Tag Archives: serial killer

Stop the Spread of Psychopathy—End Hunting and Trapping

Posted on by
60

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

Animals are Conscious, but Do Hunters Have a Conscience?

Posted on by
13

Not that it should come as a surprise to anyone who’s ever befriended a dog or cat, or watched birds in their backyard, but in July 2012, respected scientists met in Cambridge and went on record to affirm that non-humans are conscious. Belated as the matter has been in gaining acceptance, their “Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness” was a welcome step in the right direction for the world’s most continually oppressed and victimized—those born of species other than human.

The declaration asserts:

The absence of a neocortex does not appear to preclude an organism from experiencing affective states. Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors. Consequently, the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Nonhuman animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates. …

Okay, that may sound like a bunch of academic hullabaloo, but in layman’s terms, animals are indeed conscious beings. Though not really a profound revelation, the fact that non-humans are not automatons runs counter to hundreds of years of accepted belief (thanks to the fifteenth century French mathematician, Rene Descartes) that’s been used to justify untold animal cruelties for far too long.

In recent decades, the science of cognitive ethology has clearly put to rest grandiose notions of human superiority—besides perhaps the extent of human narcissism.  Nowadays, none but the most agenda-driven or willfully ignorant can claim unfamiliarity with the fact that non-human animals exhibit awareness and have the capacity to experience pain and fear, along with pleasurable feelings and emotions.

So if irrational Cartesian rationale for cruelty to animals is outmoded thinking, how then do hunters justify the virtually unprecedented abuse of our fellow Earthlings going on in the name of sport today? Could it be that sport hunters lack a conscience for all but our own kind?

As you’ve probably heard, British rocker and staunch animal rights activist, Morrissey, canceled his scheduled performance on the “Jimmy Kimmel Live” show this week due to a planned appearance on the same night by the cast of “Duck Dynasty” (a “reality” program which focuses on a family that became wealthy by making tools for their fellow duck hunters.)  The singer released a statement on Monday saying he “cannot morally be on a television program where the cast members of Duck Dynasty will also be guests.”

Morrissey also stated: “As far as my reputation is concerned, I can’t take the risk of being on a show alongside people who, in effect, amount to animal serial killers.”

Serial Killers? How can he liken avid, good ol’ boy duck hunters to serial killers, one might ask? Well, easy. Both serial killers and duck hunters act without conscience toward their multiple victims, whom they depersonalize and objectify. And both kill others to boost their self-esteem, some even going so far as taking trophies of their victims’ body parts.

The next question scientists need to address is, assuming that hunters are conscious animals, why don’t they have a conscience?

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

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

Hunting Is Not a Sport, It’s Sadism

Posted on by
10

I know I’ve said it many times before, but allow me to reiterate: hunting is not a sport, it’s sadism. Football, baseball, basketball and hockey are sports. Bicycle racing, marathon running, pole vaulting and shot putting are other examples.

I went skiing yesterday; skiing is both an outdoor activity and a sport. It tests one’s skill and promotes quick reactions and good balance. Skiers can challenge themselves by going faster, taking steeper runs or skiing heavier, untracked snow.

Boxing, karate, and tennis all qualify as sports; each one pits two people—perhaps not equally matched, but equally willing—in a friendly contest of skill or chance. Granted, the human hunter without weapons is not as equally suited for survival as any non-human animal. Every last squirrel, rabbit or mallard would laugh at the efforts of an un-armed human hunter.

To compensate for being the obvious underdog, sport hunters are the most ruthless, cunning, conniving and—especially in the case of bowhunters or trappers—the most barbaric and monstrous creatures to ever walk the earth. Today’s hunters who want a challenge can opt for lower-tech, less accurate equipment like bows and arrows or black powder rifles. But that just increases the chance that their living targets will get away only wounded, rather than killed outright. If they want to call it a sport, hunters should arm the animals to at least allow them a fighting chance.

The key element clearly lacking in the so-called “sport” of hunting is that both sides are certainly not equally willing. Serial killers may consider stalking and killing their victims a sport, but any sane member of society would have to disagree.

It’s high time we sane members of society take a firm stand for the non-human victims of hunting and demand an end to killing in the name of sport.

