http://kjzz.org/content/98282/sportsmen-environmentalists-clash-over-predator-hunting
This week, a convention of predator hunters is gathering in Tucson. The group, called Predator Masters, hunts such animals as coyotes and raccoon and has drawn national criticism for what critics say amount to killing contests. The group disputes that term and says it isn’t planning an organized hunt during the convention. Still, controversy surrounding the sport remains.
It’s hard to tell the difference between an actual coyote’s howl and the plaintive yell longtime hunter Rich Higgins can make with one of his many breath-powered calling devices.
“I truly believe that humans are hard-wired, genetically, as hunter gatherers,” he said, after showing off a few of the cries. “So we’re just being true to our nature.”
Higgins is the president of Arizona Predator Callers, one of the many organizations in the state that legally hunts predators like coyotes on public land. He said it isn’t so much about killing, as it about everything else involved with the sport he loves.
“Everything from building your own calls and your own howlers, learning the behavior of that animal, so you can exploit its vulnerabilities,” he said. “All of this is fascinating to us.”
And that’s the real point, he added, of what some people call “killing contests.” That’s when a group like his tries to kill as many coyotes as they can in a certain period of time. The reality is that most hunters don’t even bag a coyote, Higgins said. It’s more about hanging out with people who also enjoy the thrill of the hunt.
“It’s an incredible experience,” he said. “And becomes addicting.”
That doesn’t exactly comfort predator hunting opponents, who say it’s a waste to kill animals without using them for food or fur. Sandy Bahr is the president of the Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon Chapter. Her organization is not against all hunting, she said, but with some predator hunters, “there is this attitude, which is pretty disrespectful of the animals, that ‘we’ll just go out and kill as many as possible.’”
Even if you take away the emotional side of this, Bahr said there could be real consequences from this kind of hunting. If the coyote population dips, there could be a large spike, followed by a crash, of prey species that coyotes usually keep in check. On the other hand, coyotes could actually increase in number.
The more they feel threatened, “the more they’ll have larger litters,” she said. “They’ll breed earlier, they actually respond by doing more to build the population.”
But the Arizona Game and Fish Department sees it differently, including Jim Paxon, special assistant to the director.
“Under no circumstances and in geographic area, have hunters made a dent in the coyote population,” he said.
He said there are an estimated 25,000 to 40,000 coyotes in the state. Game and Fish attempted to regulate hunting contests about 15 years ago, without success. But Paxon said the department doesn’t take an official stance now. Instead, it enforces current rules. Those allow people with valid hunting licenses to kill as many coyotes as they want.
“So, it’s recognized that coyote hunting is a legitimate activity for hunters and sportsmen,” Paxon said.
But that doesn’t mean it’s always easy, even for a seasoned predator hunter like Rich Higgins.
“I always have a tinge of regret. Always, always, always,” Higgins said. “And sometimes, when it becomes a little bit strong, I will pick up my camera only.”
In his heart, Higgins said, he is a hunter. And that’s regardless of whether he’s hunting coyotes with a lens — or a rifle.
Exposing the Big Game 
These “contests” are a scourge against wildlife across the country. Even in California, though a ban against offering prizes was passed, some are determined they will still participate. There is effort being made in other states as well to ban them, but the sponsors are finding loopholes (laws need explicit wording) and the participants would rather continue hunting and accept the measly penalties if caught. We have a long, long way to go, but at least we’re out of the starting gate. and focusing a spotlight on these sick events. Amazing the number of people who knew nothing about these limitless killing activities for guns and money prizes. Keep educating!
This quote sums up people like Higgins:
“You let one of them go, but that’s nothing new. Every now and then, a little victim’s spared… because she smiled, cos he’s got freckles, cos they begged. And that’s how you live with yourself, that’s how you slaughter millions, because once in a while, on a whim, if the wind’s in the right direction, you happen to be kind.”
—The Doctor, Doctor Who
Reblogged this on Howling For Justice.
Reblogged this on earthwhispererconservation.
hmmm, Lets see…. kill as many as you can for a prize, kill the biggest for a prize, kill the smallest for a prize….. nah, don’t see a contest here. Sarcasm totally intended.
What a bunch of bullshit.
“He said it isn’t so much about killing, as it about everything else involved with the sport [sic] [or should I say “sick”?] he loves. ‘Everything from building your own calls and your own howlers, learning the behavior of that animal, so you can exploit its vulnerabilities,’ he said. ‘All of this is fascinating to us.'”
With a camera, you can still hunt them, still lure them, still exploit their vulnerabilities. So this psycho doesn’t fool us for a second when he says it isn’t about the killing.
“…predator hunting opponents, who say it’s a waste to kill animals without using them for food or fur. Sandy Bahr is the president of the Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon Chapter. Her organization is not against all hunting, she said…”
Since neither meat nor fur is necessary to humans, it is a waste to kill them in either case. And remind me again to never never NEVER join the Sierra Club!
Does anyone know in what hotel or conference center this group is meeting? And, on a totally unrelated note, does anyone know the formula for sarin gas?
LOL! Let me know if you need help.
Firearms – guns – are NOT natural tools. They promote dissociated sociopathy .
Hunter=gatherers in all traditional societies only hunted at NEED, not for the pleasure of murder.
Gun hunting now uses silencers, GPS, motorized atv’s and other implements giving NO chance to any animal.
It is psychopathic to go out with a gun to take shots at whatever moves, or whatever one has told oneself is less worthy of life than another.
STRIP ALL GUNS FROM ALL HUMANS.
Coyotes exhibit grief, just as do many other mammal species. Coyotes perform a vital service reducing rodent populations, insects, even eating plant fruits/seed, and distributing those seeds at a distance to sustain ecosystems.
While the Gray Wolf is more severely socially damaged by this unnatural human taking of their kind, coyotes also live due to social and environmental learning, and hunting damages their varying society as well.
It is time to end sport hunting entirely, altogether, Only actual subsistence hunting is appropriate on earth, and not at all until human populations are MUCH reduced, so that their taking cannot affect the survival of hunted species.
Why allow for ANY hunting to go on? That’s where humans first went wrong and why all the destructiveness started in the first place. Bows and arrows cause more than enough pain, stress and suffering. Eating the flesh of animals is what caused dissociated sociopathy to begin with.
“I truly believe that humans are hard-wired, genetically, as hunter gatherers,” he said, after showing off a few of the cries. “So we’re just being true to our nature.”
Some, perhaps. Our nature is – also perhaps – to evolve into something ‘greater’.
As a species, we haven’t been true hunter/gatherers for more than a century. And the necessity for all the bells, whistles and gewgaws to ‘hunt’ is evidence of that. It might be a completely different story if the playing field were level, but it’s obviously not. The only reason a human would need to ‘hunt’ in the fashion isn’t conservation, preservation or protection.
It’s because they like it. As Mr. Higgins expressed, it’s an incredible, addictive experience.
“Addictive?” That’s what serial killers call their hobby too.
These outdated barbaric “contests” and the
ruthless redneck mentality of the 1870’s have no place
ANYWHERE in the modern 21st Century and beyond!!
Trophy hunters, canned hunters, and trappers
are all panderers to ISIS and Satan and they are the ones
who should be removed from the face of this old Earth,
and our wildlife left alone to live in peace!!