Top 10 Retorts to Hunter Fallacies

Hunters’ arguments and rationalizations for their sport are so repetitive and predictable that, to save valuable time and precious mental energy, it might help to have your responses printed out ahead of time like flash cards, and kept at the ready in your back pocket. Here, then, are the Top 10 Retorts to Hunter Fallacies you’re most likely to hear the next time you debate a sportsman. (I would apologize to David Letterman, but this isn’t meant to be a joke.)

10) Hunting is sustainable.”                                              
In today’s world of 7 billion people? Never mind, that’s a joke if I’ve ever heard one.
Do we really want to encourage 7 billion hungry humans to go out and kill wildlife for food as if wild animal flesh is an unlimited resource? The only way hunting could be sustainable for humans these days is if we drastically reduced our population and killed off all the natural predators…Overhunting has proven time and again to be the direct cause of extinctions, from the passenger pigeon to the Eastern and the Miriams Elk. Now wolves in the Rockies and Great Lakes are being hunted and trapped to oblivion—for the second time.

9) Animals kill other animals, so we can too.
That’s an example of what’s known as the naturalistic fallacy—the notion that any behavior that can be found in nature is morally justifiable. But wolves and other natural predators need to hunt to survive, humans don’t—for them it’s nothing more than a thrill kill. Human beings have moved beyond countless other behaviors such as cannibalism or infanticide, so why can’t some people tear themselves away from hunting?

8) Humans are carnivores, look at our canine teeth.                                          Human teeth are designed primarily for chewing plant-based foods, like our primate cousins do. Humans’ “fangs” are teensy compared to those of gorillas, who are strict vegetarians and only show them to appear fierce. Also, our intestinal tract is long to allow for the slow digestion of high-fiber foods, while true carnivores have short intestines as needed to process meat and dispose of the resulting toxic wastes quickly.

7) Wild game meat is health food.
All animal flesh is rife with cholesterol throughout, and the protein in animal flesh is acidic, causing bone calcium losses as it is metabolized. According to the American Dietetic Association, a diet high in animal products has been linked to obesity, diabetes, colon and other cancers, osteoporosis, kidney stones, gallstones, diverticular disease, hypertension and coronary artery disease. New studies have found that another culprit in causing heart disease may be a little-studied chemical that is burped out by bacteria in the intestines after people eat meat.

6) Hunting is needed to control animal populations.
You’d really have to have no understanding of or faith in Mother Nature to make such a claim—she was doing a fine job of taking care of her own before Man came along and appointed himself “manager” and “game” keeper. No niche goes unfilled for long before some natural predator finds it and fixes a “problem”…if we allow them to. Besides, hunting animals like deer makes them breed more, resulting in more deer, not fewer.

5) If we don’t kill deer they’ll become a traffic hazard.
Two words: Slow Down.
More animals are hit by cars during hunting season than any other time of year, usually when fleeing from bloodthirsty sportsmen with guns.

4) Hunting teaches respect for wildlife and an appreciation for nature.
Ha! That’s like a serial killer claiming his crimes foster a respect for women. Tracking down and shooting something does not equal respect. Try using a camera or binoculars if you really want to respect them.

3) Hunting is a “manly” sport.
First of all, hunting isn’t even a sport—Sport is generally recognized as an activity based in physical athleticism or physical dexterity. Sports are usually governed by rules to ensure fair competition. A sport is played by two equally matched, or at least equally willing, sides. According to SportAccord, the second criteria determining if something is a sport: it be in no way harmful to any living creature. And anyway, real men respect animals (see above).

2) Hunting licenses pay for wildlife refuges.
In truth, hunting licenses pay for hunter playgrounds, not true wildlife refuges. Take a look at how many “refuges” have been opened up to hunting; or just try to close an area to hunting for the sake of wildlife and hear the nimrods wail. If hunters hadn’t hijacked all the refuges, more bird watchers, hikers and others who truly appreciate nature would gladly pay for a pass to frequent those places. Furthermore, non-consumptive wildlife watchers contribute far more to local economies than do hunters.

