the freedom to hunt when they grow up, then what better way to do so responsibly than to role play when they are children?

And a few, like myself, will play at building zoos and natural landscapes, and enjoy that as well. I don't think pretending such things is in and itself harmful at all.

Another off-topic to "Talk about what you want"....

Ok to go back to the playsets,
they are beautifully made and realistic, realistic in the animal models and also a view of sustanably using wildlife in North America.If anyone is wanting nice bears, pronghorns, elk, moose, wild turkey, geese, carolina wood ducks etc these are well worth a look. Theres a huge range, only a fraction are in the newray catalouge or on ebay. These sets are produced to fill a big market over there for hunting /nature related toys.

Treehouse kids set was the same idea and marketed as BIG GAME ANIMALS, African and North American!
The sets allow anyone on the forum to collect a bunch of North American species in nice models no one would have otherwise.The accesories are also useful, rifles and cross bows are used to dart animals and fit well with the schleich gamerangers.The vehicles / boats are great "redneck" accesories for the North American dioramas.- Note I can say this as I consider myself a country boy, translate into American Im a redneck myself!

Wether someone agrees with hunting or not it is nescecarry to control hoofstock populations in North America where in most areas large predators do not exist to do it naturally. In north america luring animals with food is considered normal and acceptable- re the pigeons- and many animals are artificially fed to increase animal stocks so they can be hunted, but also maintain stable populations to provide future prey.
To my mind this is in effect farming wildlife, and these sets are designed to show kids that veiw.

I know a lot of hunters and have seen how their kids use these toys, it is strange to European eyes but having the hunter figures stalk the animals across the yard to shoot them is teaching them about hunting and also Ive yet to see one of my freinds kids shoot the deer fawn, or allow the hunter figures to point guns at each other!
Also watching my neighbours kids with the moose hunting set it was always after the stalk and the hunter shoots the moose falls down dead, I asked about that and was told oh yes it has to be a clean kill- otherwise its cruel to the moose and he might kill the hunter! so are the sets also teaching humane killing process for future hunters ?All of which in hunting is considered very educational.
I know when I was a kid 30 plus years ago my freinds who were farmers kids sorted out their britains cows to decide who would go to the abottoir!
On american and canadian tv there are entire channels devoted to hunting wild animals, so New Ray correctly went after a market that exists. Dad can buy these sets at a gun shop or outdoor shop[ which stock lots of really nice wildlife toy models!] for his kids to encourage them to also want to "enjoy the great outdoors " at the same time he buys a new rifle, bullets or crossbow.
Buying these figures to get the animals for our collections doesnt condone or otherwise any views about hunting, so enjoy the great animal figures everyone for what they are.
Hope this doesnt offend anyone , but as someone who lives with animal life and death for the last 20 plus years I beleive you have to take a humanne rational veiw on this sort of thing.

There are two reasons to hunt, for food and sport. Anyone who lives in a developed nation knows that you just need a trip to the market to get food so that leaves sport hunters. With that said there are a lot of things the people who disagree with hunting are forgetting so let me give another perspective, I grew up hunting and still hunt for a living, although I no longer kill my prey my goal now is to get the animals back alive.

Hunters never waste anything they kill, even trophy hunters don't just kill the animal and leave it to rot. In the past there were things done like hunting buffalo for just the hide and tongue but now hunters take every usable piece of the animals when they hunt. At my house we even take the intestines for making sausage so very little is left behind.

The biggest thing hunters do in the USA (I imagine this is true everywhere people hunt) is to pay for the upkeep and maintenance of the undeveloped lands. Hunting in the USA pays for more then 60% of federal land preservation and without it there would be no financial resources to pay for things like national parks and preserves. Permitting for hunters pays for land that would otherwise be open to logging or mining which destroys habitat, this funding protects and pays for the management of wildlife as well. Hunting fees have restored damaged wetlands throughout the nation. It protects habitat and since management procedures have improved the population of both elk and water fowl has improved and numbers of ducks have rebounded and increased.

Hunting toys are a part of American life, you may not agree with it or think it isn't educational but we as children play with guns even when we don't have them. As children we picked up sticks and used them as rifles to play army, Marx toys (all the vintage hunting and wildlife toys from them) started out as toy soldiers. Britians has several lines of warrior and vintage soldiers, are you against them as well? It is our right under the Constitution as Americans to own guns and if you don't learn how to play with them when you get a real one accidents will happen. As Robert mentioned, to own a gun or to hunt you must take classes and be proficient with gun use and mechanics, without playing with them how are you to become familiar with their proper handling and use?

