Tag Archives: deer

Sab All Hunting, Not Just the Wolf Hunt

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It never pays to procrastinate. Although I re-blogged Earth First’s “Manual for Sabotaging Wolf Hunts” a few days ago, I just now read the first speciesist lines of its pro-hunting introduction: “Lets shoot straight right from the start. We are hunters and proud of it.” (What part of the universal truth, that hunters are psychopaths and total scumbags, does EF fail to understand?) Their inconsistent attitude that it’s ok to hunt other species besides wolves prevents me from spreading the word about their manual any further.

It’s always sad when good-hearted people try to align themselves with their enemies and take on their ugly traits in order to boost the popularity of their cause. While it may seem like fun to emulate Elmers, when it comes right down to it, hating and killing wolves is a natural component of the redneck hunter’s credo. Rare is the hunter out to get “his” deer—whether for the purpose of subsistence, sport or trophy hunting—that doesn’t eventually resent the competition from natural predators.

Species like deer, moose, elk or feral hogs are every bit as sentient, and can experience fear and pain in the same way, as wolves. All animals value their lives; the frivolous taking of an innocent life is not something to be proud of. If we modern humans (7 billion and counting) can lead healthier lives without killing and consuming animal flesh, and thereby messing with the food chain, why should we inject ourselves into natures’ intricate web by playing top predator?

Remember, every grazer or browser we claim for ourselves is one less for the wolves who really need them.

Text and Wildlife Photography © Jim Robertson

Text and Wildlife Photography © Jim Robertson

 

Annals of Game Management

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The only way humans can get chronic wasting disease is by eating deer So the obvious answer is: Don’t kill and eat deer, people! Meanwhile, hundreds of deer–who didn’t even have CJD–were cruelly mowed down by “game” “managers”!!

Michael Elton McLeod's avatarFirst Light Productions

Three years ago, wildlife biologists from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department drove into the paddock of James Anderton’s Whitetail Ranch hunting reserve. Using rifles mounted on tripods they killed more than 70 of Anderton’s animals, shooting for hours, working the panicked herd back and forth across the paddock, picking them off one by one.….

    A white helicopter with what appeared to be a forward-looking infrared camera mounted to its nose flew lazy loops over the ranch, scanning for survivors.

    Texas wildlife officials were concerned that animals in the herd might be carrying a highly transmissible killer of deer known as chronic wasting disease (CWD).

    Anderton said the deer had been bought in Arkansas, a state with no documented cases of the disease so far. But he couldn’t provide evidence of the state of origin for every animal because he was locked in prison for wildlife trafficking. The FBI and…

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NC Bear Poachers Finally Getting Punished

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Men get prison for poaching in WNC

Four-year probe uncovers illegal bear, deer hunting in WNC national forests

BRYSON CITY — A judge sentenced seven men to time in prison for poaching bears and deer and other illegal hunting activities on national forests in Western North Carolina after they were charged following a years-long law enforcement probe.

The arrests were the result of a four-year undercover investigation called Operation Something Bruin, in which officers infiltrated poaching circles to document violations, said Anne Tompkins, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina.

Ten defendants pleaded guilty and were sentenced this week in U.S. District Court in Bryson City by Magistrate Judge Dennis Howell. Seven of the men received prison terms of up to 30 days.

“We anticipate that the success of Operation Something Bruin will send a strong message to poachers and would-be violators to think twice before they engage in illegal hunting activities,” Tompkins said. “Together with our federal and state law enforcement partners we will combine forces to combat illegal hunting, protect our wildlife and conserve our natural resources.”

Officials announced in February that the undercover operation netted 81 wildlife violators and some 980 violations in WNC and northern Georgia. About 100 wildlife officers began serving warrants at the time.

Posing as hunters and using social media to make contacts, officers with the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources infiltrated groups suspected of poaching.

Officials said the violations included:

• Bear baiting

• Illegal taking of bears, deer and other wildlife;

• Illegal use of dogs: and

• Operation of illegal bear enclosures and guiding hunts on national forest lands without the required permits.

