Tag Archives: “sportsmen”

Now The Weather Channel is Promoting Hunting!

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When did the phrase “How’s the weather” become synonomous with “Have you killed anything today?” Ever since the Weather Channel got into the act of promoting hunting, along with Time Magazine, the History Channel, Discover, etc., etc. Where’s it all going to end?

When I lived beyond a snow covered road in the North Cascades, the U.S. Forest Service decided to put in a snowmobile snow park near my cabin. I objected, of course, and when a snowmobile enthusiast asked me why I told him because the area will soon become overwhelmed by snowmobiles. He said, “If it gets that busy with snowmobilers, I’ll sell quit sledding.”

That scenario parallels the ongoing promotion of hunting. How many hunters will become frustrated and disillusioned with hunting when it gets so popular no one can stand it anymore?

17 Animals You Didn’t Know People Could Hunt – weather.com

http://www.weather.com

Bored of hunting quail and deer? Try taking down an elephant or even a grizzly. Take a look at 25 exotic animals that can be hunted, at your own risk…
Time to Arm the Bears! http://www.armthebears.com/
Bear

Thanksgiving Celebration—Eat Lots, Drink Lots, Respect Little, Care Less

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It’s a special morning of a special day, but out in migratory bird habitat there’s a massacre going on. Though nearly every family across the country has a turkey thawing out in preparation for a gluttonous banquet a little later in the day,

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

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

recreational meat-pursuers are ringing in the season by blasting away into flocks of wintering geese to make up for the fact that their sacrificial bird-of-the-day came from a grocery store.

Never mind that the poor being was raised in a windowless barn, crowded-in with so many other turkeys that their wings wither away to virtual stumps of appendages, their natural coloration was bred out of them anyway.

Can’t afford your own tormented Thanksgiving turkey this year? Not to worry, chances are some abattoir has donated hundredsDSC_0277 of frozen carcasses to your local food bank, in hopes of promoting their own animal industry. Here on the coast, turkeys were donated by a thriving seafood “processing” plant.

Non-human life has very little value in today’s world. Heck, a Montana wolf hunter can go out and mow down a loyal dog walking practically at her beloved master’s side and not face any legal consequences. The value of mass-produced birds is measured by the pound. No charge for their stark white feathers; they come off the body easily and can fetch a penny or so a pound at the pillow factory.

But the mighty hunters out in the tidelands currently shooting up a storm won’t be satisfied until they kill something themselves. There’s nothing like a hands-on blood bath to get you in the mood for a feast, I guess. Some folks haven’t come far from Plymouth Rock; at least they phased out witch burnings.

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

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

Utah hunting group reports death threats after supporting hunter who posed with lion

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http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/11/27/utah-hunting-group-claims-death-threats-after-supporting-hunter-who-posed-with/

Published November 27, 2013/
FoxNews.com

The leader of a pro-hunting group in Utah said he has received death threats from animal rights advocates after voicing support for a hunter who posted a picture of herself earlier this month smiling next to the carcass of a male lion during a hunting trip to South Africa.

Jason Fackrell, the founder of Hunters Against PETA, told KSL.com that one comment said, “I wish to have some money to kill you myself.” Another comment, the station reported, talked about killing Melissa Bachman, the hunter who posted the picture.

Fackrell described the torment he faced. He said he had to move, had his contact information posted online by hackers and has seen family members threatened in the past.

He expressed his dismay that about “90 percent of the population eats meat, but it’s OK to threaten the life of a human being that kills an animal.”

He has not reported the recent threat to the FBI, the report said. But highlighted what he sees as a double standard.

“I’ve never seen hunters threaten the lives of animal rights activists because they don’t like hunting, so there definitely is a double standard.”

PETA responded to KSL.com’s report and said it opposes violence. The report noted that PETA is not connected to the alleged threats on Fackrell.

Meanwhile, more than 375,000 people signed a petition to ban Bachman, the host of “Winchester Deadly Passion,” from gaining entry again into South Africa.

trophy

It’s All the Same To the Victim

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Lately we’ve been hearing from a lot of holier-than-thou types quick to make a distinction between sport and subsistence hunters. Truth is, there’s not all that much difference between the two. Sport hunters and pseudo-subsistence hunters are often such close kin they’re practically kissin’ cousins. I know a lot of hunters, but I’ve never met one who didn’t boast about “using the meat.” By the same token, I’ve never met anyone who openly admitted to being just a sport hunter.