I don't disagree with your right not to play with them, but another point Robert made, the Safari Sets by TreeHouse Kids made kudu, impala, and other figures that were not available from other brands at the time, allowing collectors to get different species. Also if the toys didn't sell they wouldn't make them, and children are not always the ones buying them, just because you may not like a crossbow as a toy (I have several different bows including two crossbows that I shoot regularly for fun) they sell very well and sporting retailers like Bass Pro Shops and Cabela's both sell these toys because they are popular. Different people have a different thoughts about toys like this and it doesn't make them bad parents in my opinion, it also doesn't make you wrong for your point of view and you have the option not to purchase things like this.

Also in my honest opinion its more humanne for me to go out in the woods and hunt and fish for my own dinner, or for me to rear it in an open field under proper good animal management standards- one minute its alive, happy and relaxed -the next it is dead- no stress or suffering, than to have it reared for me in a factory farm out of sight and out of mind under conditions I would NEVER tolerate for any form of animal husbandry I was involved with.
However this is all a personal opinion and apart from on issues - like elephant handling where the facts are not put across properly of why it was nescesarry I would never try to influence or berate someone else.
And if these models do generate this sort of controversy then it IS good , it makes all of us who read this hopefully think deeper about the other creatures who inhabit the planet with us, and how each of us can make sure it better and continues [ wether by sustainable use, better husbandry standards- supporting good farming practices, supporting captive breeding etc] that we care live on a planet inhabited by all these wonderous life froms.

I don't want really to take part in this discussion but only two sents! I'll never give this kind of toys to children that I love, not even trying to tell them that they must kill to contribute to the balance of animal populations! :)
I also receive here very often news about North American children picking in guns and killing friends and coleagues in schools! Maybe they are training, some toys explained them that there are too many humans in this planet!
I know it is Christmas time but no way, a Biologist or Zoologist knows that Nature don't need human hunters to balance populations!:)

School shootings are actually very rare in the US, and when it happens it's not usually kids who go hunting, it is more likely to happen in high crime urban areas where no one hunts.

They really aren't related.

jhudstone wrote:

School shootings are actually very rare in the US, and when it happens it's not usually kids who go hunting, it is more likely to happen in high crime urban areas where no one hunts.

They really aren't related.

He is right, but it is the few who get on the news, not the responsible students who own guns but know how to use them. In my opinion restricting guns contributes to the problem, not helps. Criminals are going to get the guns no matter what the law says, and while I am not advocating just letting children run around school with loaded guns, trained teachers and administrators who had a gun could easily limit the number of hurt or killed students in a shooting situation.

Statistically this proves to be true, urban areas where there is bullying and the student body is very high so not everyone knows each other is where the shootings occur, rural areas where guns are common and the families know each other, where the kids probably own and use guns don't have this sort of incident.

The perception is backwards because what news station does a story on rural schools where nothing is happening, instead they run the story where some outcast children go nuts because they are being picked on and there is no one there to mentor them?

I don't know how do you know that they are not related. :) Experts are not sure, are working with different theories so nobody knows the reason!
But the common sense says that they are related with video games and mainly games when children use guns!
Curiously some experts are giving the same reasons, so in fact they don't have real guns but they have already the killer instinct! So kill a person or an animal shouldn't be considered a banal thing even they are part of our real life!
We have in this hobby so many beautiful toys to give to children and with them they can easily learn how Nature works and not only know which animals may be hunted or not.

Actually, I think the biggest killer in America (of humans and animals) are cars - perhaps we keep children from playing with those as well?

Roger, I am not here to argue about the point or to promote gun as toys but I don't believe the experts, my family and circle of friends have used guns all of our lives and we were taught how they are to be used. Even my 9 year old nephew has shot guns and we were all taught responsible gun use. No one in the family EVER plays with a real gun but all of the kids have violent, gun using and war type video games. If they are educated they know the difference between a video game and a real gun. Do you think going to a horror movie about Jason or the Nightmare on Elm Street movies cause people to go out and kill others? Do the Fast and Furious series of very popular movies promote car theft? Statistics can be manipulated to say whatever is politically correct and experts will fit a situation to match their views when the subject is an inflametory one. Here in the country video games are just as popular as they are in the city yet gun violence, accidents, and misuse is very rare.