1) Hunting keeps kids out of trouble.
Sticking a gun in a child’s hand and telling him or her to shoot Bambi is likely to leave lasting psychological scars, whether it’s PTSD or a heart calloused for killing.

Bonus fallacy) God put Animals here for us to use.
Don’t flatter yourself.

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

Hunting Conditions Us to Killing

The Following is an Op/Ed I sent to the New York Times in response to a recent article they featured glorifying hunting. For some reason, they didn’t print this—it must have fit in with their agenda…

 

Hunting Conditions Us to Killing

I’d like to thank the New York Times for inadvertently giving us a glimpse inside the hunter’s mind, through their recent article, “Hunting your own dinner.” In my book, Exposing the Big Game: Living Targets of a Dying Sport, I spend an entire chapter probing “Inside the Hunter’s Mind” and I’m here to tell you, it’s a dark and disturbing place in there—and no one divulges that better than the hunters themselves. Here are a couple of quotes from hunters waxing poetic on the thrills they get out of killing:

“I had wondered and worried how it would feel to kill an animal, and now I know. It feels — in both the modern and archaic senses — awesome. I’m flooded, overwhelmed, seized by interlocking feelings of euphoria and contrition, pride and humility, reverence and, yes, fear. The act of killing an innocent being feels — and will always feel — neither wholly wrong nor wholly right.”

“You’re the last one there…you feel the last bit of breath leaving their body. You’re looking into their eyes and basically, a person in that situation is God! You then possess them and they shall forever be a part of you. And the grounds where you killed them become sacred to you and you will always be drawn back to them.”

Both quotes were from people who considered themselves hunters—men who stalked and killed innocent, unarmed victims. The first was taken from the aforementioned Times article written by Bill Heavey, an editor at large for the “sportsman’s” magazine, Field and Stream. The second one triumphantly reliving his conquest was none other than the infamous Ted Bundy, as he sat on death row musing over his many murders to the authors of The Only Living Witness.

It seems that, whether the perpetrator is engaged in a sport hunt or a serial kill, the approach is similar. Though their choice of victims differs, their mindset, or perhaps mental illness, is roughly the same.

Even our former cold war enemy seems to be light years ahead of the U.S. in moving beyond the barbarity of hunting. Oleg Mikheyev, MP of the center-left Fair Russia parliamentary party, told daily newspaper Izvestia just what I’ve been saying all along: “People who feel pleasure when they kill animals cannot be called normal.”

Mikheyev entered a draft law to ban most hunting in Russia and expressed his belief that hunting is unnecessary and immoral, regardless of whether one sees it as a sport, a pastime or an industry. According to the bill, forest rangers will still be allowed to hunt but must first pass a psychological test, which Mikheyev points out, “…can help us in early detection of latent madmen and murderers.”

Here in the states, Heavey went on to write, “What ran in the woods now sits on my plate… What I’ve done feels subversive, almost illicit.”

Then why do it?

Though some hunters like Heavey may put on a show of innocuousness by temporarily eschewing guns and choosing to test their skill at bowhunting—arguably the cruelest kill method in the sportsman’s quiver—the typical American hunter sets out on their expeditions in a Humvee or some equally eco-inefficient full-sized pickup truck, spending enough on gas, gear, beer and groceries to buy a year’s supply of food, or to make a down payment on a piece of land big enough to grow a killer garden.

Clearly the motive for their madness is more insidious than simply procuring a meal.

There’s been plenty of discussion about controlling weapons to stave off the next school shooting, but the media has been mute over the role hunting plays in conditioning people to killing. And the New York Times article is a shameful example of the press pandering to the 5 percent who still find pleasure in taking life. Do we really want to encourage 7 billion humans to go out and kill wildlife for food as if hunting is actually sustainable and wild animal flesh is an unlimited resource?