There are a lot of needy poor folk out there these day, including myself, but I don’t know anyone who really needs to kill animals to survive. Like sport hunters, subsistence hunters do what they do because they want to, they enjoy the “lifestyle.” If one thing differentiates the two, it’s that meat hunters have an even stronger sense of entitlement.

But, everyone has a right to feed themselves and their family, don’t they? Well, does everyone—all 7 billion humans and counting—have the right to subsist off the backs of other animals when there are more humane and sustainable ways to feed ourselves? How many self-proclaimed “subsistence” hunters are willing to give up all their modern conveniences—their warm house, their car, their cable TV or their ever-present and attendant “reality” film crew—and live completely off the land like a Neanderthal? Not many I’m sure—at least not indefinitely.

It’s unclear what makes some folks believe they have the right to exploit wildlife as an easy source of protein, but animal flesh is by no means the safest or healthiest way for humans to get it. While a steady diet of decaying meat slowly rots your system, millions of vibrant people have found a satisfying and healthy way to eat that doesn’t involve preying on others.

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

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

Some Thoughts on Melissa Bachman and the Lion

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http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/thoughts-melissa-bachman/#.Uo–277Tly0

by Gary  Francione

Melissa Bachman, who is the host of a hunting show called Deadly Passion, announced on her Facebook page on November 1 that she had killed a lion in South Africa and she posted this picture:

melissalion

The response was remarkable. According to one story, “Bachman found herself the target of vicious death wishes and obscenity-laced insults on Monday as critics on Twitter, YouTube and other social networks blasted the Minnesotan for her boastful hunting escapades.” According to another story, “More than 250,000 people have signed an online petition demanding that South Africa deny future entry to Melissa Bachman, a big game hunter whose smiling photo with a dead lion has sparked considerable outrage.”

And, to no one’s surprise, the large animal welfare charities are rushing to create a fundraising campaign with a petition to have lions listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act (U.S.)

I posted something about this on my Facebook page, and I had to delete the comments and close the thread because of the horribly misogynist and violent comments that were being made.

People are angry that Bachman killed the lion unnecessarily. There was no need, no compulsion for her to do so. She did not kill the lion in self defense. She killed the lion because she enjoys killing animals.

And most of us think that that’s terrible; we don’t think that we should make animals suffer and die just because we derive some pleasure from it.

Or do we?

We kill and eat about 56 billion land animals not counting fish. There is no necessity; no compulsion. We do not need to eat animals to be optimally healthy and animal agriculture is an ecological disaster.

The best justification we have for imposing suffering and death on those billions of animals, many of whom have had lives far more hideous than the lion Bachman slaughtered, is that they taste good.

So how exactly does this distinguish those of us who consume animals from Bachman?

That’s a rhetorical question: there is no coherent moral distinction between her and most of us. The fact that Bachman kills “charismatic species” and the rest of us just kill chickens, pigs, cows, and fish is completely irrelevant.

The Bachman matter is no different from the moral schizophrenia that we saw in the matters of Michael Vick, Mitt Romney, and Kisha Curtis.

On the positive side, every time one of these cases erupts, we reaffirm our belief in the widely shared moral intuition that it’s morally wrong to impose suffering on or kill animals without a good reason. Ironically, we already believe everything we need to believe to reject animal exploitation altogether. It’s just a matter of coming to see there is no morally relevant difference between shooting a lion for fun or eating a steak because you enjoy it. In both cases, we have taken a life for no good reason.

Let us hope that these episodes of moral schizophrenia cause the light to go on at least for some who make the decision to put their morals where their mouth is and go vegan.

Gary L. Francione Professor, Rutgers University

©2013 Gary L. Francione

Movies About Hunting Humans For Sport

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Friday November 22, 2013

8 (great?) hunting-humans-for-sport movies
By Dave Croy / World-Herald staff writer

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In 1924, Colliers Weekly published a short story by Richard Connell called “The Most Dangerous Game.”

