Texas Teen Kills His Elder

By now you’ve probably read, or heard on the news, something to the effect of “Texas teen ‘bags’ an 800-pound record alligator.” The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department say the alligator was between 30 and 50 years old. [That’s right, the animal was older and wiser than the young human who hooked and shot him.]

Typical of the media’s coverage of the atrocity is the following article from the Seattle Times:

A Houston-area high school senior has bagged a 14-foot, 800 pound alligator – the heaviest ever certified in Texas – on his first alligator hunt. [Great, he’s a trophy hunter for life now, no doubt.]

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department officials say 18-year-old Braxton Bielski bagged [“BAGGED”? Here the press are being about as disrespectful of the animal as the murderous kid] the record gator last week at Choke Canyon State Park, about 90 miles south of San Antonio.

The agency says in a statement that Braxton shot the giant reptile after hooking it on a line using raw chicken as bait. [They call it a “hunt” but the poor animal was hooked in the water like a fish, only later to be shot by the mighty human “hunter.”]

Bielski’s father, Troy Bielski, won a Parks and Wildlife drawing for a five-day permit to hunt in the Daughtry Wildlife Management Area. The Houston police officer says his son had been dreaming of hunting alligators for years. [Serial killers fantasize for years before murdering their victims too.]

I posted this article to my Facebook page yesterday; it received these fitting comments:

“For absolutely no significant purpose whatsoever. Sickening. This is what young people are taught through so many societal avenues – that no other living creature matters, except them and those like them. Not even other human beings. Humans are raising a whole bunch of Sociopaths and Psychopaths. Very Frightening.”

“Sick–go into its habitat–bait a hook–then shoot it from a boat when it comes up…”

“Wow, this is something to be proud of? There will probably never be an 800 lb alligator on this planet again, so good for this little asshole, he got the last one. I’m sure the killer of the last wolf, bear, cougar….will be just as proud of himself.”

Need I say more?

It’s not so surprising to hear about Syrian rebel leaders eating human hearts when this kind of treatment of other living things is taught to today’s youth.

All Meat Is the Product of Cruelty and Exploitation

A German serial killer, Fritz Haarmann, known as the “Butcher of Hanover,” cut his victims’ bodies into strips of flesh and sold them as pork. Here in North America, third-generation Canadian pig farmer and serial killer of 49 women, Robert Pickton, ground the bodies of his victims into sausage and sold it in packages or gave it out to friends.

While it’s appalling that folks who acquired meat from Pickton may have ingested human flesh, it is equally unsettling that they didn’t notice. To the taste buds it seems meat is meat. This tragedy was just one of many recent incidents that should make people rethink their carnivorous ways.

On a related note, according to an article by Cindi Avila with NBC News, Whole Foods admitted to accidentally reversing labels on two salads sold at its stores, a curried chicken salad and a vegan version called curried “chick’n” salad, last Tuesday and Wednesday at some 15 of its locations in the Northeast (including Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York). “The switched labels means it is highly likely someone who made a conscious choice not to eat animal products wound up doing so, through no fault of their own.”

To the ethical vegetarians who inadvertently ingested chicken flesh, the stomach-churning physical response of revulsion was on par with those of the pork-eaters who learned they’d cannibalized. Now, you might be asking yourself, “How can anyone compare eating chicken or pork to cannibalizing human flesh?”

The NBC article makes the clarifying point, “It may be hard for meat-eaters to understand, but this is a way of life that simply doesn’t involve compromise or mistakes. That’s especially the case for those of us who are vegetarian or vegan because of animal-welfare reasons or those who choose this for religious reasons.”

Pigs, like humans, cows and chickens, are capable of experiencing joy, affection, and pleasure. However, on hog farms, they are treated like unfeeling machines, confined in tiny stalls and fed growth-accelerating drugs that often cause lameness. Their teeth are cut with pliers, and their tails are cut off-without anesthetic. At the slaughterhouse, they are hung upside down and bled to death-often while they are fully conscious. Whether flesh comes from the victim of a serial killer or from a pig, a cow, or a chicken, it is the product of cruelty toward a thinking, feeling being who experiences pain and fear and wants to live free of exploitation.