574922_10150775941916188_960382052_n

Hunting Humans

Posted on by
20

After my post, Killing Wolves Provides “a Level of Tolerance”?, the director of a Canadian animal rights group, Lifeforce, sent me this press release, which, like my post, is a semi-satirical statement about turning the tables on trophy hunters…

Animal Rights Group To Booth: Let Us Hunt You

An animal rights group is challenging Vancouver Canucks forward David Booth to see what it feels like to be hunted in the wilderness. Peter Hamilton, director of the B.C.-based advocacy group Lifeforce, took umbrage with a picture Booth tweeted last week of the left winger posing next to a freshly-killed mountain goat.

He responded with a dare. “We’re challenging David Booth to put himself in the position of a hunted wildlife,” Hamilton told CTV News. “He would be subjected to the same plight that wildlife are, in hopes that he will reflect upon the suffering and pain of innocent animals.”

A draft version of the “Booth Hunt” plan indicates the Canuck would be sent into the wild unarmed, alone and without rations. A team of hunters with dogs and high-tech equipment would then attempt to track and capture him within an agreed-upon time limit. Naturally, Booth would not be harmed by his chasers.

“He would rely on any of his woodsman skills, as do the wildlife who are forced to rely on their abilities while being ruthlessly pursued,” the draft plan reads. Hamilton described trophy hunting as “barbaric,” and said it’s a practice that must be stopped.BOOTHHUNT

“A trophy is an inanimate object. These are sentient beings,” he said. “One has to question anyone’s motive in getting any kind of pleasure out of killing an animal in this manner.” …

…

I certainly have to agree with Peter Hamilton on that last point—their motive mirrors that of a serial killer—but as I told him, the fact that he’d know he wouldn’t be harmed by his pursuers would make Booth’s experience only a watered-down version of what a hunted animal fearing for its life goes through. Mr. Hamilton concurred; of course his proposition had to sound non-lethal in order to get the barbaric Booth to even consider going along with it.

6-4Hansens-trophy-goatIronically, another infamous celebrity who posed with murdered mountain goats is Anchorage, Alaska baker, serial killer and renowned trophy hunter, Robert Hansen (now serving a 461 year prison sentence for the murder of at least 17 women, ranging in age from 16 to 41.) Well-liked by his neighbors and famed as a local hunting champion, Hansen even broke several records for trophy (nonhuman) kills, documented in the Pope & Young’s book of world hunting records.

Another bit of irony: like the Connecticut school shooter, Adam Lanza, and the D.C. Beltway snipers, John Allen Mohammed and John Lee Malvo, he used a .223-caliber semi-automatic hunting rifle to make his kills (both human and non-human).

Whenever Hansen got a victim under his control, he would fly her in his private plane to his remote cabin where they would be subjected to torture and then set free in the woods, naked and sometimes blindfolded. Hansen would give his victims a brief head start and then hunt them down with a hunting knife or a high-powered rifle. In5-2Robert-Hansens-trophy-room describing his hunts to investigators, Hansen said that it was like “going after a trophy Dall sheep or a grizzly bear.”

As world renowned FBI profilers, John Douglas and Roy Hazelwood correctly surmised, Hansen was compelled to keep trophies of his murders, such as a victim’s jewelry. According to Douglas, the abuse of prostitutes is a way for perpetrators to get back at women. Hansen was probably using his victims as a way to get revenge (much like the motive of good ol’ boys who kill wolves).

Several investigators who were familiar with Hansen said that he was known around the area as a proficient hunter. He earned this reputation after taking down a wild Dall sheep with a crossbow. Douglas concluded that Robert Hansen must have tired of elk, bear and Dall sheep, and instead turned his attention to more interesting prey.

When investigators first heard Hansen’s confession, they couldn’t help but think of the popular fictional story “The Most Dangerous Game” by writer Richard Connell. In the story, a shipwrecked trio find themselves stranded on an uncharted island, where they meet a Russian Count, known only as General Zaroff. The group’s initial delight turns to terror when they realize that the shipwreck was no accident and the good general had lured them there so he could hunt them down.

According to the Huffington Post, Anchorage police and FBI investigators just released information about another Alaskan serial killer, Israel Keyes, who authorities said never showed any remorse but said he got a rush out of hunting for victims and killing them. He also tortured animals as a child, investigators said.

