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Last Updated: Jun 30, 2008 - 11:14:37 AM |
When hunters say it's really not about killing animals; it's about
getting out in nature with your buddies, most people won't dare to say:
then why don't you HIKE?
That's because they feel too
hypocritical about their own eating habits. They know they couldn't
kill an animal like the hunter but they still want to eat meat. Worse
-- they know the animals they're eating probably lived worse on factory
farms than the hunted animal.
So out of guilt, people like to
call hunters Honest for killing what they eat and eating what they
kill. Assuming the hunters didn't dump the kill by the side of the road
or donate it to the shrinking number of food pantries that take game --
the poor aren't usually THAT hungry -- or give it to employees at Dick
Cheney style hunting clubs because it's too much work to clean.
Out
of guilt, people buy into the hunter catechism -- "It's the hunters who
actually keep the wildlife alive," is how Mike Huckabee puts it (see
Village; Destroy to Save) -- and never ask why wildlife agencies
actually breed and even import the animals they claim they want to
control, playing both sides of the street.
"Why? Because
public game commissions and wildlife agencies get substantial portions
of their budgets from hunting-license fees and matching funds from
federal taxes on guns and ammunition," says the Chicago Tribune's Eric
Zorn. "The slaughter sustains them -- in Illinois to the tune of $15.5
million a year added to the bottom line of the state's Department of
Natural Resources on top of an estimated $441.3 million annual infusion
for the state's economy from deer hunting alone."
And don't
forget what wildlife agencies do to the "nuisance" animals that don't
generate money such as the 71 donkeys Texas officials recently killed
at Big Bend Ranch State Park (they were cleared of wrongdoing). Which
part of "It's the hunters who keep the wildlife alive" does that
demonstrate?
No, most people won't question why state
(trust-us-we're-wildlife-experts) Departments of Natural Resources
cater to the less than 5 percent of the population who prefer blood
streams to streams when administering of public lands that belong to
you and me.
Sportsmen such as Malcolm Whyte of Jarrettsville,
MD who recounts tracking his "beautiful buck" on a hunting Web site:
"The blood trail became 8 inches wide and went for about 150 yards. It
was as though the buck painted a big red line as wide as a highway
strip right to where he lay. It was time for me to retrieve my game."
But
despite the national thrall to the hunter-as-steward mythology, Mike
Huckabee got no bounce out of his post-Christmas pheasant hunting
excursion in rural Iowa to which he invited the press.
Maybe
it was the rumors about his son, David, hanging a dog at the Boy
Scouts' Camp Pioneer in Hatfield, AK for which he was dismissed as a
counselor in 1998. No charges were filed, says Newsweek. Huckabee's
alleged obstruction of an investigation suggests a family culture of
cruelty.
Maybe it was the overkill -- the cap with EAT, SLEEP,
HUNT written on it and the member of his hunting party who was
compelled to tell the press the pheasants could be cooked with the
birdshot intact and "You just spit it out."
Maybe it was the
way Huckabee joked about the bird he killed with his 12-gauge having
his opponent's name written on its rear -- "See that's what happens if
you get in my way" -- as if he hadn't just ended an life. When did
Jesus ever laugh about death, even an animal's, many wanted to ask the
Baptist preacher.
But Huckabee's hunting trip looked less like
the judicious taking of a wildlife resource than the admission of a
macabre and slightly sleazy hobby. Relevant to the presidency only if
al-Qaeda sends in suicide pheasants.
And in terms of bravery, less like Rambo than Michael Vick.
© 2004-2008 by foodconsumer.org unless otherwise specified
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