Overhunting has proven time and again to be the direct cause of extinction for untold species, including the passenger pigeon, the Carolina parakeet and the Eastern elk. Meanwhile, hunters out west are doing a bang-up job of driving wolves back to the brink of oblivion for the second time in as many centuries.

Heavey ended his Times article gloating, “I have stolen food. And it is good.” Like serial killers and school shooters, hunters objectify their victims; so insignificant are they to them that hunters don’t even recognize them for what they are—fellow sentient beings. Does somebody have to point out the obvious—he didn’t just steal “food,” he stole a life.

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

Signs I’d Like to See More Of

I know that some people have a problem with “Private Property” signs, but there’s no reason to suggest that property owners should not mark their land with “No Hunting” signs. I’d like to see all unnecessary fences taken down or modified so wildlife can pass safely through. But a well-marked piece of private land can serve as a de-facto refuge for our wildlife neighbors—as long as said landowner is not himself a hunter.

Here are some signs I’d like to see more of…

and of course, this one

I’m About Sick of Control Freaks

What the hell’s going on with state lawmakers and wildlife agencies lately? With just a cursory glance at the headlines this morning I counted at least a half dozen cases of puffed-up politicians overstepping their bounds by offering up some non-human species to appease the bloodlust of a few of their freakiest constituents.
Headlines like “State lawmaker wants open season on woodchucks,” about Wisconsin state representative, Andre Jacque (R-De Pere), who is pedaling a bill that would remove woodchucks from Wisconsin’s protected species list and allow people to kill an unlimited number of them during a season that would run nearly year-round. Jacque said woodchucks are abundant and a “nuisance.”

Though newspaper journalists are, as a rule, impartial, the article’s reporter couldn’t help but see the disturbing trend going on across the dairy state:

Deer, bears, wolves, mourning doves, even wild pigs – if it walks, crawls or flies in Wisconsin, hunters can probably shoot it. Now a state lawmaker wants to declare open season on one more animal: the wily woodchuck.

The bill represents another expansion of hunting rights in Wisconsin and promises to reignite a years-old debate over whether hunters really need another target species. Attempts over the last decade to create hunts for feral cats and mourning doves, the state’s symbol of peace, drew fierce opposition. The state’s new wolf season sent animal lovers into a rage last year and an attempt to create a sandhill crane hunt last spring went nowhere after opponents mounted an intense campaign to stop it. Woodchucks, also known as groundhogs, aren’t as near and dear to Wisconsinites’ hearts as wolves, mourning doves and cranes.

Here’s an idea, why not let their “nuisance” wolves control the “nuisance” woodchucks? Predators like wolves and coyotes have been in charge of “controlling” woodchucks, beavers, prairie dogs, ground squirrels and other scary rodents for thousands of centuries. But I guess letting nature take care of itself would cheat hunters and other human control freaks out of some of their coveted “shooting opportunities.”

Meanwhile, a Spokane Spokesman Review article, “Idaho sets 2013 big-game hunting seasons, rules,” reports: permits for antlerless elk hunting will be increased statewide under the 2013 hunting seasons for deer, elk, pronghorn, black bear, mountain lion and gray wolf adopted today in Boise by the Fish and Game Commission. The new seasons also include an increase in pronghorn tags and expanded wolf hunting and trapping seasons. Wolf hunting on private lands in the Idaho Panhandle will be allowed year round.

Again, like in Wisconsin, Montana and so many other trigger-happy western states, populations of both wolves and deer or elk are slated for reduction. It seems the work of control freaks is never ending.

Since they don’t have any wolves to scapegoat, wildlife policy-makers in Utah are setting a $50.00 bounty on coyotes, presumably to keep in practice.
And in Oklahoma, spring youth turkey season will begins today for youth hunters ages 17 and younger. Turkeys won’t be safe in that state until sometime in May.