It involved a big-game hunter who fell from a yacht and washed up on an island. A wealthy former Russian aristocrat named Zaroff owned the island. And Zaroff had grown bored of big-game hunting and developed a more ruthless pastime, one that involved causing shipwrecks with misleading navigation lights and hunting the surviving crew members after they swam ashore. Ultimately, of course, the hunter and the Russian had to square off mano a mano.

The story was, among other things, a commentary on the “sport” of big-game hunting, very popular at the time among the wealthy. But the notion of hunting humans for sport apparently captured the fevered imaginations of many a writer and filmmaker.

It spawned the 1932 film, “The Most Dangerous Game,” starring Joel McCrea and Fay Wray. (Filmed on many “King Kong” sets with much of the same cast and crew during a break in the making of that film.) The movie was remade in 1945 with the title “A Game of Death.” Since then, numerous films and television shows have made use of the premise, often attributing the original short story as inspiration.

With “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” opening in theaters this weekend, it seems like the perfect time to revisit some of the better examples of this sub-genre of film.

8. “Surviving the Game” (1994)

Okay, this is not really a great film, but it has some wonderful actors playing really nasty bad guys, chewing the hell out of the scenery and generally spouting plenty of awful dialogue. Homeless Ice-T gets a job as a “hunting guide” for some rich guys, including Rutger Hauer, Gary Busey and F. Murray Abraham, (all scary enough in real life!) only to discover that he is their quarry! But Ice-T, as you might guess, won’t go down without a fight.

This is generally just a foul-mouthed knock-off of the original story, entirely propped-up by the performances of Hauer and Busey.

7. “Death Race 2000” (1975)

A schlockmeister Roger Corman production, this film put the fun back in funeral. David Carradine as Frankenstein and a pre-Rocky Sylvester Stallone as Machine-Gun Joe Viterbo are among the drivers in a high-speed cross-country race. In the futuristic world of the year 2000, U.S. democracy has given way to dictatorship, with the three-day race serving as a way to keep the populace pacified. Not only do the drivers score points for speed but for running down pedestrians, as well. The older and more infirm the pedestrian, the greater the point count.

This movie is a cartoonishly ultra-violent mess, with ridiculous “revolutionary” politics oozing through the mix, but, hey, Frankenstein’s car is a Corvette made to look like a giant alligator, and almost every minute of this “cult-classic” is good for a laugh.

6. “Battle Royale” (2000)

This financially successful critical darling from Japan is often cited as having served as a “template” for “The Hunger Games.” I submit that minimal research into this topic makes it obvious that themes like people hunting people, blood sports as “opiates for the masses” and the morality of child soldiers are recurrent throughout both history and fiction.

In this case, a class of 15-year-old schoolchildren is taken to an island, fitted with explosive tracking collars, given basic provisions and various “weapons” and told they each have three days to become the last student standing.

The ensuing violence is frequent, brutal and oddly matter-of-fact. The students’ motivations range from the comic to the melodramatic. The number of students with antisocial personality disorder seems statistically improbable for a group of 40-or-so kids.

More sophisticated critics were able to discern a greater level of depth to the proceedings than I was. I found the government’s motivations for holding the annual contest murky, the characters laughable and the action filmed with all of the grace of security-camera video.

It is never made clear in the film if the “Battle Royale” has a viewing audience outside those running the game. What I’m still trying to figure out is why this film had such a large one.

5. “Hard Target” (1993)

Based on the 1932 film “The Most Dangerous Game,” this was revered Chinese action director John Woo’s first American movie.

Sporting a mullet that appears to have been used to clean up after an oil change, Belgium’s own martial-arts hero Jean-Claude Van Damme stars as Chance Bordreaux, homeless Cajun merchant seaman in New Orleans. When Yancy Butler shows up looking for her homeless, missing father, Van Damme saves her from local hoods and agrees to serve as her bodyguard and guide. Turns out that pops was a victim of a ruthless group of human-hunters, led by creepy Lance Henriksen.

Soon, one of Jean-Claude’s homeless pals falls prey to the hunters, too. As Van Damme and Butler begin to gather evidence that the homeless men are being murdered, Henriksen and his goons decide to eliminate any threats to their operation. Will the hunters become the hunted? Will Henriksen get his due? Does the phrase “grenade in pants” ring any bells?

Solid Woo action scenes, but the cheesy script and Van Damme’s spectacular lack of acting talent keep this from being a truly awesome film.