And on the other point, if it were a perfect world then yes, humans would not need to keep populations of wild animals in check, but in reality the protection of natural places has caused the animals to be very successful at reproducing and the uncontrolled growth and use of public lands by humans has reduced and fragmented habitat to the point that in my area deer populations were starving every year and the total health of the herd went downhill. Within the last 13 years they allowed for hunting of females and juveniles and now the population is healthy again, the adult weight of animals is up over 22%, survival of the population in winter went for just over 70% to 97%, animals like mountain lions and bobcat and turkeys have returned (I have written in other posts about a lion who lives on my property killed a deer in full view of the living room windows in March of this last year). These are all measurable statistics, not theories or thoughts that are hypothetical. None of this was there 14 + years ago when hunting in this area was totally banned and dead animals were common towards the end of winter.

I don't like this kind of generalisations and that's not my purpose! I also don't want to tell you how many species desapeared due to hunting because i know you know it! I also don't want to say that all hunters are terrible persons and not that videogames of war are responsible for all children acts! :) I don't have English enoug to discuss it, mainly when I'm trying to give a simple idea and you are defeating personal experiences! :)
I'm absolutly sure that when you are hunting and kill a creature you don't take a picture to show the largest trophy or so! I'm sure when you kill a living creature you think how good you are contributing to the control of populations! I really don't understand how can humans be so arrogant with wild life!
Sometimes some animals try to make the same as hunters, they start to kill humans because they are in their territory. And when it happens what human hunters think? That the animals are controling the excessive number of humans like they do with mercy? No, they pick happily their guns because these animals are dangerous and start killing them!
Sorry, that's my point of view and honestly I'm not interested anymore in to know how helpful to wild life is to use guns when the most invasive animal of the planet is Homo (sapiens?)!

I agree with you, we are the most invasive species on the planet, and I also agree that we cause extinctions, but hunters are not the cause. Habitat destruction and pollution are far more destructive then hunters. Also, the fact that I don't think about killing an animal as saving the species doesn't mean it isn't a fact that the end result is a healthier population.

Hunters do not hunt endangered animals, nor do they take any animal they see, they are very selective in what they hunt. If you want to blame humans for animal extinctions I am right there with you 100% but lets put the blame on the correct set of humans. In Chinese medicine rhino horn is worth more then gold by weight, seahorses are collected and dried by the millions for "medicine", the logging roads of Brazil bring lumber to the countries who have money but destroy habitat as well as give access to areas that were untouched by humans before the road was built. Poor farmers all over underdeveloped tropics burn forest to grow sweet potatoes, ruining the soil for generations and the run off clogs the streams and rivers. None of these things have anything to do with hunting for food or sport yet cause far more destruction to the population of nature then any amount of recreational gun use.

I could go on and on but I think we will just disagree with the toys that promote hunting, that is ok with me. I do not hunt any longer by choice, and I don't buy this type of toy for myself or any family member, but I also have no problem with people who want to and if they didn't sell there would no reason to produce them, it just seems they are popular and so will continue to be available.

Phil, nice to know that we agree in the essential!

Oh my, i guess i'm just happy to have no weapons in the familly or at least very few legal ( ) guns and rifles in my neighbourhood (i don't know if there are e.g. forest officials living here)
I never fired a rifle and i hope i never will.
As some "Game reserves" become nebulous money machines, hidden behind a facade of habitat protection, species conservation or whatever,
hunting grounds which are really aimed on such ideas, become nothing but playgrounds for idealistic losers.
I'm realistic, one cannot protect nature these days anymore by banning any acceptable human usage,
but this has to be balanced, otherwise it turns into abuse.
To me, it's the same about "hunting-sports", or thinking of it being an ordinary family sport, especially young men have to practice,...
So trivializing it, is very dangerous. I don't like soldier and war toys either, although i know about action hero-figurines are nothing but military toys with muscles, alien-enemies and crazy vehicles,..
But they're more abstract and kids cannot confound their toys with the news on T.V..
Here in europe, we have problems with cormorants which are protected but definitely too many. Same with the beaver.
So hunting can be helpful, but you have to be professional, otherwise it's illegal. So it's at least more diffucult to fire a rifle to shoot an animal here than in the U.S. . And i personally think this is better. there are also traditional hunts which are nothing but sports for some men who have to share archaic rituals to defend their status. And there are hunts to control populations. But no vehicle-based hunts where daddy can use his crossbow.
Concerning killer-games:
My common sense doesn't allow me to believe in a decrease of acceptance of gun usage in killer- and war-gamers,..
Bloodthirstiness is less an emotion when you play e.g. a jump'n'run game.