Monthly Archives: May 2012

Endorsements for Exposing the Big Game

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What people are saying about Exposing the Big Game…

http://www.earth-books.net/books/exposing-the-big-game

REVIEWS & ENDORSEMENTS

  • Robertson’s new book could be titled The Big and Dirty Game, because that’s what it is about — the dirty, bloody business of killing other animals for sport and fun. Fun? Sure, that’s what the Sportsmen say . . but read about it for yourself . . .  ~ Farley Mowat, Author of Never Cry Wolf and A Whale for the Killing
  • With humor and poignant satire, Jim Robertson reveals the ugly underbelly of the “consumptive use” minority that has so dominated, exploited, and desecrated Americas native wildlife since colonialism. From coyotes to bison to ravens and prairie dogs, Jim shows how each of these animals has been unfairly maligned, misunderstood and often slaughtered in unfathomable numbers in the name of “wildlife management.” At once a no-holds-barred revelation of North Americas ongoing war against wildlife, Exposing the Big Game is also a celebration of these animals, their rich and complex lives, their individuality and their important ecological role. With gorgeous images Jim captures the beauty and majesty of each of his chosen subjects, balancing sometimes painfully honest prose about Americas relentless persecution of species– hunted as trophies, trapped for profit or fun or killed because they are simply deemed undesirable– with the gentle and fierce beauty of the non-human animal kingdom.    ~ Camilla H. Fox, Executive Director, Project Coyote and co-author of Coyotes in Our Midst and Cull of the Wild 
  • Exposing the Big Game is a must read for anyone interested in the “sport” of hunting. There’s nothing sporting or fair about going out to kill innocent wild animals for the fun of it. Doing this means adopting a perverse set of values. If killing a dog bothers you, as it should, then so should killing other animals. Far too many sentient beings find themselves in the crosshairs of people who claim they love the animals they kill. I’m glad they don’t love me.  ~ Marc Bekoff, University of Colorado, Boulder; author of The Emotional Lives of Animals and The Animal Manifesto
  • Jim Robertson is best known for his breathtaking wildlife photography as well as his clear and thought-provoking articles about wildlife and the cruel, repulsive and altogether perverse nature of hunting. Now Jim has put it all together: his spectacular photography, the indisputable facts and clear reasoning in “Exposing the Big Game.”  Jim does not mince words in describing the senselessness and depravity of hunting and the psychopaths who kill for pleasure. ~ Peter Muller, President and co-founder of the League of Humane Voters
  • For years, Jim Robertson has inspired reverence for wildlife through his photography. Now he has created a book that ought to be mandatory reading for those who still think there’s reverence in hunting.  ~ Ethan Smith, Author of Building and Ark: 101 Solutions to Animal Suffering
  • Hard hitting, on target, forthright and forceful. The author shows that it takes nothing more than the movement of one finger for a bully to deliver the easy thrill of robbing an unarmed animal of a life, but it requires discipline and self-mastery to be a defender of wildlife. ~ Ingrid Newkirk, President of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Author of You Can Save the Animals, Making Kind Choices and Free the Animals
  • I read this book with wonderment at what our species has done to other species, and with admiration for how staunchly Jim Robertson comes to the defense of those other species, with intelligence, humor, understanding, but above all, compassion. Warning to all hunters: this book could be life-changing, both for you and the animals so senselessly killed. Jim ends his book with these ringing words, both true and eloquent: The passenger pigeon, the great auk and the Steller‘s sea cow each held a worthy place in nature. The same cannot be said of sport hunting. Sooner or later, the obdurate hunter crouching in the darkness of ages past must cave in and make peace with the animals or rightfully, if figuratively, die off and be replaced with a more compassionate, more evolved earthling—one who appreciates nonhumans as unique individuals, fellow travelers through life with their own unassailable rights to share the planet. ~ Jeffrey Masson, Author of When Elephants Weep, and Dogs Make Us Human
  • Exposing the Big Game, a passionate and informed indictment of America’s hunting culture, exposes the savagery, cruelty, environmental recklessness and yes, the pathology of this most murderous of sports. Jim Robertson is that rarest of breeds, a talented writer with a gift for telling a story who is also a lifelong outdoorsman with a profound knowledge of the natural world as well as a compassionate human being with a deep love for all living creatures. Exposing the Big Game is quite simply a masterpiece, a treasure not to be missed by anyone who cares about wildlife, the environment and living gently on planet Earth. ~ Norm Phelps, Author of The Longest Struggle: Animal Advocacy from Pythagoras to PETA
  • I find Exposing the Big Game to be a very inspiring book. Jim Robertson has a gifted eye for wildlife photography and his writing incorporates humor, insight and factual observations. ~ Captain Paul Watson, Founder and President of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