In light of all this, why are people still eating meat? One common answer goes something like this: “I’m a human—superior to other beings—I’m entitled.” But a sense of entitlement is one of the trademark rationalizations that serial killers use to justify their wrongdoings, and grandiosity is also symptomatic of psychopathy, according to Canadian psychologist and author of Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us, Robert D. Hare, Ph.D. Other symptoms outlined on Dr. Hare’s “psychopathy checklist,” such as shallow emotions and a lack of empathy or remorse, aid the killer—or meat-eater—in disregarding the suffering of his or her victims.

Psychopathic serial killers objectify their victims and consider their victims’ self-interests insignificant. The same rationale is called into play when one thinks of pigs only as “pork,” cows as “beef,” or chickens as “poultry,” without thought of the individuals or their suffering.

Both Canada and the U.S. have had recent cases of mad cow disease. As a result, we saw news footage of downer cows, too sick to walk, being dragged by chains into slaughterhouses. Press coverage of avian flu outbreaks reveal the intensely overcrowded conditions of chickens on factory farms-tens of thousands of animals cooped up in their own filth, each with less space than a standard sheet of typing paper. Besides being warned of health risks, consumers are finally learning about some of the cruelties endured by the animals they know only as “roasts” or “drumsticks.”

It is never too late to examine our actions and re-evaluate our food choices accordingly. By respecting the interests of all sentient beings, we are not akin to the conscienceless killers that plague our society. The only way to ensure that you are not supporting grotesque violence and cruelty against animals, or benefiting from their suffering, is to adopt a plant-based diet.

Wolf-Killers’ Admit They’re Sadistic Perverts

Paul Watson was right. In his foreword to my book, Exposing the Big Game: Living Targets of a Dying Sport, Sea Shepherd’s Captain Paul Watson wrote:

“Any man who has to kill a magnificent bear or bull elk to mount its head on his wall has some very deep and disturbing psychological and sexual problems. Hunting is no longer necessary for our survival but trophy hunting was never necessary for human survival. Trophy hunters can be described quite adequately as sadistic perverts and social deviants.”

Worst of all, they freely admit it.

An article by Cathy Taibbi in Examiner.com entitled “Wolf-killers admit it’s all about the sadistic sexual thrill” includes photos, links and quotes from one of the many anti-wolf Facebook pages where members brag about “’getting wood’ when seeing wolves trapped, tortured and killed, whether in images or in real life.” Flaunting the fact that they’re still legally entitled to their predatory perversions as long as the abused are only wild animals, they don’t hesitate to tell their Facebook friends that they “feel ‘orgasmic’ when hunting, trapping, killing, butchering, and even eating their victims.”

And they wonder why we call them psychopaths or compare them to serial Killers?

Anyone who gets sexually aroused at the sight of a trapped, struggling or suffering animal should be preemptively executed for the good of the many. They are what the FBI’s Behavioral Science team refers to as “sexual sadists,” the most dangerous of all offenders to their victims.

The Examiner article goes on to say “…in a nutshell, what they are saying plainly is that torturing animals is sexually arousing for them. Do we really want people like this freely expressing their fetishes on the Internet (where children can be traumatized – or worse, titillated – by them), or acting them out using our wildlife or pets?

“What’s happened to our society, when any show of ethics, decorum or empathy is treated as a liability to be ridiculed, threatened and treated derisively, while a site enabling perverted, sadistic sexual thrills from abusing animals is considered free speech?

“These kinds of pages are no better than so-called ‘crush videos’ (movies of innocent, live animals being stomped, cut apart with scissors, burned, etc., and sold to perverts who like to masturbate while watching) except that, being based more in the ‘traditional sports’ of hunting and trapping, these (for now, at least) manage to sneak by legally.

“Hunting, trapping and other hate/fetish sites need to be dealt with in the same fashion as perpetrators of illegal crush videos. The penalties for gratuitous animal abuse need to be severe. The moral fiber and safety of our society is definitely at risk.

“Yup. These are scary individuals. And our politicians are pandering to them. It’s a sad and disheartening statement about where America is at this point.”

The article includes a slide show of graphic photos of which they caution: “Viewer discretion is advised.” If you’re already well aware of the depth of wolf-hater depravity, then you might want to spare yourself the mental and emotional scarring. But if you have any doubts that wolf trapping is as evil as the Inquisition, then by all means view the slide show.

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

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…

Animals are Conscious, but Do Hunters Have a Conscience?

Not that it should come as a surprise to anyone who’s ever befriended a dog or cat, or watched birds in their backyard, but in July 2012, respected scientists met in Cambridge and went on record to affirm that non-humans are conscious. Belated as the matter has been in gaining acceptance, their “Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness” was a welcome step in the right direction for the world’s most continually oppressed and victimized—those born of species other than human.

The declaration asserts:

The absence of a neocortex does not appear to preclude an organism from experiencing affective states. Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors. Consequently, the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Nonhuman animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates. …

Okay, that may sound like a bunch of academic hullabaloo, but in layman’s terms, animals are indeed conscious beings. Though not really a profound revelation, the fact that non-humans are not automatons runs counter to hundreds of years of accepted belief (thanks to the fifteenth century French mathematician, Rene Descartes) that’s been used to justify untold animal cruelties for far too long.

In recent decades, the science of cognitive ethology has clearly put to rest grandiose notions of human superiority—besides perhaps the extent of human narcissism.  Nowadays, none but the most agenda-driven or willfully ignorant can claim unfamiliarity with the fact that non-human animals exhibit awareness and have the capacity to experience pain and fear, along with pleasurable feelings and emotions.

So if irrational Cartesian rationale for cruelty to animals is outmoded thinking, how then do hunters justify the virtually unprecedented abuse of our fellow Earthlings going on in the name of sport today? Could it be that sport hunters lack a conscience for all but our own kind?

As you’ve probably heard, British rocker and staunch animal rights activist, Morrissey, canceled his scheduled performance on the “Jimmy Kimmel Live” show this week due to a planned appearance on the same night by the cast of “Duck Dynasty” (a “reality” program which focuses on a family that became wealthy by making tools for their fellow duck hunters.)  The singer released a statement on Monday saying he “cannot morally be on a television program where the cast members of Duck Dynasty will also be guests.”

Morrissey also stated: “As far as my reputation is concerned, I can’t take the risk of being on a show alongside people who, in effect, amount to animal serial killers.”

Serial Killers? How can he liken avid, good ol’ boy duck hunters to serial killers, one might ask? Well, easy. Both serial killers and duck hunters act without conscience toward their multiple victims, whom they depersonalize and objectify. And both kill others to boost their self-esteem, some even going so far as taking trophies of their victims’ body parts.

The next question scientists need to address is, assuming that hunters are conscious animals, why don’t they have a conscience?

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

Hunting Is Not a Sport, It’s Sadism

I know I’ve said it many times before, but allow me to reiterate: hunting is not a sport, it’s sadism. Football, baseball, basketball and hockey are sports. Bicycle racing, marathon running, pole vaulting and shot putting are other examples.

I went skiing yesterday; skiing is both an outdoor activity and a sport. It tests one’s skill and promotes quick reactions and good balance. Skiers can challenge themselves by going faster, taking steeper runs or skiing heavier, untracked snow.

Boxing, karate, and tennis all qualify as sports; each one pits two people—perhaps not equally matched, but equally willing—in a friendly contest of skill or chance. Granted, the human hunter without weapons is not as equally suited for survival as any non-human animal. Every last squirrel, rabbit or mallard would laugh at the efforts of an un-armed human hunter.

To compensate for being the obvious underdog, sport hunters are the most ruthless, cunning, conniving and—especially in the case of bowhunters or trappers—the most barbaric and monstrous creatures to ever walk the earth. Today’s hunters who want a challenge can opt for lower-tech, less accurate equipment like bows and arrows or black powder rifles. But that just increases the chance that their living targets will get away only wounded, rather than killed outright. If they want to call it a sport, hunters should arm the animals to at least allow them a fighting chance.

The key element clearly lacking in the so-called “sport” of hunting is that both sides are certainly not equally willing. Serial killers may consider stalking and killing their victims a sport, but any sane member of society would have to disagree.

It’s high time we sane members of society take a firm stand for the non-human victims of hunting and demand an end to killing in the name of sport.

Hunting Humans

After my post, Killing Wolves Provides “a Level of Tolerance”?, the director of a Canadian animal rights group, Lifeforce, sent me this press release, which, like my post, is a semi-satirical statement about turning the tables on trophy hunters…

Animal Rights Group To Booth: Let Us Hunt You

An animal rights group is challenging Vancouver Canucks forward David Booth to see what it feels like to be hunted in the wilderness. Peter Hamilton, director of the B.C.-based advocacy group Lifeforce, took umbrage with a picture Booth tweeted last week of the left winger posing next to a freshly-killed mountain goat.

He responded with a dare. “We’re challenging David Booth to put himself in the position of a hunted wildlife,” Hamilton told CTV News. “He would be subjected to the same plight that wildlife are, in hopes that he will reflect upon the suffering and pain of innocent animals.”

A draft version of the “Booth Hunt” plan indicates the Canuck would be sent into the wild unarmed, alone and without rations. A team of hunters with dogs and high-tech equipment would then attempt to track and capture him within an agreed-upon time limit. Naturally, Booth would not be harmed by his chasers.

“He would rely on any of his woodsman skills, as do the wildlife who are forced to rely on their abilities while being ruthlessly pursued,” the draft plan reads. Hamilton described trophy hunting as “barbaric,” and said it’s a practice that must be stopped.

“A trophy is an inanimate object. These are sentient beings,” he said. “One has to question anyone’s motive in getting any kind of pleasure out of killing an animal in this manner.” …

…

I certainly have to agree with Peter Hamilton on that last point—their motive mirrors that of a serial killer—but as I told him, the fact that he’d know he wouldn’t be harmed by his pursuers would make Booth’s experience only a watered-down version of what a hunted animal fearing for its life goes through. Mr. Hamilton concurred; of course his proposition had to sound non-lethal in order to get the barbaric Booth to even consider going along with it.

Ironically, another infamous celebrity who posed with murdered mountain goats is Anchorage, Alaska baker, serial killer and renowned trophy hunter, Robert Hansen (now serving a 461 year prison sentence for the murder of at least 17 women, ranging in age from 16 to 41.) Well-liked by his neighbors and famed as a local hunting champion, Hansen even broke several records for trophy (nonhuman) kills, documented in the Pope & Young’s book of world hunting records.

Another bit of irony: like the Connecticut school shooter, Adam Lanza, and the D.C. Beltway snipers, John Allen Mohammed and John Lee Malvo, he used a .223-caliber semi-automatic hunting rifle to make his kills (both human and non-human).

Whenever Hansen got a victim under his control, he would fly her in his private plane to his remote cabin where they would be subjected to torture and then set free in the woods, naked and sometimes blindfolded. Hansen would give his victims a brief head start and then hunt them down with a hunting knife or a high-powered rifle. In describing his hunts to investigators, Hansen said that it was like “going after a trophy Dall sheep or a grizzly bear.”

As world renowned FBI profilers, John Douglas and Roy Hazelwood correctly surmised, Hansen was compelled to keep trophies of his murders, such as a victim’s jewelry. According to Douglas, the abuse of prostitutes is a way for perpetrators to get back at women. Hansen was probably using his victims as a way to get revenge (much like the motive of good ol’ boys who kill wolves).