Also in Oklahoma hunting news, on Wednesday 1200 students and 64 teams from Oklahoma high schools, middle schools and elementary schools will convene at the OKC State Fairgrounds to compete in the state’s ninth archery championship tournament. Archery in the Schools has become the most popular educational program the Okla. Dept. of Wildlife “Conservation” has ever introduced. More than 400 schools and almost 50,000 students in Oklahoma are taking an eight week archery session taught indirectly by the Oklahoma Wildlife Department.

Now, I like to shoot arrows at straw bales as much as the next guy, but you know it doesn’t end there for most of these Okies. Sure enough, the success of their archery program has inspired the Oklahoma Wildlife Dept. to introduce other courses in schools such as hunter education, bow hunting and fishing. And this spring the Wildlife Dept. will introduce a scholastic shooting sports program in several pilot schools.…

I could go on, but trying to keep up with every state’s new anti-wildlife programs is really getting to be a nuisance.

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

Impossible to Imagine

To those of us who care deeply about wildlife issues and the abuse of non-humans, it seems that no matter how many horrors you hear about, there’s always something else happening to animals somewhere we’re shocked to learn. Even after writing a book against hunting and trapping, I guess there are still places my mind doesn’t want to go.

That’s how I felt when I read the article, “Montana, Idaho trappers catching more than just wolves,” in the Ravalli Republic, which I mentioned in yesterday’s blog post, “Stop the Spread of Psychopathy—End Hunting and Trapping.”

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

For a few years my wife and I lived in a house surrounded by a small field on a forested hill above Washington’s Willapa River valley. The field was once an upper pasture of a now long-defunct dairy. We were happy to see it returning to nature. Sword ferns, wildflowers and Douglas fir trees were starting their advance across the expanse of grass, finding soil churned up by moles for their seeds to take root.

Common wildlife there included black-tailed deer, black bear, raccoons, coyotes, field mice and the red-tailed hawks attracted by the latter. Meanwhile, our feeders attracted everyone from squirrels and chipmunks to a varied assortment of birds—Steller’s jays, juncos and chestnut-backed chickadees, as well as flocks of band-tailed pigeons and American goldfinch, the Washington state bird.

But it was always a special treat to wake up to the sight of the local elk herd bedded down in the upper corner of the field, less than 50 yards from the house.

People often panic at the thought of 20 or 30 large animals competing with their cows for pasture grass, but elk are anything but sedentary grazers—they’re always on the move. Sticking together as a group, they make a circuit around their range through forests and across rivers to find themselves in a new place every day for a week or two, before starting the circuit anew. It was always sad to see them move on from the protection of our posted private property, yet you could almost predict to the day when they’d show up again.

But there was one lone elk cow who seemed to shadow the herd, always a few days behind. We saw her far more often than the herd, and we soon figured out that she was staying nearby in the surrounding forest rather than migrating over the miles-long circuit like the rest of her kind. The reason became obvious—she had a pronounced limp as though barely able to use her right front leg.

When we got a good look through binoculars we saw that her foot was in fact missing! What the hell could have happened to cause that? My first thought was that she caught her leg in some overgrown barbed wire, a familiar threat since “livestock growers” almost never remove unnecessary fencing when they finally quit the business.

Asking around to the locals, their standard reaction was a snicker and a half-assed guess that someone must have shot it off during hunting season. Either scenario seemed remotely possible, but not necessarily all that probable, considering the horse-like size of the animal in question. One bullet or a strand of barbed wire shouldn’t do that much damage.

Twice over the years I’ve found dogs caught in steel-jawed foot-hold traps in other parts of the state (one of them had to have his lower leg amputated) and I started to wonder if the elk might have stepped into a trap set for coyotes (whom the locals hate with extreme prejudice).