“The continued success of Operation Something Bruin is a fine example of state and federal agencies coordinating efforts to protect the resources of our national forests,” said Steve Ruppert, special agent in charge with the U.S. Forest Service.

More: http://www.citizen-times.com/article/20130615/NEWS/306150024/Men-get-prison-poaching-WNC?nclick_check=1

Photo Copyright Jim Robertson

Photo Copyright Jim Robertson

 

Save the Wolves: Support the Rights of All Animals

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Make no mistake, I love wolves as much as just about anyone; yet some people practically worship them, putting them above any other species except perhaps whales and dolphins. To be sure, wolves are sacred, but there are folks who think of them as hyper-sentient—the great Northern furred land-dolphin, if you will.

I’m not for a minute denying wolves’ intelligence or adherence to an almost human-like social caste system, but I can’t get behind campaign slogans such as “Real hunters don’t hunt wolves.” I call bullshit on that. Real hunters hunt wolves, coyotes, elk, deer, prairie dogs, pigeons, pronghorn, bears, cougars, raccoons— anything and everything that moves or has ever moved. Hell, they’d probably hunt whales and dolphins if it weren’t for the Federal Marine Mammal Protection Act. Most hunters just want a target and a trophy, they don’t really care what species it is.

Granted, some hunters are more sadistic than others, just as some serial killers revel in their victims’ suffering, while others dispatch their prey as quickly as possible—they’re only interest: harvesting a trophy corpse to have around, for whatever morbid reason. The most sadistic hunters are probably fueled by the fact that there are people out there who adore wolves while state laws still consider delisted wolves “property” like every other non-human animal.

Serial killers have been known to derive sick pleasure from taunting the families of their victims, calling them from prison to recount their murders. The same kind of thing likely goes on in the minds of sadistic wolf hunters who boast and post photos of their kills, knowing that some sentimental environmentalist or animal rightsists might come across one and be hurt or outraged by it. They’d love to know that one of us broke down, burned out or resorted to lethal action because of their post (as long as they weren’t on the receiving end of the action).

The wolf situation is unique among modern-day animal atrocities, in that it’s as yet perfectly “legal” for hunters and trappers to film themselves in action. In sharing them online, they’re banking on the fact that the general public is unmoved and apathetic. But I’d like to think that if factory farmers readily shared footage of their routine acts of animal abuse online, there would be a lot more vegans in this world.

For now, the only way anti-wolf sadists can be stopped is by eliminating them from the world of the living. But if you happen to reside in one of those backward states that have yet to implement a death penalty for wolf hunting, the best advice is to just ignore them like you would the taunts of any other bully. Meanwhile, keep petitioning Facebook and other social media outlets where their death porn appears. As long as animals, including wolves, are seen only as “property” by the powers that be, the people who run Facebook will feel entitled to allow anti-wolf evil to be spread throughout their pages and posts.

Eventually common decency will prevail and violent anti-wolf/anti-animal sites will come under serious scrutiny, just as misogynistic sites recently have. We need to step up the pressure on Facebook and let them know that freedom of speech does not give one the right to victimize. Be sure to sign this petition and pass it on: http://www.change.org/petitions/facebook-executives-ban-sadistic-pages-of-wildlife-torture

Meanwhile, let’s fight for the rights and personhood of all animals, not just a chosen few.

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

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

Hunting Conditions Us to Killing

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The Following is an Op/Ed I sent to the New York Times in response to a recent article they featured glorifying hunting. For some reason, they didn’t print this—it must not have fit in with their agenda…

 

Hunting Conditions Us to Killing

I’d like to thank the New York Times for inadvertently giving us a glimpse inside the hunter’s mind, through their recent article, “Hunting your own dinner.” In my book, Exposing the Big Game: Living Targets of a Dying Sport, I spend an entire chapter probing “Inside the Hunter’s Mind” and I’m here to tell you, it’s a dark and disturbing place in there—and no one divulges that better than the hunters themselves. Here are a couple of quotes from hunters waxing poetic on the thrills they get out of killing:

“I had wondered and worried how it would feel to kill an animal, and now I know. It feels — in both the modern and archaic senses — awesome. I’m flooded, overwhelmed, seized by interlocking feelings of euphoria and contrition, pride and humility, reverence and, yes, fear. The act of killing an innocent being feels — and will always feel — neither wholly wrong nor wholly right.”

