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ANTIHUNTING INFORMATION & ESSAYS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1.) HUNTING IS A DYING SPORT
2.) WHAT'S WRONG WITH HUNTERS?
3.) DUCK KILLERS ARE GREEDY AND WASTEFUL!
4.) HUNTING DAMAGES WILDLIFE
5.) HOW DO WILDLIFE AGENCIES CREATE A SURPLUS OF GAME ANIMALS?
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HUNTING IS A DYING SPORT
Hunters hate to admit it but their "sport " is slowly dying, gasping for survival, as statistics show a steady decline since 1975. In March, 2002, The Fund for Animals celebrated the release of a U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service report which stated the number of hunters in the U.S. declined by 7 percent between 1996 and 2001. Hunters now make up a mere 5.5 percent of the U.S. population, compared to 31 percent who are wildlife watchers.
One of the wildlife killer's favorite how-to-kill magazines, Field & Stream (March 2002) declared that America's hunting population is declining and state wildlife agencies are going broke.
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WHAT'S WRONG WITH HUNTERS?
Hunting seasons are a sort of collective madness, a war-like assault on wildlife and nature. When animal cruelty is disguised as sport, it becomes more socially acceptable. For people who enjoy traumatizing animals, various outlets are provided such as hunting, trapping, ranching, rodeos, slaughterhouses, etc.
In out technocratic, materialistic society (not culture)), killing animals is considered more rational or necessary than having compassion and respect. Society values money, pleasure, utility and efficiency over kindness.
To some people, respect for animals is viewed as a flaw - a weakness to be overcome by more killing. Numerous rationales are given to insure that fellow beings are slaughtered with impunity for the most trivial reasons. Trivial reasons include killing for sport, fun, management, cheap junk food, tacky fur coats, no reason at all, and of course, killing in the name of God. Some people, including hunters, have created their own pro-slaughter, bloodthirsty God who in many ways resembles Satan.
Hunters, ranchers, trappers, and other like-minded people believe that animals exist for human pleasure and convenience. This convienient world view encourages enormous animal suffering and exploitation of nature.
Hunters do not see themsleves as backwoods bullies roaming the backcountry. Hoards of wildlife killers, 13.5 million in the United States, despoil wildlands with their ATVs, high-powered rifles, shotguns, bait stations, outfitter camps and invasive, destructive tendencies.
Hunters derive a peculiar, primal thrill - a sense of power and control - from assaulting animals. Even domestic cats are targeted by hunters. One of Field & Streams's favorite writers, George Reiger, wrote an article "Killer Kitties" (May 2002) encouraging hunters to kill cats and Reiger claims to have killed cats himself. Reiger and his comrades probably don't believe that killing cats indicates that a person has a sick, pathological mentality. There are laws against animal cruelty and there should be laws against the stupid waste of animal life by people who lack the self control to refrain from such activities.
Various bloodsport magazines allow us insights into the hows and whys of hunting. Outdoor Life (Dec./Jan.2002) featured an article titled "Coyote Men of the Hinterland," about three grown men with nothing more intelligent or productive to do than shoot coyotes. A similar spread appeared in Petersen's Hunting Magazine (Dec. 2002/Jan. 2003) about an avid coyote killer who's been killing coyotes for over 40 YEARS and claims to have killed six coyotes in one day! Apparently, for some people who lack self control, killing animals is habit forming and addictive.
Another popular how-to-kill magazine, American Hunter, ran an article about three grown men (physically, not mentally) who have a nasty habit of shooting crows. The author advises readers to visit Crowbusters.com and he claims the website is "great fun." Crowbusters.com offers a ridiculous rationale for slaughtering crows: "the crow has and continues to exhibit behavior that ranges from simply annoying to highly destructive." And hunters wonder why their grisly hobby is under attack.
Karl Menninger, the famous psychiatrist, wrote: "Sadism may take a socially acceptable form . . . I have in mind, for example, grouse shooting, fox hunting, duck hunting, deer stalking . . . and other varieties of so-called 'sport' while not identical to the horse-whipping pattern . . . these all represent the destructive and cruel energies of man directed toward more helpless creatures."
PETA's book "You Can Save the Animals" says that Dr. Karl Menninger described hunting as the product of "erotic sadistic motivation." Dr. Joel R. Saper, a University of Michigan professor believes hunting "may reflect a profound yet subtle psychosexual inadequacy." Clinical psychologist Margaret Brooke-Williams theorizes: "Hunters are seeking reassurance of their sexuality. The feeling of power that hunting brings temporarily relieves this sexual uneasiness."
According to Ron Baker's book "The American Hunting Myth" Dr. John D. Copp, a California psychologist says: "Hunters reported feelings of great elation after shooting a duck." According to Copp, "They described the state immediately following a kill as . . . a kind of high. This heightened sense of arousal seemed to have a particularly profound effect among the younger hunters."
Some people may hunt partly becuse of a suppressed desire to punish animals for what the hunters imagine them to be. The proverbial animal hater falls into this category. To her a big buck is a "wary critter," a bear, a "monster," a wolf "wicked," a raccoon a sort of masked bandit that cannot be trusted, etc. Other people, such as ranchers, perceive nature as a hostile threat to their physical well being. Therefore, nature must be fought and conquered.
It is obvious to everyone but hunters that the hunting community enjoys traumatizing animals. A revealing letter in North American Hunter (Oct. 1997) stated that once trapping is in your blood "it becomes an addiction." The author noted that each year hunters travel thousands of miles just to hunt and trapping is even more important to those so addicted.
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DUCK KILLERS ARE GREEDY AND WASTEFUL!
Duck killing has long been plagued with outrageous violations committed against waterfowl.The waterfowler is one of the most avaricious of all hunters and the most ecologically insensitive. For decades, millions of ducks that escaped shotgun blasts were dying each year from injesting lead shot that rained down into the wetlands. Year after year, birds were poisoned after feeding on spent lead, but hunters refused to switch to steel pellets, fearing the changeover would impair their already impaired marksmanship.
A long-standing lawsuit brought by the National Wildlife Federation against the Department of the Interior demanded an end to the use of lead shot. Finally, a federal judge ruled that all use of lead shot must end by 1991. To this day, however, thousands of ducks are dying from the millions of tiny lead balls that litter the bottoms of prairie sloughs and marshes.
Greater and Lesser Scaup, Scoters, Pintails, and especially American Black Ducks have been overhunted. American Black Ducks declined a whopping 60 percent in the last 40 years. All three species of Scoter dropped nearly 50 percent of their population since the 1970s. Greater and Lesser Scaup have yet to recover from years of overshooting. Yet, current "bag limits" allow three scaup per day in season even though their populations are down from 8 million in 1972 to 3.5 million in 2002. Despite a 50 percent decrease, the daily "bag limit" for scoters is 4 per day during hunting season.
In 1968, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service got greedy. They attempted to boost their sales of duck stamps as hunting seasons were extended and "bag limits" were increased. Pintails, Scoters, Scaup and Black Ducks took the brunt of too much buckshot, and their populations have yet to recover.
Recreational waterfowl killers massacre approximately 10 million ducks a year just in the United States. (Ducks Unlimited, Nov./Dec 2001). Field & Stream (Sept. 2002) ran a rare article about the high percentage of ducks crippled by hunters. It stated that several studies show a crippling loss of 25 to 35 percent. Many, many cripples are able to run and hide, but not fly, eluding hunters who are usually not even willing to track them down. Thousands of wounded ducks and geese are not retreived, left to wander and then die, rotting in the wetlands.
Northern Pintail populations have plunged from nearly 7 million in the 1970s to 1.8 million today, and they're still being gunned down. How can duck populations recover when over 10 million ducks are blasted, bagged and butchered each year? Even if they did recover, the USFW would simply increase duck killers "bag limits," forcing populations back down again.
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HUNTING DAMAGES WILDLIFE
Deer management is a sham, a joke, a twisted caricature of true conservation. Deer hunting is managed for sport, not to balance ecosystems, but to provide a surplus of live targets for hunters. Vast megaherds of white-tailed deer have been cultivated in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan - these states have over 1.5 MILLION deer apiece. Virginia had 20,000 whitetails in 1950, now it has over 900,000!
Fifty years ago, deer populations could have been easily controlled by killing a relatively small percentage of does. Instead, a large percentage of bucks were killed, habitat was manipulated, and deer herds greatly increased.
According to the book "Restoring America's WIldlife," Mississippi's entire white-tailed herd was estimated at a mere 7,357 animals in 1932. In 1993, just the harvest alone was 263,000 deer! New Jersey reported a "harvest" of 2,173 deer in 1937. Its annual bloodbath exceeded 49,000 in 1993 - a prime example of "deer management" resulting in a 20-fold increase.
"Restoring America's Wildlife" also stated: "Over the past 50 years, this effort led to the successful restoration and continuing management of several native game species - notably the white-tailed deer and the eastern wild turkey. Hunting of deer was prohibited in Missouri after the 1937 season produced a harvest of only 108 whitetails. Seven years later, the season was opened to the first "bucks - only" hunt of 1944 which produced a harvest of 583. The first "any deer" season of 1951 gave hunters 5,519. Since 1944, 950,000 whitetails have been harvested. That's more than 40 times the total estimated deer population before P-R, bringing recreational pleasure to more than 5.3 million licensed hunters."
In 1974 the chief of the Wildlife Division of the Michigan Department of Resources decided to increase Michigan's deer presence from 200,000 to ONE MILLION in 1981. Colorado had 24,000 elk in 1943, in 1975 it had 105,000 elk and in 2003 the herd was out of control with over 300,000 of these animals. For decades, a large percentage of bulls were persecuted, and now Colorado's elk herd is so humongous that it can and will destroy vital winter range needed by mule deer.
In nearly every state hunters will happily shoot coyotes, black bears, cougars, and even grizzly bears which are a threatened species in the lower 48 states. Hunters love to shoot coyotes on sight because they're plentiful and they prey on fawns. For decades, hunters and outfitters have been shooting, killing and menacing grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. An L.A. Times article (Dec. 15, 1999) stated that the majority of the 250 known grizzly deaths in the Yellowstone region over the last 20 years have occured at the hands of hunters just outside the park's sanctuary.
Hunting magazines are littered with advertisements for ATVs, high-powered rifles, shotguns, rifle scopes, etc. All-terrain vehicles are nosiy, scaring wildlands with ruts and trails that disturb wildlife. Many hunters - including road hunters and slob hunters - actually oppose roadless areas because they limit hunter access. Increasingly, across North America, wildlands are being destroyed by suburban sprawl, roads and logging. Indeed, more wildlife sanctuaries are needed that ban all hunting and other forms of exploitation.
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HOW DO WILDLIFE AGENCIES CREATE A SURPLUS OF GAME ANIMALS?
Many species of mammals - such as deer - react to hunting harvests with an increase in reproductive rates. Also, killing more bucks than does will increase deer populations. When a high percentage of bucks are killed, more nutritious forage is available for the remaining bucks, does and fawns. This improved nutrition results in higher ovulation, birthrates, and healthier fawns. In many states, such as Colorado, hunting results in the death of at least twice as many bucks and male fawns as does. The main purpose of "deer management" is to maximize fawn production.
1.) Bucks are killed by hunters
2.) Does produce extra offspring (fawns)
3.) Fewer bucks means more nutritious forage for fawns and adult does
4.) Habitat is manipulated (burning vegetation, timber-cutting, etc.)
to provide more food.
5.) Predators are killed
6.) Abnormally high populations of deer result year after year
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State and federal wildlife agencies spend millions of dollars every year manipulating deer habitat. Deer will thrive wherever they find sufficient food, water, and cover; therefore game managers routinely burn vegetation and plant shrubs to attract deer. Logging and clear-cutting forests also provide browsing(forage) areas. Game wardens and hunters kill predators in a misguided attempt to increase big game populations. All of these practices are ecologically destructive. They result in a "top-heavy" ecosystem containing too many deer, while other animals - such as predators - are reduced in numbers.
Nearly every state has a deer "management" program designed to keep deer populations abnormally high. Entire ecosystems are unbalanced - and damaged - by hunting and so-called "wildlife management."
Private landowners along with state and federal agencies are working in cooperation with state wildlife departments. For instance, the Colorado Division of Wildlife and the Wyoming Game and Fish Department are launching an ambitious 25-year "deer management program" designed to increase herd sizes. Basic strategies involve burning vegetation, spraying herbicides, timber cutting, mowing and grazing management.
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