I knew that smaller mammals, as well as hawks and eagles, were often unintended victims of trapping; but the thought of an animal as large as a deer or elk being caught in a trap was just too hard to get my mind around. It wasn’t until I read the following lines in “Montana, Idaho trappers catching more than just wolves,” and then saw a photo of a hunter-killed cougar who had earlier lost his toes in a trap, that I suddenly knew for sure—that’s how she lost her foot!: “Trappers reported capturing 45 deer. Twelve of those died. They also captured 18 elk and four moose. One of the elk died.”

The article goes on to quote the Idaho Department of Fish and Game’s state “game” manager, looking out for his cronies while objectifying the animals, “No one wants to catch a deer. It costs them a lot of time.” I don’t even want to try to imagine what an ungulate like that goes through to try to escape a trap—even before seeing an approaching trapper.

Traps are often compared to landmines set for any passing animal. But the difference is that while a landmine blows an appendage off instantly, a steel-jawed trap works its evil slowly—the more its victim struggles to escape, the more damage is done.

In the case of the elk, escape meant not only catching up with the rest of the herd, but also getting away from anyone who might happen by. If determined enough, an animal as powerful as that could eventually pull herself free of a trap’s steel jaws, but freedom would likely come at the expense of a foot.

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

Stop the Spread of Psychopathy—End Hunting and Trapping

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…

Go Manage Yourself

Whenever I hear people use words like “manage” or “control” in reference to wildlife, my first thought is: go manage yourself. How arrogant of “game” departments, hunters or even so-called conservationists to pretend they know better than Mother Nature.
Wolves and elk have been managing themselves for eons. If elk were too numerous, wolves thrived; if elk populations dropped, wolf numbers were sure to follow. And whenever either of their populations got too far out of hand, Nature would step in with a few tricks up her sleeve to restore the balance.

By the time humans dreamed up notions like wildlife “management,” they’d so severely disrupted the natural order that nothing short of a reintroduction of elk or wolves could ever put it right. Of all the Earth’s invasive species, Homo sapiens is the one in dire need of controlling. Yet, we’ve been able to cleverly avoid or survive every effort Nature has so far come up with to regulate our numbers.

Know this, lowly human: Mom N still has a few tricks to throw at us if we aren’t willing to manage our own population.

“Game” Laws Are a Slap in the Face to the Majority

After posting “Crippling Animals Should Weigh on One’s Conscience” yesterday, I remembered that I actually do know someone who said he swore off bowhunting after his arrow went clear through a deer, which ran off somewhere far away to die. He was an avid “modern rifle” hunter and Forest Service employee I worked with in Montana.

He certainly wasn’t going to go so far as to quit hunting completely—every time we saw a deer his eyes would glaze over; he was clearly daydreaming about hunting season. I didn’t get the idea he felt all that bad about the deer he mortally wounded—he just thought it was a “waste of meat” to shoot an animal with a weapon that’s not up to the task of outright killing.

Unfortunately, bowhunting is growing in popularity. Because local governments and town councils don’t want people getting shot by stray bullets in parks or other semi-urban areas where “game” animals thrive—yet they don’t want to upset hunters by outlawing hunting—they all-too-often allow bowhunting, just to pacify the bloodthirsty, who in turn are fond of portraying themselves as selfless do-gooders out to save the animals from overpopulation. (Funny that you never hear them mention immunocontraception, or the fact that hunting unnaturally increases ungulate populations.)

A case in point of a city council deciding to allow bowhunting is found in the article I mentioned yesterday with a headline that reads, “Shotguns and bow hunting will be allowed in Ecola reserve.”

Here are a few highlights from that article:

CANNON BEACH — Hunters using either bows and arrows or shotguns with slugs will be allowed to hunt in the Ecola Creek Forest Reserve for the next five years.

Although hunting had been allowed temporarily for bow hunters only during the deer and elk season last fall, the Cannon Beach City Council agreed 4-1 Tuesday night to extend the hunting period five years. The council also decided to allow hunters who use shotguns with slugs as well.
 