“You’re the last one there…you feel the last bit of breath leaving their body. You’re looking into their eyes and basically, a person in that situation is God! You then possess them and they shall forever be a part of you. And the grounds where you killed them become sacred to you and you will always be drawn back to them.”

Both quotes were from people who considered themselves hunters—men who stalked and killed innocent, unarmed victims. The first was taken from the aforementioned Times article written by Bill Heavey, an editor at large for the “sportsman’s” magazine, Field and Stream. The second one triumphantly reliving his conquest was none other than the infamous Ted Bundy, as he sat on death row musing over his many murders to the authors of The Only Living Witness.

It seems that, whether the perpetrator is engaged in a sport hunt or a serial kill, the approach is similar. Though their choice of victims differs, their mindset, or perhaps mental illness, is roughly the same.

Even our former cold war enemy seems to be light years ahead of the U.S. in moving beyond the barbarity of hunting. Oleg Mikheyev, MP of the center-left Fair Russia parliamentary party, told daily newspaper Izvestia just what I’ve been saying all along: “People who feel pleasure when they kill animals cannot be called normal.”

Mikheyev entered a draft law to ban most hunting in Russia and expressed his belief that hunting is unnecessary and immoral, regardless of whether one sees it as a sport, a pastime or an industry. According to the bill, forest rangers will still be allowed to hunt but must first pass a psychological test, which Mikheyev points out, “…can help us in early detection of latent madmen and murderers.”

Here in the states, Heavey went on to write, “What ran in the woods now sits on my plate… What I’ve done feels subversive, almost illicit.”

Then why do it?

Though some hunters like Heavey may put on a show of innocuousness by temporarily eschewing guns and choosing to test their skill at bowhunting—arguably the cruelest kill method in the sportsman’s quiver—the typical American hunter sets out on their expeditions in a Humvee or some equally eco-inefficient full-sized pickup truck, spending enough on gas, gear, beer and groceries to buy a year’s supply of food, or to make a down payment on a piece of land big enough to grow a killer garden.

Clearly the motive for their madness is more insidious than simply procuring a meal.

There’s been plenty of discussion about controlling weapons to stave off the next school shooting, but the media has been mute over the role hunting plays in conditioning people to killing. And the New York Times article is a shameful example of the press pandering to the 5 percent who still find pleasure in taking life. Do we really want to encourage 7 billion humans to go out and kill wildlife for food as if hunting is actually sustainable and wild animal flesh is an unlimited resource?

Overhunting has proven time and again to be the direct cause of extinction for untold species, including the passenger pigeon, the Carolina parakeet and the Eastern elk. Meanwhile, hunters out west are doing a bang-up job of driving wolves back to the brink of oblivion for the second time in as many centuries.

Heavey ended his Times article gloating, “I have stolen food. And it is good.” Like serial killers and school shooters, hunters objectify their victims; so insignificant are they to them that hunters don’t even recognize them for what they are—fellow sentient beings. Does somebody have to point out the obvious—he didn’t just steal “food,” he stole a life.

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

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

I’m About Sick of Control Freaks

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What the hell’s going on with state lawmakers and wildlife agencies lately? With just a cursory glance at the headlines this morning I counted at least a half dozen cases of puffed-up politicians overstepping their bounds by offering up some non-human species to appease the bloodlust of a few of their freakiest constituents.
Headlines like “State lawmaker wants open season on woodchucks,” about Wisconsin state representative, Andre Jacque (R-De Pere), who is pedaling a bill that would remove woodchucks from Wisconsin’s protected species list and allow people to kill an unlimited number of them during a season that would run nearly year-round. Jacque said woodchucks are abundant and a “nuisance.”

Though newspaper journalists are, as a rule, impartial, the article’s reporter couldn’t help but see the disturbing trend going on across the dairy state:

Deer, bears, wolves, mourning doves, even wild pigs – if it walks, crawls or flies in Wisconsin, hunters can probably shoot it. Now a state lawmaker wants to declare open season on one more animal: the wily woodchuck.