Again, the serial killer’s motive and behavior closely parallels a trophy hunter’s:

“Israel Keyes didn’t kidnap and kill people because he was crazy. He didn’t kidnap and kill people because his deity told him to or because he had a bad childhood,” Anchorage homicide Detective Monique Doll said. “Israel Keyes did this because he got an immense amount of enjoyment out of it; much like an addict gets an immense amount of enjoyment out of drugs. In a way, he was an addict, and he was addicted to the feeling that he got when he was doing this.”

While researching for this blog post, I dug up an article by lion conservationist, Gareth Patterson, entitled “The Killing Fields.” In it, Patterson compares the uncanny similarities between trophy hunters and serial killers.

Here are some excerpts…

Certainly one could state that, like the serial killer, the trophy hunter plans his killing with considerable care and deliberation. Like the serial killer, he decides well in advance the type of victim–that is, which species he intends to target. Also like the serial killer, the trophy hunter plans with great care where and how the killing will take place–in what area, with what weapon. What the serial killer and trophy hunter also share is a compulsion to collect trophies or souvenirs of their killings. The serial killer retains certain body parts and/or other trophies for much the same reason as the big game hunter mounts the head and antlers taken from his prey…as trophies of the chase.

Hunting magazines contain page after page of (a) pictures of hunters, weapon in hand, posing in dominating positions over their lifeless victims, (b) advertisements offering a huge range of trophy hunts, and (c) stories of hunters’ “exciting” experience of “near misses” and danger. These pages no doubt titillate the hunter, fueling his own fantasies and encouraging him to plan more and more trophy hunts.

Trophy hunters often hire a camera person to film their entire hunts in the bush, including the actual moments when animals are shot and when they die. These films are made to be viewed later at will, presumably for self-gratification purposes and to show to other people–again the longing “to be important” factor?…

…

And finally, while on the subject, here’s an excerpt from the chapter, “Inside the Hunter’s Mind,” in my book, Exposing the Big Game: Living Targets of a Dying Sport:

A hunter’s true impetus is to serve the evil master in custody of his soul: his ravening ego. His self-interests are consistently placed far above those of his animal victims, whom he depersonalizes and views as objects rather than individuals. Reducing living entities to lifeless possessions and taking trophies of their body parts—without the slightest hint of guilt, remorse or other higher sentiment—is standard practice for the sport hunter…and the serial killer.

The sportsman keeps his malignant, murderous obsession concealed within the hollow confines of his psyche…until the next hunting season. Beneath a façade of virtuosity he’s driven by an urge to obtain surrogate victims, or stand-ins, representative of some perceived injustice he imagines he underwent at the hands of someone who didn’t let him have his way at some time in his life.

Maybe as a young child he felt he was undeservedly reprimanded, and so he terrorized the family pet, threw rocks at pigeons or turned to some other form of animal abuse to lift his sense of worth and gain a feeling of control. Over the years, he may have found that same kind of ego boost in killing animals for sport, partially satiating his savagery until the next legal opportunity to kill again. Imagining he’s reaping the power of the bear or the stately bull elk temporarily boosts his floundering self-esteem or relieves his sense of inadequacy. But his pride is a shallow pool, constantly in need of refreshing…

Text and Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson, 2012. All Rights Reserved

Text and Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson, 2012. All Rights Reserved

Contest Hunts are a New Moral Low Point

Posted on by
12

I hope you don’t think I go out of my way searching for awful cases of animal exploitation and abuse to blog about. I come across shocking stories of cruelty to animals nearly every time I open the paper or visit the websites of local news stations. Many of the most shocking stories are about brutal activities considered to be perfectly legal, condoned and even institutionalized.

A prime example is the increasingly popular wildlife contest hunt, the kind of backwards barbarity that earned “Buffalo Bill” (the celebrated nineteenth century mass murderer of bison, not the fictional serial killer in Silence of the Lambs) his nickname. Buffalo Bill Cody killed 67 of the gregarious, benign beings during the 12-hour contest. Within a couple of decades, the once-abundant species was all but extinct.

It’s hard to believe that contest hunts were not relegated to the distance past long ago, along with bison hunting, trapping and the vilification of wolves, but all these atrocities are making a comeback and find their way into the news with disturbing regularity.

Just today I stumbled onto the following Associated Press article about a contest coyote hunt slated to take place this weekend in New Mexico (You can’t make this kind of shit up).…

 

“The terms of the competition are simple: Hunters in New Mexico have two days this weekend to shoot and kill as many coyotes as they can, and the winners get their choice of a free shotgun or a pair of semi-automatic rifles.

But the planned two-day coyote hunting contest has sparked an online petition that has generated tens of thousands of signatures worldwide. The FBI is investigating a death threat to the gun shop owner who is sponsoring the hunt. And one protester has even vowed to dress like a coyote to trick hunters into accidentally killing a human.

But none of these episodes will likely stop the owner of Gunhawk Firearms from holding the scheduled two-day coyote hunting race this weekend, despite the international attention the idea has garnered. “I’m not going to back down,” said Mark Chavez, 50, who has faced two weeks of angry phone calls and protests — and even a threat to his life. ‘This is my right to hunt and we’re not breaking any laws.’

Under the rules of the contest, the winning team will get its choice of a Browning Maxus 12-gauge shotgun or two AR-15 semi-automatic rifles…”

…

A contest to see who can kill the most animals—with two free assault weapons for the winners—but they’re “not breaking any laws”? It appears we’ve reached a new historic low point in regards to wildlife protection laws,…or the lack thereof.

Text and Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson, 2012. All Rights Reserved

 

Call Today! The “Sportsmen’s” Act of 2012 Must Fail

Posted on by
17

URGENT!  Before you read another line, pick up your phone, call your Senators and tell them to OPPOSE S 3525 (the so-called, “Sportsmen’s” Act of 2012)! You can find the contact numbers for your senators at the following web page: http://www.senate.gov/

Though the threat of having to watch bowhunter Paul Ryan by crowned Vice President has passed, the specter of sport hunting still haunts the halls of Congress. Under the cunning guise of “conservation,” the Sportsmen’s Act of 2012, S 3525, is a Senate version of the House’s ridiculous “Sportsmen’s Heritage Act” (what will they think of next, a Serial Murderer’s Heritage Act?).

No animal should be reduced to the level of mere object only to be “harvested” at the casual whim of jaded trophy seekers out for a diversion from their meaningless lives.

For the sake of wildlife, public lands and unspoiled wilderness nationwide, we must stop this absurd act from becoming law.

Of course, the animal’s enemies are lining up behind it. According to a new post in Outdoor Life (a popular “sportsmen’s” magazine that actually promotes outdoor death) entitled, “Must-Pass Legislation: Sportsmen’s Act of 2012,”

“The fight for the Sportsmen’s Act isn’t over. The NRA, National Shooting Sports Foundation, Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, Boone and Crocket Club, Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation, and a host of other national, regional and local groups are calling all hands to lobby their Senators for passage.”

Make no mistake, those of us who truly care about wildlife wouldn’t want to see this pass even if it were a painfully annoying kidney stone. The Sportsmen’s Act of 2012 is a must-fail piece of legislation.

 

Thanks to the Animal Welfare Institute for the following action alert:

On November 13, their first day back in session following the recent election, the U.S. Senate will resume consideration of The Sportsmen’s Act of 2012 (S. 3525). Please call and urge your Senators to oppose S. 3525.

If enacted, S. 3525 will have substantial and direct adverse impacts on wildlife, public health and existing conservation efforts. This bill would weaken protections offered by laws such as the Marine Mammal Protection Act, Toxic Substances Control Act and Endangered Species Act. Included in the bill’s language are provisions that would:

•Eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority under the Toxic Substances Control Act to regulate hazardous substances—including lead, a dangerous neurotoxin—released by ammunition and sport fishing waste.

•Encourage federally-funded construction and expansion of public shooting ranges on state and federal land, including land managed by the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management.

•Amend the Marine Mammal Protection Act to permit importation of polar bear carcasses taken before the species was listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act in 2008—including those taken despite multiple warnings of an imminent ban on imports.

This legislation, if enacted, will interfere with important statutory protections affecting animal welfare, human health, and the environment.

