Category Archives: “Sportsmen”

Hunting: the Sport of Sociopaths

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How can some people torment and kill animals and call it a “sport?” They must have the same merciless attitude as Canadian pig farmer, hands-on butcher and serial killer, Willy Pickton.

When asked by a Vancouver police interrogator to reveal the locations of the 49 women he’d murdered over his career (some of whose remains were ground up, mixed with pig meat and sold or given away to friends or family), Pickton asked, “Why should I do that?” To which the investigator replied, “For the families. They need to know.”

Willie’s chilling comeback summed up his entire outlook on life, “Not my problem, shit happens.”

Pickton was clearly a sociopath (or psychopath, if you prefer), and so must be those who subscribe to his “shit happens” philosophy. While a lot of folks are pretty unsympathetic about things that don’t directly affect them, hunters (like serial killers) take it a step further, by making bad shit happen to others.

Still not convinced that hunters are sociopaths? Consider these quotes from “diehard” bowhunter and NRA spokesman “terrible” Ted Nugent, about his favorite sport: “There’s an absolute surety to the hands-on conservation lifestyle of hunting, fishing and trapping…” or “If you want to save a species, simply decide to eat it. Then it will be managed – like chickens, like turkeys, like deer, like Canadian geese.” and “I get a full predator spiritual erection from hunting bear, lions, coons, housecats, escaped chimps, small children, scared women and everything else that can be chased and/or hunted.”

Now, if that guy’s not a sociopath, Willy Pickton’s just a pig farmer.

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Media Bias Promotes Hunting Agenda

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This is a letter I sent to the Daily Astorian, a local paper on the Oregon coast:

Dear Editor,

Cannon Beach used to be a pretty peaceful place. It was a nice romantic getaway or a great place to bring the entire clan. Haystack Rock appears on more post cards and magazine covers than any other feature on the entire Oregon coast. Most people come to Cannon Beach to enjoy quiet walks, hoping for a glimpse of some of the native wildlife. It’s not the kind of place folks expect to run into cammo-clad hunters with shotguns or compound bows stalking area’s half-tame animals.

But when the town’s parks and community services committee wanted to limit the local hunting season to only one month, the Oregon state Department of Fish and Wildlife instead set FIVE seasons there, totaling 90 days (“Hunting dates for Ecola reserve are expanded,” Aug. 5). And although the town of Cannon Beach wanted to restrict hunting to bows and arrows and shotgun slugs, the ODFW informed them that buckshot would be allowed as well.

Now any hunter who wants to can blast a 700 pound bull elk with a shotgun. What a mess that will be for some sightseeing family to come across! And how many elk or deer, who were nearly out of range at the time they were shot at, will escape with gaping, bleeding, lead-filled holes in them?

This is just another example of state game departments pushing their weight around, defying the will of the people and town councils, not to mention the will of the wildlife. Who do game regulators think they are, God? Sorry, but I hear that position has already been filled.

Jim Robertson

……..Instead of printing that, here’s the letter they chose to print…….

Dear Editor,

I am writing in response to the article The Daily Astorian regarding the debate on the upcoming hunting season in the Ecola Creek Forest Reserve (“Expanded hunting season remains in Ecola Creek Forest Reserve,” Aug. 7).

I am proud to be an avid hunter, fisherman, and outdoorsman and was very upset to read some of the comments made during the city council meeting by Cannon Beach resident Jan Seibert Wahrmund.

The topic being discussed was the hunting area that borders the non hunting area. Wahrmund’s quote was, “Hunters don’t always know where they are. They may have been drinking.”

I understand that not everyone is pro hunting, and I respect their beliefs and opinions. But this comment is ignorant and offensive. To stereotype all hunters as beer-guzzling hillbillies who get drunk and shoot at everything that moves is unfair and misinformed.

Hunters and all outdoorsman are the biggest proponents for conservation and safety. Hunters are the reason that such strict game management laws are in place. A true hunter and outdoorsman has a great deal of respect for all wildlife and everything in its surrounding area.

Hunters and hikers can and always have been able to share the forest without issues. Hunting is a tradition that has been passed down through generations, and we are very passionate about it. It is much more than just harvesting an animal. It’s about enjoying the outdoors and wildlife, and time spent with friends and family.

I hope that Wahrmund takes the time to consider how offensive and misleading her comments were before the next time she “shoots off” her stereotyping and unfair opinions at a council meeting. On behalf of all responsible hunters, please consider how your actions affect others. Thank you.

Steve Honan

….My favorite line in his letter: “Hunters and hikers can and always have been able to share the forest without issues.” Hasn’t he heard about all the hunting accidents that happen each year?

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IDA Action Alert: Tell Your Senator to Oppose The Sportsmen’s Act 2013 (S. 1335)

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from: In Defense of Animals

The formula to protect wild animals from cruelty is simple: anything that the Safari Club International (SCI) supports MUST be opposed.

The SCI, an atrocious trophy hunter organization, is currently lobbying heavily for Selk-000-home17300 1335, sponsored by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK). If passed, the Act would make hunting and trapping a priority to be considered on federal lands–public lands that are owned and funded by us, the Public.

The bill would allow hunting and trapping in designated wilderness areas, allow “volunteers” to help in the killing of so-called “excess” animals on Federal land, including National Parks, increase the share of federal lands turned into shooting ranges, and legalize the transporting of bows through national parks and the importation of “trophies” from polar bears kills in Canada.

Please contact your Senator immediately and tell her/him to vote “NO” on the Sportsmen’s Act 2013 (S. 1335). The threats our wildlife face come from many directions- loss of habitat, trophy hunters, poaching, conflicts with humans and or human-based activities, as well as the hardships of living in the wild as predator or prey. The last thing we need right now is to open our national parks or wilderness areas that currently do not allow hunting to more killing.

 

Humans show their thirst for blood

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Roger, one of our regular readers, posted the following letter he wrote which was printed yesterday in the Missoulian, under the heading “Hunting and fishing.”

: Humans show their thirst for blood

The sports killing season of 2013 is upon us. In Montana alone, “sportsmen” will kill around 19,000 antelope, 40,000 deer, 300 wolves, 1,300 black bear, 200 bighorn sheep, 200 moose, 20,000 elk – then there are turkeys and an assortment of other birds to kill.

It is sporting tradition. Wyoming will kill even more elk, having had record years the past 10. The states of Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and Wisconsin will push wolf-killing as far as they think they can get away with and not risk re-listing. Montana sells $19 wolf tags to kill five wolves.

Then there is the U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services, which kills around 72,000 coyotes each year and around 28,000 other animals, a million animals a decade.

Then there are the poachers of Africa, and the sportsmen who go there to kill dwindling populations of elephants and rhinos and lions.

We, human animals, are overfishing the oceans and threatening sharks, whales, bluefin tuna and other marine life.

Then there are the slaughterhouses, which will kill a billion chickens worldwide and millions of cattle, pigs and sheep each year. Now conservative state legislatures are pushing every year, despite what the American people have opposed over and over, the opening of horse slaughterhouses.

Animal shelters “put down” (kill) thousands of dogs and cats each year because there are too many and too few homes for them.

You would think that humans are primarily bloodthirsty carnivores, something as scary as the worse aliens you can imagine, which we are.

Roger Hewitt
Great Falls, MT

Game Departments Must Think They’re God

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Cannon Beach, nestled along the northern Oregon Coast, used to be a prettymore housepix 235 peaceful place. It’s a nice, romantic getaway or a great place to bring the entire clan. Haystack Rock, perched immediately off CB’s two mile stretch of sand, appears on more post cards and magazine covers than any other feature on the entire coast.

Folks stay there to escape the noise and manic pace of Portland or Seattle, enjoying quiet walks, hoping to catch a glimpse of some of the native wildlife. A small herd of elk lives there and can sometimes be seen taking their own cautious walks out on the beach in the early morning, foraging on the thick, leafy salal bushes in Ecola State Park or resting on the grass in city parks at the edge of town, adding to the natural character of area.

Cannon Beach is not the kind of place people expect to run into cammo-clad Elmers with shotguns or compound bows stalking the area’s half-tame animals.

But when the town’s parks and community services committee wanted to limit the local hunting season to only one month, the Oregon state Department of Fish and Wildlife told them they could not limit the hunting season and instead set five seasons there, totaling 90 days.  And although the town of Cannon Beach wanted to restrict hunting to bows and arrows and shotgun slugs, the ODFW informed them that buckshot would be allowed as well.

Yes, you read that right—now any hunter who wants to can blast a 700 pound bull elk with a shotgun. What a mess that would be for some sightseeing family to come across. And how many elk and deer, who were nearly out of range at the time they were shot at, will escape with a gaping, bleeding, lead-filled hole in them?!!

According to the almighty ODFW, hunting on the Ecola Creek Forest Reserve will be extended from one month to 92 days, beginning Aug. 24. And rather than being limited to one season from Sept. 28 through Nov. 1, five seasons will be allowed through Dec. 8!

The great and powerful ODFW have decreed that hunting dates in the reserve shall be:
• Aug. 24 through Sept. 22: bow hunting for deer and elk.
• Sept. 28 through Nov. 1: shotgun hunting for buck deer.
• Nov. 9 through Nov.12: shotgun hunting for bull elk.
• Nov. 16 through Nov. 22: shotgun hunting for bull elk.
• Nov. 23 through Dec. 8: bow hunting for deer.

This is just another example of state game departments pushing their weight around, defying the will of the people and town councils, not to mention the will of the wildlife. Who do “game” regulators think they are, God? Sorry, but I hear that position has already been filled.

Text and Wildlife Photography © Jim Robertson

Text and Wildlife Photography © Jim Robertson

Update from the Bear-Killing Fields of Washington

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While walking my dog this morning on the ordinarily deserted logging roads around here, I came across (in addition to several fresh piles of bear scat) boot tracks in the grass heading into a draw thick with blackberry and salmonberry bushes, where one of our local bears was murdered by a hunter (“harvested”) last August. Now, I’m hearing the report of a rifle and am wondering if the same narcissistic nimrod is out there trying to kill another of our bear friends (like some serial killer who struggled through an enforced nine-month cooling off period and, consequently, is gripped by the uncontrollable urge to satisfy his pent-up his bloodlust).

Although it’s barely berry season for the bears out there trying to stock up for the coming winter, it’s bear hunting season—as of August 1st—for Elmers and Elmerettes in the Evergreen State. Nowadays, every Elmer (or Elmerette) who wants to can kill not one, but TWO, bears apiece through November 15th!

As of last Thursday, any Washington State black bear who values his or her life will have no peace ‘til the snow flies and they’re safely tucked away in their hibernation den. Until then, they must assume there’s a camo-clad coward with a high powered rifle or compound bow aimed at them, perched in every tree they pass under.

Each year 30,000 black bears are killed by hunters in the U.S. alone. And each and every one of them was a more remarkable, more worthy being than the sadists and psychos who kill them for sport.

Text and Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson, 2013. All Rights Reserved

Text and Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson, 2013. All Rights Reserved

Hunter Killed by Buffalo he was Trying to Shoot

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A British man working as a professional hunter on a private game reserve in Zimbabwe has been killed by a wounded buffalo he was trying to shoot.

By Peta Thornycroft, Aislinn Laing in Johannesburg
2:45PM BST 11 Jun 2012                                                           [My comments interjected in brackets throughout]
Owain Lewis, 67, had been tracking the animal for three days to finish it off after it was shot and injured by a visiting American hunter he was escorting.

[okay, first off, how many years must he have been killing animals if he was 67 when one finally finished off his career?]

Paul Smith, the owner of Chifuti Safaris in the lower Zambezi Valley, said Mr Lewis was “very tough and experienced” but had been caught unawares when the buffalo charged from the undergrowth and tossed him in the air.

[What, no video?]

“It turned on him and attacked him and unfortunately the apprentice hunter with him could not shoot the animal as Owen’s body was in the way,” he said.

[Fortunately, that is.)

“It was a very tough fight. Owain’s neck was broken but the apprentice did manage to kill the buffalo.

[Oh, that last bit is a real shame.]

“We are very shocked. This is the first time we have had an incident like this.

[and hopefully not the last.]

Today is Opening Day of “Bear Season” in Washington!

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The first day of August: summer is at its peak, young birds have fledged and the wild berries are just now ripening up…

But on this very same day, demonic dimwits and narcissistic nimrods that enjoy making sport of murdering animals are out trying to end the life of a humble being whose only focus lately is filling up on fresh fruit.