The bill represents another expansion of hunting rights in Wisconsin and promises to reignite a years-old debate over whether hunters really need another target species. Attempts over the last decade to create hunts for feral cats and mourning doves, the state’s symbol of peace, drew fierce opposition. The state’s new wolf season sent animal lovers into a rage last year and an attempt to create a sandhill crane hunt last spring went nowhere after opponents mounted an intense campaign to stop it. Woodchucks, also known as groundhogs, aren’t as near and dear to Wisconsinites’ hearts as wolves, mourning doves and cranes.

Here’s an idea, why not let their “nuisance” wolves control the “nuisance” woodchucks? Predators like wolves and coyotes have been in charge of “controlling” woodchucks, beavers, prairie dogs, ground squirrels and other scary rodents for thousands of centuries. But I guess letting nature take care of itself would cheat hunters and other human control freaks out of some of their coveted “shooting opportunities.”

Meanwhile, a Spokane Spokesman Review article, “Idaho sets 2013 big-game hunting seasons, rules,” reports: permits for antlerless elk hunting will be increased statewide under the 2013 hunting seasons for deer, elk, pronghorn, black bear, mountain lion and gray wolf adopted today in Boise by the Fish and Game Commission. The new seasons also include an increase in pronghorn tags and expanded wolf hunting and trapping seasons. Wolf hunting on private lands in the Idaho Panhandle will be allowed year round.

Again, like in Wisconsin, Montana and so many other trigger-happy western states, populations of both wolves and deer or elk are slated for reduction. It seems the work of control freaks is never ending.

Since they don’t have any wolves to scapegoat, wildlife policy-makers in Utah are setting a $50.00 bounty on coyotes, presumably to keep in practice.
And in Oklahoma, spring youth turkey season will begins today for youth hunters ages 17 and younger. Turkeys won’t be safe in that state until sometime in May.

Also in Oklahoma hunting news, on Wednesday 1200 students and 64 teams from Oklahoma high schools, middle schools and elementary schools will convene at the OKC State Fairgrounds to compete in the state’s ninth archery championship tournament. Archery in the Schools has become the most popular educational program the Okla. Dept. of Wildlife “Conservation” has ever introduced. More than 400 schools and almost 50,000 students in Oklahoma are taking an eight week archery session taught indirectly by the Oklahoma Wildlife Department.

Now, I like to shoot arrows at straw bales as much as the next guy, but you know it doesn’t end there for most of these Okies. Sure enough, the success of their archery program has inspired the Oklahoma Wildlife Dept. to introduce other courses in schools such as hunter education, bow hunting and fishing. And this spring the Wildlife Dept. will introduce a scholastic shooting sports program in several pilot schools.…

I could go on, but trying to keep up with every state’s new anti-wildlife programs is really getting to be a nuisance.

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


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

Impossible to Imagine

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To those of us who care deeply about wildlife issues and the abuse of non-humans, it seems that no matter how many horrors you hear about, there’s always something else happening to animals somewhere we’re shocked to learn. Even after writing a book against hunting and trapping, I guess there are still places my mind doesn’t want to go.

That’s how I felt when I read the article, “Montana, Idaho trappers catching more than just wolves,” in the Ravalli Republic, which I mentioned in yesterday’s blog post, “Stop the Spread of Psychopathy—End Hunting and Trapping.”

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

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

For a few years my wife and I lived in a house surrounded by a small field on a forested hill above Washington’s Willapa River valley. The field was once an upper pasture of a now long-defunct dairy. We were happy to see it returning to nature. Sword ferns, wildflowers and Douglas fir trees were starting their advance across the expanse of grass, finding soil churned up by moles for their seeds to take root.

Common wildlife there included black-tailed deer, black bear, raccoons, coyotes, field mice and the red-tailed hawks attracted by the latter. Meanwhile, our feeders attracted everyone from squirrels and chipmunks to a varied assortment of birds—Steller’s jays, juncos and chestnut-backed chickadees, as well as flocks of band-tailed pigeons and American goldfinch, the Washington state bird.

But it was always a special treat to wake up to the sight of the local elk herd bedded down in the upper corner of the field, less than 50 yards from the house.