The Senate is moving quickly on this bill, so your help is urgently needed TODAY.  Please contact your Senators by phone, email, or fax and tell them to oppose S. 3525!

You can identify your Senators and their contact information here.

Sample Message:

As one of your constituents, I urge you to help protect human health, wildlife and public lands by voting against S. 3525. This legislation, if passed, will undermine provisions of existing conservation statutes including the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Toxic Substances Control Act. It will also interfere with the exercise of authority by federal agencies responsible for managing federal lands and protecting public health. Please oppose S. 3525, and help to protect wildlife, habitat and the public.

Thank you,

Yes, Hunters are Psychopaths—and Sport Hunting is Serial Killing

Posted on by
53

Based on your response to yesterday’s post, “Are Hunters Psychopaths?” the answer is clear: Yes, hunters are psychopaths. Therefore, by extrapolation, we can conclude that sport hunting is serial killing. There’s no way of getting around it. Not unless you consider non-human animals to be mere objects, possessions or “things,” but then you would be viewing them the way a psychopath views his victims. The fact that society still considers nonhumans as objects or possessions can only mean human society shares some of the traits of a psychopath.

Objectification is one of the benchmark behaviors of psychopathy.

Consider the words of Aaron Thomas, the accused East Coast serial rapist who says he doesn’t know why he couldn’t stop attacking women for nearly two decades. “They were objects,” Thomas recently told The Washington Post during a phone interview from his Virginia jail cell. “Whoever came down the street, an object,” he said.

Struggling to understand himself, Thomas admitted, “I don’t think I’m crazy, but something is wrong with me.” Yes, something is definitely wrong—it’s called psychopathy. Though not considered a defensible form of insanity that blurs the line between right and wrong, psychopathy is a disorder characterized by an inability to empathize with others, often accompanied by a compulsion to exploit, harm or kill in order to gain a sense of self-worth. Sound a lot like trophy hunting? It’s the same deal. Thomas said he carried out his attacks without regard for his victims. The same can surely be said about sport hunters in regards to their victims.

Predictably, Thomas’s early behavior involved cruelty to animals. As a youth, he dropped the family’s Lhasa apso into a post hole that had filled with water, nearly drowning it. Showing more insight than most animal abusers, Thomas told the Post, “I used to think to myself I could have turned out a serial killer.”

It’s eerie, yet enlightening, how much the obsession described by Thomas mirrors the preoccupation of an avid sport hunter. The following confession by a “lifelong sportsman” was printed in Montana Outdoors magazine, under the title, “Why I Hunt”:

“Why do I hunt? Well, I hunt because…. Yeah, right. As if there’s an acceptable answer to that question, one I can regurgitate to nonhunters at Christmas parties and still offer with a straight face to my fellow sportsmen, people who already know in their hearts and guts and bones that we hunt for the same reasons we breathe. Because we don’t have a choice. Just as some human beings are born with the gift of artistic talent and others have an innate facility with numbers, we hunters seem blessed with a genetic predisposition toward the chase.”

It is a “predisposition,” and it’s shared by stalkers, sexual psychopaths and serial killers. Sorry to burst their bubbles, but it’s not a blessing to be proud of, and it’s certainly not something to brag about.

 

Text and Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson, 2012. All Rights Reserved

 

 

 

 

Repugs From the Pit of Hell

Posted on by
19

I voted today; filled in my absentee ballot, that is. I wasn’t real keen on any particular candidate, just wanted to get it over with so I don’t have to think about politics for a while.

I’m a private person, and I respect other people’s right to their privacy. I don’t expect anyone to publicly declare how they voted if they don’t want to. I will tell you, though, no Republicans (or Repugs) got my vote.

Sure, there have been a few good Republican leaders in the past. Abe Lincoln comes to mind. And I thought Washington State’s1970’s-era GOP governor, Dan Evans, was a decent man—until I learned he was so tight with Ted Bundy that he vouched for the notorious serial killer’s character in a written testimony to a Florida court of law when Bundy was on trial for the brutal murders of numerous young women, including a 12 year-old girl.

It’s common knowledge that Ted Bundy was a staunch Republican. He campaigned for a number of prominent GOP candidates and likely would have fancied himself as a future contender for that party, had reckless behavior not gotten him arrested and prosecuted for his extracurricular activities.

Another active Republican serial killer of note, Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, can’t seem to keep his mouth shut on the campaign trail about his murderous urges, as well as his intent to train his 10 year-old daughter to become a conscienceless killer like her daddy…or Ted Bundy.

The reasons the Republicans didn’t get my vote are many—they all have to do with threats facing the diversity of life on Earth. (Sorry, but concerns about the economy do not trump the continued habitability of the planet.) Now, if you don’t believe the scientific evidence for global warming, by all means vote for the Romney/Ryan ticket—they’re the anti-science candidates—as long as the things those two do believe in don’t put you off. Freedom of (or from) religion is one thing, but anthropocentric ignorance at the expense of the environment is not a God-given right.

There’s a new breed of Republican stalking the streets of D.C. these days, and they take their religion dead seriously. Ask Congressman Paul Broun (R-GA). He called evolution and the Big Bang Theory, “lies from the pit of Hell” at a “sportsman’s” banquet at the Liberty Baptist Church (be sure to check out the heads on the wall behind him here).

While just yesterday, Indiana Republican Senate candidate, Richard Mourdock, said he believes pregnancies from rape are “something that God intended to happen.” Clearly, to Mourdock, every sperm is sacred, even if it came from a violent rapist (never mind that procreation was the furthest thing on the perpetrators mind.)

For his part, vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan worked shoulder to shoulder with Missouri republican congressman Todd Aiken to try to redefine rape as either “legitimate” or some other unfortunate scenario that these two guys don’t think should warrant a woman’s right to choose whether or not to bring forth another human life into this overcrowded world. In other words, if a woman became pregnant as the result of some loveless, devious act of seduction that was slightly less violent than their idea of “legitimate” rape, she would be forced to spend the next nine months carrying around an unwanted child (Like Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby, pregnant with the Devil’s spawn).

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney plans, if he becomes president, to cut funding for birth control to developing nations. None of these Republicans seem to be aware of the staggering human overpopulation problem threatening the future of all life on this planet.

And I’m sure if you told them our species was solely responsible for causing an ongoing mass-extinction on a scale not seen since the K-T extinction event that ended the age of dinosaurs 65 and a half million years ago, they’d really look befuddled. After all, wasn’t the Earth created by God for Man only 10 thousand years ago? And if Man overcrowds the Earth and destroys the atmosphere, isn’t it just “something that God intended to happen?”

 

Shotgun Wedding

Posted on by
25

As all good Sunday sermons should be, this one is about love.

Specifically, the misuse, abuse or perversion of the word “love,” as in “I love guns,” “I love hunting,” or when a hunter says, “I love wildlife.” In other words, any “love” that takes place over the barrel of a gun. I’m talking about the kind of “love” that would be better described as obsession, covetousness or, simply, the egomaniacal urge to possess.

Interestingly, some people (such as psychopaths) who are incapable of actually feeling benevolence towards others, act as if they know the meaning of the elusive “L” word. The terms “trophy wife” and “trophy house” are becoming increasingly popular, but if you care about someone or something just because you own them, it’s not the same as caring about them for who or what they are.

Hunters often claim to care about wildlife—to cherish the animals that they want to kill—but they’re confusing actual human emotions with an avaricious urge to manipulate, dominate and control (the three underlying behaviors of a serial killer, according to former FBI profiler John Douglas).

Hunting is not an act of love, it’s a hate crime. Killing animals for sport is nothing short of abuse. As studies have clearly shown, animal cruelty often leads to domestic abuse and other crimes along the violence continuum.

The serial killing of wildlife is certainly not a healthy expression of love.

Text and Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson

 

Hunting Perverts Kids’ Natural Affinity for Animals

Posted on by
27

In yesterday’s post I mentioned that the serial killer, Keith Hunter Jesperson, first got his taste for killing animals at the early age of six. I bring this up again because of the fact that our potential vice president-to-be intends for his 10 year-old daughter to get her first taste for killing deer this fall.

Candidate Paul Ryan said in a recent interview with the Safari Club International: “Lately, I’ve had the great pleasure of introducing my children to the hunt.  I have some two-seated ladder stands, so I take my kids with me for deer gun season (one at a time of course).  I also take my kids pheasant and duck hunting.”

Children are impressionable and easily influenced in their pre-teens. What kind of person wants his daughter to imprint on the killing, death and dismemberment of a creature as beautiful as a deer, duck or pheasant before she’s even old enough to date—let alone drive a car? And what kind of society encourages its children to learn to blast living beings out of existence? Are we trying to send a message to our youngsters that non-human life has no value and that an animal’s death is meaningless? Or are we purposefully trying to recruit more serial killers like Keith Hunter Jesperson, Jeffry Dahmer, Zodiak or Alaskan trophy hunter, Robert Hansen, who began their fledgling murder careers by killing animals?

The media has largely joked-off Paul Ryan’s plan to corrupt his little girl with killing, but when there are innocent lives at stake, it’s no laughing matter. In some cases it’s the hunting industry and their state game department puppets that are to blame for pushing kids into the killing fields earlier and earlier. Although no state issues a driver’s license to anyone less than 16 years old, most states don’t even have a minimum age for shooting at an animal with a gun.

In direct answer to the drop in sportsmen’s numbers over the years, meddlesome state game departments are encouraging grade-schoolers to get a taste for killing (thereby perverting their natural affinity for animals). For example, Alabama opens deer season two days early for children under the age of 16 (so they’ll have a better crack at “bagging” one), and Maine holds a “Youth Deer Day,” allowing pre-season bow hunting for children ages 10 to 16.

Farley Mowat, author of Never Cry Wolf and A Whale for the Killing, wrote the following about his indoctrination to hunting in his foreword to Captain Paul Watson’s Ocean Warrior:

“Almost all young children have a natural affinity for other animals, an attitude which seems to be endemic in young creatures of whatever species. I was no exception. As a child I fearlessly and happily consorted with frogs, snakes, chickens, squirrels and whatever else came my way.

“When I was a boy growing up on the Saskatchewan prairies, that feeling of affinity persisted—but it became perverted. Under my father’s tutelage I was taught to be a hunter; taught that “communion with nature” could be achieved over the barrel of a gun; taught that killing wild animals for sport establishes a mystic bond, “an ancient pact” between them and us.

“I learned first how to handle a BB gun, then a .22 rifle and finally a shotgun. With these I killed “vermin”—sparrows, gophers, crows and hawks. Having served that bloody apprenticeship, I began killing “game”—prairie chicken, ruffed grouse, and ducks. By the time I was fourteen, I had been fully indoctrinated with the sportsman’s view of wildlife as objects to be exploited for pleasure.

“Then I experienced a revelation.

“On a November day in 1935, my father and I were crouched in a muddy pit at the edge of a prairie slough, waiting for daybreak.

“The dawn, when it came at last, was grey and sombre. The sky lightened so imperceptibly that we could hardly detect the coming of the morning. We strained out eyes into swirling snow squalls. We flexed numb fingers in our shooting gloves.

“And then the dawn was pierced by the sonorous cries of seemingly endless flocks of geese that cam drifting, wraithlike, overhead. They were flying low that day. Snow Geese, startling white of breast, with jet-black wingtips, beat past while flocks of piebald wavies kept station at their flanks. An immense V of Canadas came close behind. As the rush of air through their great pinions sounded in our ears, we jumped up and fired. The sound of the shots seemed puny, and was lost at once in the immensity of wind and wings.

“One goose fell, appearing gigantic in the tenuous light as it spiralled sharply down. It struck the water a hundred yards from shore and I saw that it had only been winged. It swam off into the growing storm, its neck outstreched, calling…calling…calling after the fast-disappearing flock.

“Driving home to Saskatoon that night I felt a sick repugnance for what we had done, but what was of far greater import, I was experiencing a poignant but indefinable sense of loss. I felt, although I could not then have expressed it in words, as if I had glimpsed another and quite magical world—a world of oneness—and had been denied entry into it through my own stupidity.

“I never hunted for sport again.”

There is a 50-50 chance that an avid (and possibly rabid) bow hunter, who is taking “great pleasure” in perverting his young children’s natural affinity for animals, could become our next vice president. Let’s hope Mitt Romney doesn’t lend Ryan his magic underpants for the upcoming debate with Vice President Biden. Our family values are really at stake this time.

Text and Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson