Category Archives: Anti-Hunting

No Hunting! Because Fuck You That’s Why!

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nohuntsign

This blog site is a haven for wildlife and animal advocates, a wildlife refuge of sorts, that’s posted “No Hunting,” as any true sanctuary should be. Just as a refuge is patrolled to keep hunters and poachers from harassing the wildlife, this blog site is monitored to keep hunters from disturbing other people’s quiet enjoyment of the natural world.

It is not a message board or a chat room for those wanting to argue the supposed merits of animal exploitation or to defend the act of hunting or trapping in any way, shape or form. There are plenty of other sites available for that sort of thing.

Hunters and trappers: For your sake, I urge you not to bother wasting your time posting your opinions in the comments section. This blog is moderated, and pro-hunting statements will not be tolerated or approved. Consider this fair warning—if you’re a hunter, sorry but your comments are going straight to the trash can. This is not a public forum for animal exploiters to discuss the pros and cons of hunting.

We’ve heard all the rationalizations for killing wildlife so many times before; there’s no point in wasting everyone’s time with more of that old, tired hunter PR drivel. Any attempt to justify the murder of our fellow animals will hereby be jettisoned into cyberspace…

Text and Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson

Text and Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson

 

That statement appears on the “About” page of this blog for all to see. Yet every so often I still get comments from hunters desperately wanting to rationalize their murderous deeds. I received two over the past two days, including one from a Danish hunter who stated, “I take pride in my education and my gear, in which I have invested a lot of money, and I enjoy the thrill of the hunt. But that does not make me a serial killer! I am a friendly young man, with so many other hobbies…”

Sorry to say, but a lot of serial killers would come across as “friendly young” men. Though he may not technically be a serial killer by standard definition, anyone who lumps the “thrill” of the hunt in with his other “hobbies” certainly shares some of the characteristics, like rationalization, justification, depersonalization, compartmentalization, as well as a sense of entitlement, lack of remorse, guilt or empathy, with the average serial killer.

The other pro-hunting comment came from none other than Laramie’s city councilman Erik Molvar, the Wild Earth Guardians’ new in-house hunter-on-staff, described on their website as “an avid fan of the outdoors, and enjoys hiking, flyfishing, skiing, antelope hunting, and renovating historic homes.” He doesn’t sound like someone who needs to feed his family on pronghorn flesh any more than any other suburban Wyomingite (who number in the 100s of thousands). Erik wrote at great length in defense of himself and about the relative morality of killing and eating a pronghorn vs. a loaf of bread. Yet he didn’t tell us anything we haven’t heard before time and again from other hunters. Once again, this is an anti-hunting blog site, with a longstanding policy of not approving comments from hunters and I see no reason to start now. We’ve heard them all before—ad nauseam.

Mr. Molvar, as your comment is directed to Marc, the author of the article “Sheep in Wolves’ Clothing,” please send it to him at his website: http://foranimals.org/ (If you no longer have the text, I can retrieve it for you from my trash can.)

I appreciate your concern for wolves and Wild Earth Guardian’s hard work to stop wolf hunting. I love wolves the same as any advocate. But I also care about pronghorn, elk and prairie dogs just as much. If we wait until wolf hunting is ended before acknowledging the rights of any other species, hunting will only become more embedded, like a festering thorn in need of surgical removal.

Hunting by any other name is still hunting

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Photo Copyright Jim Robertson

Photo Copyright Jim Robertson

http://azstarnet.com/news/opinion/column/guest/gordon-douglas-hunting-by-any-other-name-is-still-hunting/article_e1a4bc49-0854-5519-b67d-9cfb26fa6d47.html

By Gordon Douglas Special to the Arizona Daily Star

It’s hard not to chuckle at how hard some people have to work to not say something. A great example is Gerry Perry’s Dec. 23 guest opinion, “Hunting benefits Arizona.”

He extols the virtues of “harvesting nature’s surplus” and “reconnecting with nature’s ecosystems in a meaningful way.” You’d almost think he was talking about catching apples falling from a tree or hiking a wilderness. What he’s desperately avoiding are the words shooting, killing, wounding or suffering. That “meaningful connection” he’s talking about is going into an ecosystem, finding an animal and killing it.

Even the use of the word hunting is basically a way to avoid describing the actual intent of the activity. Photographers, naturalists and those who enjoy observing wildlife all “hunt” for wild animals. What sets “hunters” apart is killing the animals once they find them.

He notes game may be killed for food, but does not acknowledge that many animals are not eaten but are killed for trophies, so the hunter can brag “I killed that,” or are just killed for the fun of it. Those of us who eat meat recognize it is necessary to kill animals for that purpose, but we call the place for that a slaughterhouse, not a chicken collection center or cattle aggregation area.

[Ok, here the article’s author lacks insight into his own complicity in killing farmed animals–he doesn’t have to eat meat. But read on; he makes some great points in the next few paragraphs…]

He correctly points out how hunters provide funding for wildlife management. What he doesn’t say is that through this funding mechanism hunters essentially control how wildlife is managed.

Public lands and their wildlife are operated as a shooting preserve for hunters. Rather than a responsibility of all Arizonans, game animals are looked at as the private property of hunters to be exploited to the maximum extent possible. Natural predators are usually reduced or eliminated, since the value of animals is measured in the number of targets and carcasses for hunters.

He lauds hunting as making it possible to bring back many species from near extinction, which is a mind-boggling reversal of reality. The species were nearly made extinct by hunting. Species are not saved by killing; they are saved by not killing. Animals can be saved for their intrinsic value, instead of bred to be slaughtered for pleasure. The endangered species act was not passed so we could shoot pandas.

A few other items carefully avoided in the piece are the number of people accidentally killed or wounded in hunting accidents, the number of children killed or wounded in accidents from hunting weapons carelessly left in homes, and the general gun carnage in our nation fueled in part by the fanatical resistance of many hunters to any sort of reasonable restrictions on guns of any type.

Hunting involves the use of lethal weapons, and that always carries a tragic price.

Much money is indeed spent on hunting, but this money would be spent in other ways if not for hunting. These other ways could well provide even more significant benefits to our state.

America has a centuries-old hunting tradition. In all likelihood that tradition will continue into the foreseeable future. But in the mean time, let’s stop playing word games, honestly face what we are doing, and recognize the costs as well as benefits.