People often panic at the thought of 20 or 30 large animals competing with their cows for pasture grass, but elk are anything but sedentary grazers—they’re always on the move. Sticking together as a group, they make a circuit around their range through forests and across rivers to find themselves in a new place every day for a week or two, before starting the circuit anew. It was always sad to see them move on from the protection of our posted private property, yet you could almost predict to the day when they’d show up again.

But there was one lone elk cow who seemed to shadow the herd, always a few days behind. We saw her far more often than the herd, and we soon figured out that she was staying nearby in the surrounding forest rather than migrating over the miles-long circuit like the rest of her kind. The reason became obvious—she had a pronounced limp as though barely able to use her right front leg.

When we got a good look through binoculars we saw that her foot was in fact missing! What the hell could have happened to cause that? My first thought was that she caught her leg in some overgrown barbed wire, a familiar threat since “livestock growers” almost never remove unnecessary fencing when they finally quit the business.

Asking around to the locals, their standard reaction was a snicker and a half-assed guess that someone must have shot it off during hunting season. Either scenario seemed remotely possible, but not necessarily all that probable, considering the horse-like size of the animal in question. One bullet or a strand of barbed wire shouldn’t do that much damage.

Twice over the years I’ve found dogs caught in steel-jawed foot-hold traps in other parts of the state (one of them had to have his lower leg amputated) and I started to wonder if the elk might have stepped into a trap set for coyotes (whom the locals hate with extreme prejudice).

I knew that smaller mammals, as well as hawks and eagles, were often unintended victims of trapping; but the thought of an animal as large as a deer or elk being caught in a trap was just too hard to get my mind around. It wasn’t until I read the following lines in “Montana, Idaho trappers catching more than just wolves,” and then saw a photo of a hunter-killed cougar who had earlier lost his toes in a trap, that I suddenly knew for sure—that’s how she lost her foot!: “Trappers reported capturing 45 deer. Twelve of those died. They also captured 18 elk and four moose. One of the elk died.”

The article goes on to quote the Idaho Department of Fish and Game’s state “game” manager, looking out for his cronies while objectifying the animals, “No one wants to catch a deer. It costs them a lot of time.” I don’t even want to try to imagine what an ungulate like that goes through to try to escape a trap—even before seeing an approaching trapper.

Traps are often compared to landmines set for any passing animal. But the difference is that while a landmine blows an appendage off instantly, a steel-jawed trap works its evil slowly—the more its victim struggles to escape, the more damage is done.

In the case of the elk, escape meant not only catching up with the rest of the herd, but also getting away from anyone who might happen by. If determined enough, an animal as powerful as that could eventually pull herself free of a trap’s steel jaws, but freedom would likely come at the expense of a foot.

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

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

Stop the Spread of Psychopathy—End Hunting and Trapping

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In light of the rise in violent crime, many have pondered the question: “How do I know if my neighbor is a psychopathic serial killer?” Well, unfortunately, it’s not easy. Unless of course you happen to live in any number of rural areas across the country where hunters are required to wear blaze orange—then the psychopathic serial killers stand out like a bunch of sore thumbs.

Okay, so maybe it’s a bit hyperbolic to compare hunters to serial killers. Yes, they both obsess on and stalk their victims, whom they objectify and depersonalize in their single-minded quest to boost their self-esteem, and the kills made by both hunters and serial killers are followed by a cooling off period, but serial killing usually has a sexual component to it.

Let’s hope hunters aren’t literally getting off on their exploits.

Maybe a better comparison for a hunter would be to a mass murderer: the inadequate type who snipes with a hunting rifle at innocent passers-by from a clock tower, or fires an AR-15 at cars from an embankment over a freeway.

Either way, the plain fact is cruelty to animals often leads to the killing of people. The perpetrators of the Columbine mass school shooting in Colorado honed their slaying skills by practicing on woodpeckers with their hunting rifles. David Berkowitz, the self-proclaimed “Son of Sam” serial killer, who habitually took sport in shooting lovers in parked cars along the streets of New York City, began his criminal career by shooting his neighbor’s dog.

Why does the public put up with these people in their midst?