In Memory

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The days are growing shorter, the nights cooler and you’ve long since polished the previous summer’s velvet off your antlers. You’re feeling primed and ready for the coming breeding season. But you’re torn between the urge to seek out others of your kind and the nagging awareness that you shouldn’t let yourself be seen by the strange upright beasts who turn foul and aggressive this time of year.

Your mate and the rest of the does, whose company you yearn for, don’t have as much to fear as you and the other bucks. At first sight of your proud antlers, the horrible 2-leggers will zero-in and follow you like bloodthirsty mosquitos…

One of them has been on your trail all morning. You hear the cracking of a branch and run for the heavy cover of a spruce thicket, but you see him out of the corner of your eye and are sure he saw you too. Your heart is pumping hard and you’re feeling panicky, but you know you must keep your head or risk making the wrong move. Cautiously proceeding deeper into the forest, you lose track of the pursuer and hope he’s gone away.

All at once you feel the searing pain of something tearing into your side and a loud crack like thunder pierces the silence. You fall to the ground gasping for air. Someone is approaching, but you can’t get up—the pain is all-consuming. He is standing over you now, pressing something sharp against your throat…

Everything is going black as you think back on autumns past and envision your mate and the young ones…and fear for their safety.

Wildlife Photography Copyright Jim Robertson

 

A Memorial for Victims of the War on Wildlife

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For twenty-some years I lived in a remote cabin in Washington’s North Cascades mountains. My place was the last human inhabitance on a gravel forest service road that dead-ended at the Lake Chelan Saw-tooth Wilderness boundary. Almost no one drove out that way and far fewer ever stopped in to visit, so I was surprised one autumn morning when a truck drove down my long, dusty driveway.

It turned out to be a young hunter who frantically explained that he just shot his father in law (mistaking him for a deer) and asked to use my phone. I told him I was sorry, but the nearest telephone was at my neighbor’s, two miles downriver. He raced off to call for an ambulance, but it was too late. Like so many hunting accidents, this one proved fatal for the victim.

It’s a sad story that’s played out again and again—a woman hiking a well-used trail on August 1st is shot and killed by a bear hunter; a forest worker is fatally shot by a nimrod who heard “rustling in the bushes;” an unpopular Vice President blasts his partner in the face with a shotgun—yet the perpetrators are almost never charged with manslaughter or any lesser crimes. As long as they are “lawfully” hunting, the shooting of their fellow sportsmen, or an innocent bystander, is acceptable.

Photos Copyright Jim Robertson

Since today is Memorial Day, this post is dedicated to those—of all species—who gave their lives (so far this year) in the ongoing and senseless war on wildlife.  It would take far too long and would be nearly impossible to amass a list of all the non-human losses. In addition to the thousands on record as successfully “harvested,” an incalculable number of animals are wounded, only to crawl off and die, their deaths never reported. Therefore, this victims list, compiled by the Committee to Abolish Sport Hunting, is limited to humans:

May

NY: Teen shot by brother while turkey hunting in Yates County
KS: Youth killed in Pott County hunting accident
ME: Son shoots father in eye while turkey hunting

April
FL: Florida man mistakes girlfriend for hog, shoots her
TX: Rabbit hunter accidentally shoots pregnant girlfriend

March
AZ: A case of simple varmint hunting gone terribly wrong…
FL: Officials: Hunter Sees Turkey, Accidentally Shoots Man
FL: Boy fatally shoots grandfather in Hardee County hunting accident
WV: Hunting Accident Claims Life
ID: Rupert Man Killed in Hunting Accident
LA: Cadaver Dogs Used in Search of Missing Man
OK: 11-Year-Old Welch Boy Killed In Apparent Hunting Accident
FL: Man shoots foot instead of snake

February
NY: Train hits, kills man hunting rabbits
FL: Wildlife officer finds body of hunter reported missing in Tampa Bay area
IL: Illinois hunter killed by father in likely accident
MN: Boy, 16, shot in hunting accident
OR: Hunter found slumped over fence east of Sandy
IA: Man Accidentally Shoots Himself Twice
WY: Fatal shooting under investigation
LA: Fort Polk soldier dies in hunting accident in Kisatchie
TN: Madison County boy accidentally shoots friend while hunting;

January
PA: Hunter accidentally shoots companion at Fawn gas station
AL: Citronelle man fatally shot in hunting accident
TX: Menard High School football player shot in ‘freak accident’
PA: Hunter shot Pa. man with arrow
OH: Human Remains Found During Search for Missing Hunter in Vinton County
IL: Hunter fatally shot in Knox County
IL: Sheriff: Father accidentally shoots, kills son
CA: Sacramento man dies during squirrel hunting expedition in Butte Co.
CA: Body of missing hunter found near Boulevard
CA: Body of missing hunter discovered in El Dorado County
VA: Mechanicsville man shot in hunting accident
OH: ODNR Identifies Man Shot to Death on Game Lands
IA: Harlan man dies in hunting accident
VA: Three hunters shot on last day of deer season
NE: Man Accidentally Shot While Hunting Raccoons
WI: Waukesha County Hunter Found Dead
NC: Deer hunter shot by minor outside Clarkton
AL: Local hunter falls from tree stand
MO: Two duck hunters die in accident on Truman Lake

No Animal Deserves Misery

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In case you’re just tuning in to this blog for the first time, one thing that’s been clearly established here is: hunting sucks. But, believe it or not, there is one thing I have to thank hunters for. In trying to defend their brutality by pointing out the hypocrisy of my eating farmed animals, they inspired me to completely swear off meat.

That was fourteen years ago, and I haven’t regretted going vegan for a moment since then. Not that there was anything profound in their observation, but I had to agree, there’s no real ethical difference between eating wild “game” and animals bred and raised for food. And as a wolf and a pig are both on similar intellectual and emotional planes, how could I object to wolf hunting and trapping while chowing down on a BLT?

I hate to see a deer or elk shot, killed and carted off in the back of some hunter’s pickup, but by the same token it’s saddening to see a cow loaded up into a “livestock” trailer and sent to the slaughterhouse. Deer, elk, bison or free-range cattle all have a comparable life experience and their untimely deaths are similarly harsh and unnecessary (especially unnecessary considering humans can and do get by quite happily and healthfully without eating meat). There are no factory farms in my vicinity, but there are cleared pastures where people raise cows for the market. (If you don’t know what factory farms are—those nightmarish death camps where most grocery store and restaurant meat is produced—please read up about them on one of the many great websites out there.)  

At first glance a pastoral scene of cows moving freely about (within the confines of barbed wire or electric fences, of course) and grazing on grass may seem idyllic, but one recognizable sign of abuse is that their horns have been cut off and large, yellow or red plastic I.D. tags have been stapled into their ears. Another is the mournful mooing of a dairy cow whose newborn calf has been snatched from her and locked away in a tiny pen or veal crate. And let’s not forget the cruelty of branding…

Any semblance of freedom ends the day they find themselves on a crowded, frightening drive to the stockyard in preparation for slaughter. Now suddenly cows who have never known confinement are being forced into a horrendous industrial plant, where the pervasive smells of blood and fear mixing with the sounds of other terrified animals and saw blades are the last things they’ll ever experience.

Although we may suffer painful losses in the grueling battle to end sport hunting, by going vegan we can at least share in the satisfaction of knowing we no longer contribute to the miserable deaths of countless sentient beings.  

Wildlife Photos Copyright Jim Robertson

That Dog Don’t Hunt

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Since the dark ages of Descartes, certain people have tried to keep non-human animals down and justify their exploitation with the absurd and arrogant allegation that animals don’t really care what happens to them because they aren’t capable of feeling, choosing, or perceiving—they aren’t “conscious”.

Say what? What are they, unconscious?