4. “The Running Man” (1987)

With “The Running Man,” director Paul Michael Glaser (Starsky of TVs “Starsky and Hutch”) took a stab at the “over-the-top, thinly-veiled R-rated science-fiction satire,” as mastered by fellow director Paul Verhoven, and he acquitted himself pretty well, considering that he was brought in a week into the production to replace fired director Andrew Davis.

Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as Ben Richards, a former police helicopter pilot in the future wrongly convicted of killing civilians and forced to participate in a reality TV game show, “The Running Man,” where convicts are hunted by superstar “stalkers.” Richards begins killing off the hunters, one-by-one, and ultimately helps an anti-network resistance movement expose the fact that supposed “winning” contestants in the past have all been murdered.

While Ahnuld approaches the material with his usual gusto, the real standout is “Running Man” host and show-runner Richard Dawson (former “Family Feud” emcee) as the glad-handing, lady-kissing and utterly ruthless Damon Killian. Subtlety was the last thing on the minds of anyone involved in this very loose adaptation of the Stephen King novel.

More: http://www.omaha.com/article/20131122/GO/131129638/1181

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Five Year Old Mississippi Girl Among Kids Hooked on Killing

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Youth get hooked on hunting

Nov. 16, 2013

1117youth01.jpg

[This is like something out of the movie Exorcist.]
Payton Heidel, 5, of Yazoo City harvested a 9-point deer on the opening weekend of youth deer season.  /  Special to The Clarion-Ledger

Written by
Brian Albert Broom

For many Mississippi hunters, the start of deer season is possibly the most anticipated day of the year. But when youth season opens, it is often an event that produces memories that last a lifetime.

Last weekend’s youth season opener didn’t exactly start as planned for Hays Heidel of Yazoo City. Heidel said he and his daughter, Payton Heidel, 5, had practiced together before the season to get her comfortably shooting reduced recoil ammunition in her 7-08 rifle. But when the big day came, she wasn’t very cooperative.

“She said she didn’t want to get up because she would be grouchy,” Heidel said.

Heidel let her sleep, but as he was having a cup of coffee and looking over a lake on his property, he saw a doe in the distance. Heidel woke his daughter again, but this time, she was ready.

Sneaking within shooting range, Heidel got his daughter set up for a solid shot and with the crosshairs on the doe, Heidel gave her the OK.

“As soon as I clicked off the safety she shot the deer. POW!,” Heidel said. “She about scared me to death.”

The practice paid off and the two were soon following a blood trail. “When she saw the deer she threw her hands up and hugged my leg,” Heidel said. “To see that little girl’s smile — she was tickled to death to see that deer.”

The following afternoon, Payton Heidel made a repeat performance and harvested a 9-point. Heidel thinks he has a hunter for life and added, “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Glen Lewis, 6, of Brookhaven, also had success. Lewis had also been practicing shooting with his father, Keith Lewis, and when the time came he knew what to do.

Lewis said his son dropped his first doe with a 115-yard shot and the excitement went into overdrive. “Oh my word,” Lewis said. “I think he called every family member we know.”

Lewis said since then, his son has asked to go hunting every afternoon. “He’s got deer fever now,” Lewis said. “He’s hooked, definitely.”

According to Lann Wilf, Deer Program Leader for the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks, most areas of the state experienced a good level of success.

“Countless does were taken, lots of first deer and several bucks,” Wilf said. “Some places knocked it out of the park.”

As productive as the past week has been, Wilf said the coming gun season could be one of the best in years.

Melissa Bachman Poses With Dead Lion in SA

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US hunter criticised over picture with dead lion in South Africa

Petition calls for TV presenter Melissa Bachman to be barred from returning to South Africa after participating in legal hunt

theguardian.com,              Friday 15 November 2013

South African lions

South African lions. Photograph: Kim Sullivan/SplashdownDirect/Rex Features

An American TV presenter has been condemned for tweeting a picture of herself standing over a dead lion and boasting that she hunted it on safari in South Africa.

More than 3,500 people signed an online petition calling for the self-declared “hardcore hunter” Melissa Bachman to be banned from returning to South Africa.