The mainstream media downplays the behavior of serial animal killers as though hunting was just another “sport” to report on; like they were covering some Boy Scout Jamboree. They repeat by rote hunter/”game” department jargon like the animals were inanimate objects, using emotionally void terms such as “crop” for deer or “wolf harvest” for the unnecessary torture and murder of sentient beings vastly more admirable than their pursuers.

Worse yet are the noxious spread of anything-goes anti-wolf/anti-wildlife websites and chat rooms now widespread in social media. Consider the following comments made in response to a hunter showing off the cougar he killed (photo below)…

February 11 at 8:34am – “Nice cat bud.”

February 11 at 8:34am via mobile – “Colter! I had no idea you were into cougars.”

February 11 at 8:39am via mobile – “Hahahaha only old hairy ones like this one!!”

February 11 at 8:51am via mobile – “Good cat man congrats.”

February 11 at 9:15am via mobile – “That’s a nice cat bud!”

February 11 at 10:25am via mobile – “Thanks! Damn fun hunt.”

February 11 at 4:39pm – “what did you do, shoot its paw off!”

February 11 at 5:25pm via mobile – “It had been stuck in a trap at some point. Either chewed it off or pulled it off.”

In other words the poor cougar suffered, possibly for days, in a trap, before being shot by a trophy hunter. “Non-target” species like cougars often end up in traps set for other undeserving animals.

The Ravalli Republic reports (in typical mainstream media passionless fashion) in their article, Montana, Idaho trappers catching more than just wolves: 

In the first year that wolf trapping was allowed in Idaho, trappers captured a total of 123 wolves.

But according to a survey by the Idaho Fish and Wildlife Department, those same trappers in 2011-2012 also inadvertently captured 147 other animals, including white-tailed deer, elk, moose, mountain lions, skunks and ravens.

Trappers reported that 69 of those animals died as a result.

Trappers reported capturing 45 deer. Twelve of those died. They also captured 18 elk and four moose. One of the elk died.

The same number of coyotes ended up in traps as deer. Trappers reported that 38 were killed. Mountain lions also took a hit. Nine were captured and six died.

“There are a heck of a lot of people out there trapping furbearers,” said the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks wildlife management chief. “And there also are a lot of people trapping coyotes, which aren’t even regulated.”

Meanwhile, Idaho allows trappers to use wire snares that collapse around an animal’s neck as it struggles to free itself.

The Idaho Department of Fish and Game’s state wildlife game manager vacuously adds, “No one wants to catch a deer. It costs them a lot of time.”

…

Any society that looks the other way when people murder animals for fun does so at its peril. Marine biologist, Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring, had this to say about the growing problem:

“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.”

It doesn’t get much more cruel or moronic than this…

cougar kill

Unfortunately, This Time Paul Ryan Was True to His Word

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It seems the only time you can count on a politician to make good on a campaign promise is when it’s something detrimental, like approving the Keystone Pipeline. I fully believe Mitt Romney would have done that, as promised, if he had been elected. And I had no doubt Paul Ryan was serious when he announced his plan to have his 10 year old daughter kill her first deer this year.

While I’m thankful he didn’t make Vice President, unfortunately it freed him up to spend more time at his hobby of murdering animals. And sure enough, he saw to it that his pre-teen little girl joined the ranks of deer assassins as well. On Thanksgiving (of all times), he sent her up a tree outfitted with a .237 caliber rifle to wait for one of the practically tame deer they feed to wander within range of her tree stand and blammo, that’s all she wrote. Physically, the “hunt” could not have been easier. Psychologically and emotionally, it may have been more of a challenge for her had the promise of being showered with daddy’s praise weren’t so alluring.

Ten is an extremely young age to have your heartstrings and pre-pubescence conscience toyed with. It is three years away from being considered teenaged—far too young to drive, vote, partake in alcohol or even to go to war.

I’m glad my father didn’t get his kicks killing animals. As any reformed hunter will tell you, obedience to peer pressure or a father’s expectations can take half a lifetime to outgrow. Hopefully it won’t take that long for young Miss Ryan to develop her conscience and decide to do what’s right.

Text and Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson