Well, the rules for kosher slaughter means that an animal that's shot with a gun (or a bow and arrow, or killed with anything other than a knife) can't be eaten, and there are also rules against killing animals needlessly, so that means no hunting for recreation, either. Trapping and then killing is iffy -- I don't know enough about the details of the law to totally say.

So, what, come the apocalypse, all the kosher Jews are screwed? How did they survive before tame animals? I don't get it...

There are hardship exceptions, right? I mean, if you get into a situation where you don't have any farmed meat, is it more important to not trap and go meatless?

I'm pretty sure that tame animals have been around for longer than the rules of kashrut. I don't know about the apocalypse question -- according to at least one Jewish source, everybody will be vegetarian after the messiah comes, because Adam and Eve were vegetarian in Eden.

Well, I know of plenty of historical circumstances of religious Jews going vegetarian because they couldn't get kosher meat. The Talmud says that that's what Queen Esther did in the palace.

I don't really know the rules about trapping. I vaguely recall learning something about it, but I don't remember what.

http://en.kendincos.net/video-lpttlfh-hunting-is-allowed-in-judaism-how-to-be-a-kosher-hunter-.html

No clue who this dude is, but he's talking about hunting for fur in biblical times.

This looks like a decent summary of the Jewish view of treatment of animals, including hunting: [link] (That website is generally from an Orthodox perspective, and he usually takes the more liberal view if there are several accepted opinions within Orthodoxy.)

He later went on to talk about culling overpopulated animals. I think he mostly wanted to be manly and shoot stuff -- but that's an impression based on enthusiasism, not any critique of scholarship.

I'm trying to pay my credit card bill. It won't let me.

ISTG, this had better be a site glitch and not the prelude to another fun fraud battle.

That was an interesting article, Hil. He does say:

hunting and trapping for legitimate needs is permissible only when it is done in the least painful way possible

So I'm guessing no bear traps, but maybe snares or nets.

The guy I was talking to today goes home to Montana to cull both elk and cougar. Elk for overpopulation, and cougar so they don't eat the horses or the kids. And they eat all they shoot. He also said the first time he ate beef on the east coast he got food poisoning. It was so different from the free range beef he was used to.

Then he BBQs the elk with a brown sugar rub and rolls bacon in, and I hope they remember I exist.