The Minnesota-based celebrity posted a photo of herself smiling next to the body of an adult lion after a hunt at the Maroi conservancy in the northern Limpopo province. The caption read: “An incredible day hunting in South Africa! Stalked inside 60 yards on this beautiful male lion … what a hunt!”

The style is a familiar one for Bachman, who has previously been photographed with what appears to be the carcass of a bear. She is no stranger controversy, having been removed as a contestant on the National Geographic show Ultimate Survival Alaska last year after more than 13,000 people signed a petition criticising the inclusion of the “heartless trophy hunter”.

Her lion tweet has provoked another angry backlash. One Twitter user, Gaye Davis, asked: “If it was beautiful why kill it?” Tim Flack, a South African, commented: “People like @MelissaBachman hunting lion in SA is everything that’s wrong with our hunting industry.”

A petition on Change.org urges the South African government to bar Bachman from the country. It says: “Melissa Bachman has made a career out of hunting wildlife for pure sport. She is an absolute contradiction to the culture of conservation, this country prides itself on. Her latest Facebook post features her with a lion she has just executed and murdered in our country.”

Supporters of hunting in South Africa argue that it raises funds from wealthy tourists which are then ploughed back into conservation efforts.

Lourens Mostert, game farm manager at the Maroi conservancy, confirmed that a lion was killed and said the hunt was legal. “If it isn’t right to hunt these lions, why does out government legally give us permission?” he told the Times newspaper. “This is not the only lion that has been hunted in South Africa this year.”

The barrage of criticism prompted Bachman to make her Twitter account private. Her personal bio reads: “I’ve been an avid hunter my entire life & now I’ve turned my passion into a career as a TV producer, host and writer. I’m a hardcore hunter doing what I love!”

Outdoors group gives disabled a chance to go hunting in Madison County

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http://onlineathens.com/around-here/2013-11-01/outdoors-group-gives-disabled-chance-go-hunting-madison-county

[Nothing against persons of disability, of course, but how natural or sustainable is it to help each and every member of a grossly overpopulated species effectively predate on any other species they wish to kill?]

By Wayne Ford Friday, November 1, 2013

At least 75 disabled people will join the second annual Northeastelk-000-home17300 Georgia Ultimate Adventure Deer Hunt next weekend in Madison County.

The hunt is sponsored by Outdoors Without Limits with support from Comer Mayor Jody Blackmon, Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp and local landowners. The base camp for the two-day event will be at the Comer Fairgrounds.

“We’re totally inclusive. Anybody with any type disability — it doesn’t matter — they can participate,” said Kirk Thomas, executive director of Outdoors Without Limits. “We have no age limit.”

The hunters will gather Friday morning for registration, orientations, an afternoon hunt, and evening meal. The next day begins at 5 a.m. with breakfast followed by hunting teams again heading into the woods.

“Everyone on the hunt will have a guide with them,” said Thomas, who lives in the Winterville area. The two-day hunt benefits more than those who are challenged by disabilities.

“We’re asking the hunter and fishermen who love the outdoors to give a day and half of their time to make it happen for someone who otherwise would not have an opportunity,” he said. “It’s life changing and life saving.”

Thomas, who was paralyzed while hunting in November 1992 in Snow Hill, Ala., founded the nonprofit organization in 2008.

“This is the greatest blessing of my life to see these people have this opportunity,” he said. “I feel like the Lord has used me in what I have done.”

Thomas, who grew up in Meridan, Miss., said he was hunting when a tree fell on him, shattering two vertebra. Thomas, who was 6-foot-5 and 320 pounds, ended up in a hospital where his weight dropped to 225 pounds.

Doctors said he’d be hospitalized for six months, but he was released in 52 days and went back to selling heavy construction equipment. He left Mississippi in 1988 and went to work in Alabama for the Boy Scouts of America.

“I’m an Eagle Scout and both of my brothers are Eagle Scouts. The only thing Daddy wanted us to do was make Eagle. So we all made Eagle to honor him,” Thomas said.

Thomas and his family later moved to South Carolina where he worked for the Wild Turkey Federation for seven years before moving to the Athens area, where he directs Outdoors Without Limits, dedicated to creating opportunities for disabled people in outdoor related activities.

“The only way I know how to run this organization is like a big ol’ happy family and that’s everybody helping everybody,” he said.