That’s right; believe it or not, August 1st is the beginning of bear season across much of Washington! From today until November 15th, any loathsome scumbag with a bear tag and an unwholesome urge to kill can “bag” himself a bruin—just for the sport of it—in this presumably progressive state.

Sure, one or two people may be killed by bears in a given year, but over that same time period 50 will die from bee stings, 70 will be fatally struck by lightning and 300 will meet their maker due to hunting accidents. A person has about as good a chance of spontaneously combusting as being killed by a bear.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of bears are killed by people each year, and no one is keeping track of how many are wounded, only to crawl off and die slowly without hospital care to pamper them back to health. 30,000 black bears are slain during legal hunting seasons in the US alone. Possibly another 30,000 fall prey each year to ethically impotent poachers seeking gall bladders to sell on the Chinese black market. Victims lost to that vile trade are eviscerated and left to rot, since bear meat is not considered a desirable taste treat. To make it palatable, backwoods chefs traditionally douse the flesh and offal with salt and grind the whole mess into sausage.

Why then, is it legal to kill bears when we have long since concocted a myriad of ways to turn high protein plant foods (such as soy, seitan or tempeh) into a perfectly scrumptious, spicy sausage, sans intestines? Unquestionably, the hunting of bears is nothing but a warped distraction motivated by a lecherous desire to make trophies of their heads and hides. But, dangerous and terrifying as they must seem to trophy hunters out to prove their manhood from behind the security blanket of a loaded weapon, they aren’t the “most dangerous game,” as the serial killer, Zodiac (an avid hunter who grew bored with “lesser” prey and progressed to hunting humans) divulged.

An irrational fear of bears dates back to the earliest days of American history and is customarily accompanied by obtuse thinking and quirky spelling. The most famous inscription (carved into a tree, naturally) attributable to Daniel Boone (that guy who went around with a dead raccoon on his head) bragged how he “…cilled a bar…in the year 1760.” The bears Boone killed (and there were many) in North Carolina and Tennessee were black bears, a uniquely American species that, like coyotes, evolved on the Western Hemisphere.

Every year a fresh crop of Elmers decides to play Daniel Boone and blast a poor little black bear with a musket ball (which, although extremely painful and traumatic, often isn’t enough to kill them outright). Others prefer the test of archery, savagely impaling innocent bears who are just out trying to find enough berries to get them through the winter.

Rachel Carson, whose 1962 book, Silent Spring, advanced the environmental movement, saw the brutality of hunting as a detriment to civilized society:

“Until we have the courage to recognize cruelty for what it is—whether its victim is human or animal—we cannot expect things to be much better in this world. We cannot have peace among men whose hearts delight in killing any living creature. By every act that glorifies or even tolerates such moronic delight in killing we set back the progress of humanity.”

The question is, how long will society continue to tolerate the moronic act of sport hunting?

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This post contained excerpts from my book, Exposing the Big Game: Living Targets of a Dying Sport
http://www.earth-books.net/books/exposing-the-big-game

Text and Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson, 2013. All Rights Reserved

Text and Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson, 2013. All Rights Reserved

Tell Congress to Vote NO on The “Sportsmen’s” Act

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What’s your position on The Sportsmen’s Act:

S. 1335: A bill to protect and enhance opportunities for recreational hunting, fishing, and shooting, and for other purposes…

What do you think?

The next vote on this bill will occur in the Senate. How should your senators vote?

(Hint: NO!!)

Please go here and let them know:

https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/113/s1335?utm_campaign

What people are saying about the “Sportsman’s” act…

Dear Congressperson:

‘I oppose S. 1335 (“A bill to protect and enhance opportunities for recreational hunting, fishing, and shooting, and for”) because…I want a place to visit free of these murderous barbarians who call themselves ‘sportsmen’ <<< WHAT AN APPALLING JOKE! I want what is LEFT of our dwindling wildlife to have one last vestige of safety from these 19th century serial killers with impunity & the onslaught of an OVERPOPULATED, comatose, indifferent human species invading every last wild habitat with roads, housing and malls! Keep these MURDERERS out of OUR national parks, they have no need to be in there shooting & killing animals in the last place wildlife has any hope of safely existing! Hunting is Americas’ greatest SHAME!’    Sincerely, Stephanie T

Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson, 2013. All Rights Reserved

Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson, 2013. All Rights Reserved