The proposed area set aside for hunting in the reserve took up half of the reserve’s acreage… (One city council member) said she supported a public survey taken by a professional survey company that indicated most of the respondents opposed hunting in the reserve. In addition, (Councilmember) Cadwallader said, hunting didn’t meet the definition of the “passive recreation” promised during the campaign to seek voter support for the ballot measure. Using “a firearm on a wild creature in the reserve does not seem to be passive to me,” Cadwallader said.

Herman Bierderbeck, district wildlife biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, told the council that shotgun slugs had an effective range of 80 yards for killing an elk or a deer. The slugs travel about 150 yards, he said.

Although the council had closed the hearing several weeks ago and didn’t accept public testimony Tuesday night, Cannon Beach resident Ed Johnson told the council he was “very upset” at the decision. He suggested the council submit a referendum to voters.

“I feel like I’ve been slapped in the face,” Johnson said. “You not only included bow hunting, you went further and allowed shotguns.”

“The bottom of my heart aches,” he said. “Guns are not the answer.”

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

Who’s in “Season” Now?

I just came in from a long walk with our dog. For the most part, it was completely quiet out there. Not a breath of wind today, only the sound of our footsteps and the dog’s hot breath as she dragged me from scent to scent. Just as I started to consciously appreciate how peaceful it all was, the silence was extinguished by some damn neighbor shooting his gun.

What the hell was he shooting at? Who’s in “season” now? Deer and elk “season” are over. There’s an ongoing open season on ducks and geese, but this was no “pop, pop” of a shotgun; it was the echoing report of a high-powered rifle.

Coyotes can be shot on sight year-round, but thanks to assholes like this guy, there’s not much chance of seeing them out this time of day.

No, whoever it was, they were probably just firing off their gun for the fun of it. All’s I know is, it was fuckin’ irritating—and I’m sure the local wildlife found it even more annoying than I did.

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

Just Out for a Bit of Fun

“I think it’s cruel that they would take sport in stuff like that. Very cruel. It’s just sophomoric, juvenile.”

That quote could just as easily have been a humane person’s reaction to witnessing any legal goose, pheasant, elk or wolf hunt, but in this case it was in reference to a speeding driver running over 92 protected shorebirds on the Washington coast (on the same stretch of beach mentioned in this earlier post, Compassion for All, Not Just the Endangered).

Shorebirds, like the dunlins who were senselessly killed, huddle close together on the beaches this time of year, which makes the act of running over nearly eight dozen of them at one time no great challenge for anyone willing to stoop to such an act.

The driver was most likely just out for a bit of fun when they spotted the flock of migratory birds dead ahead. After plowing through the birds—who have an uncanny knack of flying off at the last minute to avoid any vehicle following the posted speed limit of 25mph, but who must not have been ready for someone going twice that speed—chances are the driver said to his passengers something like, “that was pretty neat.”

That same line was uttered by a Dubois taxidermist and outfitter, Joe Hargrave, who, on Oct. 5, just four days after their season opened, became one of Wyoming’s first hunters to legally kill a wolf since 1974.

“It was pretty neat to be able to hunt them because they’re a magnificent animal,” Hargrave said. “I like to see them in the wild just like elk, moose and everything else. It is nice to be able to have the opportunity to hunt them.” (The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service removed wolves from the endangered species list in Wyoming on Sept. 30, kicking off the first hunting season since wolves were placed on the list in 1974. Conservation groups have filed three lawsuits seeking to re-list the wolves; they are expected to be decided sometime in 2013.)

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and the Wildlife Rehab Center of North Coast are offering a reward for information leading to the arrest of the person responsible for the illegal killing of the protected shorebirds. Meanwhile, thousands of unprotected migratory geese, deer, elk, cougars, coyotes and wolves are shot each year by people with the same motive as those thrill seeking, sophomoric, sociopathic beach drivers—they’re just out for a bit of fun.

Text and Wildlife Photography© Jim Robertson