To borrow a redneck phrase I promise I’ll never resort to again, that dog don’t hunt!

Of course, neither does our yellow lab, Honey. But she definitely can think and feel, and on Wednesday night she felt bad, clearly perceiving that things weren’t right. She must have eaten something unsavory that didn’t sit well. Normally Honey sleeps like a log, choosing to sleep on the bed, but that night she didn’t sleep a wink and instead lay on the floor with a pained expression and a hang-dog look (sorry, again, but it seemed to fit); she was worried, fearful and subdued—obviously uncomfortable.

By morning, her stomach must have settled and she slept soundly until 11:00 a.m. Honey hadn’t been outside since the previous afternoon, and my wife and I had been growing quite concerned, but when we asked if she was ready to go for walk, the answer was plain as day. She jumped for joy—leaped, in fact—in jubilant celebration of feeling like her old self again. Her recovery was dramatic, almost startling, and she pulled against her leash with renewed vigor and intensity.

How anyone can still subscribe to the agenda-driven assertion that non-human animals don’t experience life every bit as—if not more—richly as our species, is beyond me. All of the other animals we share the world with—dogs, cats, pigs, cows, horses, rabbits, parrots, pigeons, turkeys, turtles, deer, elk, mink, salmon, or moose–have each evolved the wits and sensations needed to survive, or they surely wouldn’t be with us now.  

Regardless of what you believe about whether animals should have rights, we humans don’t have the right to make them suffer. Any attentive dog owner knows that their best friend can go through a full spectrum of emotions, from fear and sorrow to love and joy—on any given day. Rene Descartes must have been short changed when god was handing out empathy. A lot of animals have needlessly suffered for his convenient, but lunatic theories on the lack of animal consciousness.

Conscious or not, Descartes must not have had a conscience. His theory could have been put to rest long ago had his peers applied one simple equation:   If it looks like poop and smells like poop, it must be bullshit.

Watchwords Won’t Sanctify Sport Hunting

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Words like “heritage” and “tradition” are only as good as the deeds they sanctify. That’s why there’s no Slave-trader’s Heritage Act or Indian-massacrer’s Heritage Act—society has rightfully deemed those behaviors obsolete, at best. Yet, the Safari Club, NRA and other pro-death groups are pushing the U.S. Senate to approve the “Sportsmen’s” Heritage Act of 2012.

Customs and tradition are fine until one’s undertakings result in the suffering or repression of others. When a “sportsman” tells a non-hunter, “I’m okay with you choosing not to hunt, so you should accept my choice to hunt,” it’s like an unrepentant slave owner asking an abolitionist to accept his right to keep people enslaved.

Some activities just aren’t worthy of being passed on to future generations. To enshrine hunting—the serial murder of wildlife that has led to decimation and extinction for so many—with a disgraceful act of Congress does not represent a step forward for humanity.

The following quote from Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson’s book, Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence, is tailor-made for the Sportsmen’s Heritage Act:  “To find a better world we must look not at a romanticized and dishonest dream forever receding into the primitive past, but to a future that rests on a proper understanding of ourselves.”

An enactment of Congress should always denote a societal advancement, rather than a stumbling step backwards.

All Photos Copyright Jim Robertson

Wolves Just Doing Their Job

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I have the utmost respect for ungulates, yet they sometimes tend to get lazy when what they seek is within easy reach, right there in front of them. That statement (not the “utmost respect” part—the “lazy” part) could also apply to hunters who don’t hesitate to shoot half-tame elk, deer or bison right outside of park boundaries.

In one of their most telling remarks, Montana hunters have complained that wolves make elk “too hard to hunt.” Ever the lackeys, state game departments use that for an excuse to promote wolf hunting, instead of sticking up for wolves by pointing out that they are just doing their job of preventing elk from over-grazing.

The fact is, wolves keep browser and grazer populations healthy precisely by keeping them on the move, making sure they don’t get too complacent. As with human beings, inertia can set in from staying in one place, causing individuals or entire populations to get fat and lazy.

So next time you hear hunters complaining about wolves, remember, it’s not because they really think wolves are going to eliminate all “their” elk—they just don’t want to have to walk too far from the pickup truck to make their kill.