All Hunting (Not Just Canned) Is Unsportsmanlike

“Canned hunts are cruel and unsportsmanlike. The practice of killing tame, exotic animals within the confines of an enclosure where the animals have no chance of escape is contrary to the principles of fair chase, sportsmanship and common decency. Captive hunts are out of step with common principles governing responsible hunting and should be banned.” (Congressman Steve Cohen)

“Canned hunting is not a real sport. It is abhorrent and cruel, and there is really no hunting involved.” (Congressman Brad Sherman)

The HSUS has recently endorsed a new House bill aimed at curtailing the canned hunting industry (Fred’s Death). The bill, Sportsmanship in Hunting Act of 2011, only applies to the interstate (federal jurisdiction) trade of an “exotic animal” (a mammal “not indigenous to the United States”) “for the purposes of allowing the killing or injuring of that animal for entertainment or for the collection of a trophy.” It would also criminalize (up to five years) computer-assisted remote hunting (shooting animals with your mouse), which is not currently a problem.

There are roughly 1,000 American ranches, or preserves, offering captive exotics (or simple whitetails and pheasants) for sacrifice. Here, you can enjoy the charms of a rustic lodge, home cooking, beautiful scenery (including many of the vanquished), and the exhilaration of the impending track and kill. When successful, and you will be successful, your pride must be preserved for posterity. The process is sad: Securely enclosed (zero chance for escape), the typically docile, tame, and trusting animals are destroyed for racks and photo ops. Logic dictates that not everyone gets off a clean kill-shot, especially those who frequent these ranches, so their practice often come at the expense of an animal’s protracted death.

Still, the politicians’ quotes merit a closer look. The American hunting experience is steeped in a tradition of airy rhetoric: honorable sportsmanship, respect for the animal, communion with nature, bonding with forebears, and rite of passage. These “common principles” are so ingrained that arguments to the contrary are viewed as heresy promulgated by the ignorant. But how exactly is hunting a sport (Man vs Mallard)? What, do tell, constitutes a “fair chase”? Are the decidedly benign deer and duck (who would not be protected by this law) worthy adversaries? Sport implies competition (nonlethal, of course) between willing rivals. Someone, then, should inform these creatures that they’re in a game.

Well-meaning as this bill may be (Rep. Cohen, owing to his initiatives on crush videos and horse transport, was honored by the HSUS earlier this year), it is irrational to protect some species from this brand of cruelty, but not others. Also, the “fair chase” argument, along with humane culling and ecological balancing, is specious. It is what hunters tell themselves to justify their pursuit of pleasure. In short, all human hunting of animals is, by definition, unsportsmanlike. It’s high time for hunters to get over themselves.

Published in: on July 30, 2011 at 11:26 am  Leave a Comment  

Man vs Mallard

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister who once said, “I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ,” shared the joy of mallard hunting with a 2007 NRA audience: “To watch mallards come in a flock, cut their wings and land but a few feet in front of you on a cold winter day near Stuttgart, Arkansas, is just about as close to heaven as I think one can get on this Earth. And as one who believes, because of my faith, that I’m going to Heaven, I’m pretty sure there will be duck hunting in Heaven, and I can’t wait.” Hunter Huckabee is fooling no one with his spiritual rhetoric. Ultimately, he is motivated by a base, macho desire to kill. And that is hardly a Christian virtue.

Waterfowl (ducks, geese, brant) hunting is highly regulated in NYS. No rifles, handguns, traps, snares, or nets. Machine guns and explosives, too, are prohibited. And please, leave poisons and drugs at home. After all, the competition must be fair. Curiously, sink boxes (a float that conceals one’s body beneath the surface) are banned, but blinds (and ponchos?) are fine so long as they’re labeled with name and address. Only paraplegics and amputees can shoot from cars, and “you may not shoot crippled birds when under power.” Decoys are allowed, but they mustn’t be live. Use calls at your leisure, but no electronics, amplifiers, or tapes. And no bait. The DEC also expects you to “make a reasonable effort to retrieve all killed or crippled birds.” How very magnanimous.

In NY, the minimum age to enjoy this timeless tradition is 12. In 1996, the enlightened folks at the DEC established the two-day preseason Youth Waterfowl Days. This is a special time for children to get their feet wet, so to speak. Very exciting. One hunting service boasts that “without a doubt, the biggest rush in water fowling is for the sea ducks. On some days it is literally shooting as fast as you can load your gun. …an unforgettable experience.”

Within the hunter’s code lies some convoluted notion of the fair chase (or, as the case may be, the hide, lure, and fire away), and towards that end, the aforementioned limits have been established. But I would argue that this fairness doctrine applies not to the adversaries in question, but rather to equitably maintaining a bountiful supply for all (hunters) to enjoy. For in this titanic struggle between man and mallard, some unfair (if you were a duck) advantages (guns, blinds, decoys, calls) are deemed acceptable, while others (laying waste with battery guns and grenades) are not. The ducks, it should be noted, have no desire to participate in this game. They are simply flying for their lives.

While Mike Huckabee and Joseph Classen, Catholic priest and passionate hunting advocate, unabashedly invoke God’s name as they wantonly destroy his creations, my Catholic school upbringing informs otherwise. The nuns and brothers described a God (Jesus) who embodies love, compassion, mercy, and, life. Seems a rather difficult reconciliation to make. Shooting defenseless ducks on a Saturday afternoon is not communing with nature, nor is it a necessary evil for ecological balance. It is a leisure activity in which some animals suffer if only wounded, while others die a premature death. Hunters hunt, primarily, because it is fun. And there is no better example of this than shooting, “as fast as you can load your gun,” the menacing waterfowl. Mike Huckabee, noble warrior, must burst with pride at the day’s harvest. And, at least for him, God smiles approvingly.

Published in: on July 20, 2011 at 11:50 am  Leave a Comment  

Alligator Accessories

“There’s a bumper sticker down here that says, ‘If you want to save an alligator, buy a handbag,’ and that’s completely true. We wish we could get people to understand that. If you buy an alligator product, you’re supporting the conservation of wetlands and the preservation of critical habitat… It’s an act of conservation.” (Ruth Elsey, wildlife biologist, Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge in Louisiana)

In an effort to preserve wetlands, Louisiana offers private landowners (who own 75% of alligator habitat) a financial incentive not to convert their land to something else. It is called Alligator Marsh to Market (1972). Before the program, alligator hunting was largely unregulated, and population levels became dangerously low. Hunting was banned, and the American Alligator was designated an endangered species. As numbers increased, alligator farming (circa 1985), in combination with the annual September hunt (some 35,000 strong), became the state-sanctioned remedy (to “provide long term benefits to the survival of the species, maintain its habitats, and provide significant economic benefits to landowners, alligator farmers and alligator hunters”). Economic benefits: approaching $1 billion since inception. The Louisiana Alligator Advisory Council says that over $20 million is generated annually between the hunted alligators and the eggs harvested for farm production. Big business, backed by a healthy dose of government propaganda, is firmly entrenched.

First, eggs are harvested (hundreds of thousands per year) and sent to farms to incubate, hatch, and grow. A year or two (and 3-4 feet) later, the young reptiles are sold for slaughter (or processed on-site). Some (around 15%) are transplanted back into the wild to maintain sustainable numbers. Insta-Gator Ranch & Hatchery in Louisiana says, “Today there are more alligators indoors in Louisiana than there were in the wilds of Louisiana before the ranching program started in 1985.” The skin and meat are valuable commodities. National Geographic reports that 75% of the world’s wild hides and 85% of farmed hides come from Louisiana.

Mark Porter, proud owner of Porter’s Gator Processing and Gator Farm, was a novice (with only hunting experience) when he opened for business. The NY Times reports: “When he noticed that refrigerated air seemed to kill the animals, he would pile them up in his walk-in refrigerator and skin them when they stopped moving. Only later did he realize that they were not dead, but dormant, and he was skinning them alive. ‘Now we just hit them on the head with a baseball bat,’ he said.” When the Times writer was introduced to the gator house, Porter remarked, “I’m fixing to hammer these guys right after Christmas.” The uses for alligator skin are limited only by imagination. As for the meat, Asian chefs prize the legs (“like baby dinosaur drumsticks”), and Porter joked, “You put one on a plate and it looks like the biggest frog leg you’ve ever seen.” Even the head (boiled, shellacked, and sold as an ornament) has value.

Information on the actual slaughter is scarce (alligators are not specifically protected under the Humane Slaughter Act), though this description comes from the Animal Rights Foundation of Florida: “Slaughter on alligator farms is often inhumane. Alligators are clubbed with hammers or shot with a bangstick, while some farms sever the spinal cord using axes or sharp wedges, leaving the animal alive but paralyzed while he or she is skinned. It is not uncommon for alligators to be skinned while still breathing, their eyes open and fully conscious.”

Crocodilian biologist Timothy Scott (who was paid by farmers to determine the best diet for high meat and leather yields) admits to misgivings about the program: (Science Daily, 8/13/01) “In some ways, I think it is unfortunate because they are supposed to be here and we are encroaching on their habitat. By and large, they leave people alone…. They have more fear of us than we do of them.” But then he reverts to the company line: “Some staunch environmentalists and animal rights activists should be aware that the only way we have been able to protect and save crocodilians around the world is to use them as a renewable natural resource.” Sad that he uses his intelligence this way. Alligators are sentient creatures, not “renewable resources.”

It should be clear whose interests are truly being served. Biologists are enlisted to lobby the public with disingenuous babble about bags and belts benefiting alligators (who can live 50+ years if humans would simply let them be where they are). I’d sooner the American Alligator disappear than be subjected to pain, suffering, and premature death; all done, ostensibly, in the name of conservation. Animal advocates are not arguing against the preservation of wetlands, only the means to achieve it.

Published in: on July 7, 2011 at 3:11 am  Leave a Comment  

When Predators Become Prey

“I couldn’t write Jaws today. The extensive new knowledge of sharks would make it impossible for me to create, in good conscience, a villain of the magnitude and malignity of the original. …If I have one hope, it is that we will come to appreciate and protect these wonderful animals before we manage, through ignorance, stupidity and greed, to wipe them out altogether.” (Jaws author Peter Benchley)

Like many impressionable children (and adults) back in 1975, I can vividly recall leaving the theater with my parents after seeing Jaws. I was freshly burdened with a terrifying fear of sharks in the abstract and a very real apprehension of our upcoming trip to the beach. More than a few Americans warily stepped into the waters during that summer of the shark. With lifeless and sinister black eyes, sharks were (are) viewed as cold and efficient killing-machines. And now, some thirty-five years later, I am writing an article meant to inspire sympathy for the ocean’s greatest hunter. Like other apex predators, especially ones 400-million-years-old, sharks should not need advocates. But they do because human depravity seemingly has no limits. Annually, sharks are being slaughtered by the millions for a status symbol: shark-fin soup.

Shark meat is a centuries-old delicacy in Asia (China, especially, although it does appear on American menus). It is expensive (a small bowl can cost $100) and inefficient (a single wedding can require fins from 40 sharks). Once an exclusive luxury for the elite, it has now become accessible (and desirable) to a vast new economic class in China. A food director at Beijing’s Gloria Plaza, says (The Globe and Mail, 08/27/03), “Ten years ago, it wasn’t very popular. Now it’s a way to show how rich you are. If you have a top VIP dinner, this soup is big face.” A university student: “No one I know really, really likes it. It’s more to show your status or show respect to your guests.” A computer engineer notes, “I would say 80 to 90 percent of people are ordering it out of obligation. I’ll only eat it if it can’t be avoided.” Shark meat smells (it may have to be boiled and marinated for days) and has no exceptional nutritional value. Beyond social etiquette, many also believe in its healing or aphrodisiac properties, and it is even sold in pill form.

The hunt is stunningly devoid of mercy. The hooked fishing-lines extend miles through the ocean and indiscriminately destroy all who take the bait. Once retrieved, some sharks are still living. There, on the boat, their fins are hacked off, and they are dumped back into the sea. Bleeding and unable to swim, they suffer a terrifying death. And this, for less than 5% of their bodies.

The mythology surrounding sharks has thwarted compassion towards them. Commonly viewed as maleficent manslayers, sharks, in fact, are not particularly interested in human flesh. Annually, less than five people are killed by shark bites (crocodiles kill more in one year than sharks have in the last century), mostly due to blood loss and not because a Jaws devoured them. People regularly swim among sharks without being harmed, and attacks are usually cases of mistaken identity (likeness to a seal). Nevertheless, a savage practice that threatens ecological balance in the oceans (some shark species have been decimated by 90%) continues virtually unabated. And all for a bowl of soup.

Published in: on June 28, 2011 at 1:17 pm  Leave a Comment  

God’s Hunter

“…He [God] hooked me up with a monster 6 lb 22″ bass!” (Father Joseph Classen, hunter/fisherman)

While channel surfing one night, I came upon a show called Life on the Rock on the Eternal Word Television Network. The host, a Franciscan Friar, was interviewing two Catholic priests who also happened to be seasoned hunters. One, Father Joseph Classen, has a website entitled Hunting For God. On it, he offers the usual hunting defenses: to provide ecological balance; to humanely cull populations; to feed the less-fortunate with excess meat; and to protect crops, landscaping, and careless drivers. Yet what fascinates about this particular hunter is how he deftly combines his ministry with his passion. And make no mistake, it requires uncommon rhetorical skill to invoke Jesus while killing.

Classen quotes directly from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

God entrusted animals to the stewardship of those whom he created in his own image. Hence it is legitimate to use animals for food and clothing. They may be domesticated to help man in his work and leisure. Medical and scientific experimentation on animals is a morally acceptable practice if it remains within reasonable limits and contributes to caring for or saving human lives. It is likewise unworthy to spend money on them that should as a priority go to the relief of human misery. One can love animals; one should not direct to them the affection due only to persons.

In short, animals are soulless resources at mankind’s disposal. And since human misery will always exist, animal-related causes are both pointless and wasteful.

Classen calls fishing and hunting “sacred catalysts” for revelation and guidance. But this quote from a St. Louis Post-Dispatch book review betrays his true motivation: “He’s had triumphs too, like the day he used his bow to harvest a 10-point trophy buck.”

Hunting, for most, is primarily a self-indulgent pursuit of pleasure, and the celebratory poses and mounted corpses prove it. Classen denies that hunting and fishing are sports but writes: “As I gently released that beautiful fish I was reminded once again of an important lesson: put the Lord first in all things.” Catch-and-release sounds suspiciously like a sport (or leisure activity) to me. How, Father Classen, does one reconcile causing pain for fun with the teachings of Jesus Christ?

While maybe lacking the richness and variety of human existence, life for other sentient beings is more than an endless, all-consuming foraging that Father Classen describes. And, with the Church denying a soul (and eternal life) to nonhumans, is not intentionally cutting their (only) lives short morally objectionable? At the very least, isn’t commemorating the kill distasteful? Father Classen: “Certainly, it is not fun to watch the spark of life dwindle away from a creature’s eye, knowing that one is directly responsible for its death. But at the same time there exists a satisfaction, and yes, a sense of honor in being an active, disciplined, gracious, responsible and respectful participant in the cycle of life.” I believe that Father Classen does enjoy hunting and experiences exultation (a rush) when causing the “spark of life” to vanish. The rest of his quote, then, is merely a diversion.

Published in: on June 21, 2011 at 3:40 am  Leave a Comment  
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