Several investigators who were familiar with Hansen said that he was known around the area as a proficient hunter. He earned this reputation after taking down a wild Dall sheep with a crossbow. Douglas concluded that Robert Hansen must have tired of elk, bear and Dall sheep, and instead turned his attention to more interesting prey.

When investigators first heard Hansen’s confession, they couldn’t help but think of the popular fictional story “The Most Dangerous Game” by writer Richard Connell. In the story, a shipwrecked trio find themselves stranded on an uncharted island, where they meet a Russian Count, known only as General Zaroff. The group’s initial delight turns to terror when they realize that the shipwreck was no accident and the good general had lured them there so he could hunt them down.

According to the Huffington Post, Anchorage police and FBI investigators just released information about another Alaskan serial killer, Israel Keyes, who authorities said never showed any remorse but said he got a rush out of hunting for victims and killing them. He also tortured animals as a child, investigators said.

Again, the serial killer’s motive and behavior closely parallels a trophy hunter’s:

“Israel Keyes didn’t kidnap and kill people because he was crazy. He didn’t kidnap and kill people because his deity told him to or because he had a bad childhood,” Anchorage homicide Detective Monique Doll said. “Israel Keyes did this because he got an immense amount of enjoyment out of it; much like an addict gets an immense amount of enjoyment out of drugs. In a way, he was an addict, and he was addicted to the feeling that he got when he was doing this.”

While researching for this blog post, I dug up an article by lion conservationist, Gareth Patterson, entitled “The Killing Fields.” In it, Patterson compares the uncanny similarities between trophy hunters and serial killers.

Here are some excerpts…

Certainly one could state that, like the serial killer, the trophy hunter plans his killing with considerable care and deliberation. Like the serial killer, he decides well in advance the type of victim–that is, which species he intends to target. Also like the serial killer, the trophy hunter plans with great care where and how the killing will take place–in what area, with what weapon. What the serial killer and trophy hunter also share is a compulsion to collect trophies or souvenirs of their killings. The serial killer retains certain body parts and/or other trophies for much the same reason as the big game hunter mounts the head and antlers taken from his prey…as trophies of the chase.

Hunting magazines contain page after page of (a) pictures of hunters, weapon in hand, posing in dominating positions over their lifeless victims, (b) advertisements offering a huge range of trophy hunts, and (c) stories of hunters’ “exciting” experience of “near misses” and danger. These pages no doubt titillate the hunter, fueling his own fantasies and encouraging him to plan more and more trophy hunts.

Trophy hunters often hire a camera person to film their entire hunts in the bush, including the actual moments when animals are shot and when they die. These films are made to be viewed later at will, presumably for self-gratification purposes and to show to other people–again the longing “to be important” factor?…

…

And finally, while on the subject, here’s an excerpt from the chapter, “Inside the Hunter’s Mind,” in my book, Exposing the Big Game: Living Targets of a Dying Sport:

A hunter’s true impetus is to serve the evil master in custody of his soul: his ravening ego. His self-interests are consistently placed far above those of his animal victims, whom he depersonalizes and views as objects rather than individuals. Reducing living entities to lifeless possessions and taking trophies of their body parts—without the slightest hint of guilt, remorse or other higher sentiment—is standard practice for the sport hunter…and the serial killer.

The sportsman keeps his malignant, murderous obsession concealed within the hollow confines of his psyche…until the next hunting season. Beneath a façade of virtuosity he’s driven by an urge to obtain surrogate victims, or stand-ins, representative of some perceived injustice he imagines he underwent at the hands of someone who didn’t let him have his way at some time in his life.

Maybe as a young child he felt he was undeservedly reprimanded, and so he terrorized the family pet, threw rocks at pigeons or turned to some other form of animal abuse to lift his sense of worth and gain a feeling of control. Over the years, he may have found that same kind of ego boost in killing animals for sport, partially satiating his savagery until the next legal opportunity to kill again. Imagining he’s reaping the power of the bear or the stately bull elk temporarily boosts his floundering self-esteem or relieves his sense of inadequacy. But his pride is a shallow pool, constantly in need of refreshing…

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

Contest Hunts are a New Moral Low Point

I hope you don’t think I go out of my way searching for awful cases of animal exploitation and abuse to blog about. I come across shocking stories of cruelty to animals nearly every time I open the paper or visit the websites of local news stations. Many of the most shocking stories are about brutal activities considered to be perfectly legal, condoned and even institutionalized.

A prime example is the increasingly popular wildlife contest hunt, the kind of backwards barbarity that earned “Buffalo Bill” (the celebrated nineteenth century mass murderer of bison, not the fictional serial killer in Silence of the Lambs) his nickname. Buffalo Bill Cody killed 67 of the gregarious, benign beings during the 12-hour contest. Within a couple of decades, the once-abundant species was all but extinct.

It’s hard to believe that contest hunts were not relegated to the distance past long ago, along with bison hunting, trapping and the vilification of wolves, but all these atrocities are making a comeback and find their way into the news with disturbing regularity.

Just today I stumbled onto the following Associated Press article about a contest coyote hunt slated to take place this weekend in New Mexico (You can’t make this kind of shit up).…

 

“The terms of the competition are simple: Hunters in New Mexico have two days this weekend to shoot and kill as many coyotes as they can, and the winners get their choice of a free shotgun or a pair of semi-automatic rifles.

But the planned two-day coyote hunting contest has sparked an online petition that has generated tens of thousands of signatures worldwide. The FBI is investigating a death threat to the gun shop owner who is sponsoring the hunt. And one protester has even vowed to dress like a coyote to trick hunters into accidentally killing a human.

But none of these episodes will likely stop the owner of Gunhawk Firearms from holding the scheduled two-day coyote hunting race this weekend, despite the international attention the idea has garnered. “I’m not going to back down,” said Mark Chavez, 50, who has faced two weeks of angry phone calls and protests — and even a threat to his life. ‘This is my right to hunt and we’re not breaking any laws.’

Under the rules of the contest, the winning team will get its choice of a Browning Maxus 12-gauge shotgun or two AR-15 semi-automatic rifles…”

…

A contest to see who can kill the most animals—with two free assault weapons for the winners—but they’re “not breaking any laws”? It appears we’ve reached a new historic low point in regards to wildlife protection laws,…or the lack thereof.

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

 

Call Today! The “Sportsmen’s” Act of 2012 Must Fail

URGENT!  Before you read another line, pick up your phone, call your Senators and tell them to OPPOSE S 3525 (the so-called, “Sportsmen’s” Act of 2012)! You can find the contact numbers for your senators at the following web page: http://www.senate.gov/

Though the threat of having to watch bowhunter Paul Ryan by crowned Vice President has passed, the specter of sport hunting still haunts the halls of Congress. Under the cunning guise of “conservation,” the Sportsmen’s Act of 2012, S 3525, is a Senate version of the House’s ridiculous “Sportsmen’s Heritage Act” (what will they think of next, a Serial Murderer’s Heritage Act?).

No animal should be reduced to the level of mere object only to be “harvested” at the casual whim of jaded trophy seekers out for a diversion from their meaningless lives.

For the sake of wildlife, public lands and unspoiled wilderness nationwide, we must stop this absurd act from becoming law.

Of course, the animal’s enemies are lining up behind it. According to a new post in Outdoor Life (a popular “sportsmen’s” magazine that actually promotes outdoor death) entitled, “Must-Pass Legislation: Sportsmen’s Act of 2012,”

“The fight for the Sportsmen’s Act isn’t over. The NRA, National Shooting Sports Foundation, Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, Boone and Crocket Club, Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation, and a host of other national, regional and local groups are calling all hands to lobby their Senators for passage.”

Make no mistake, those of us who truly care about wildlife wouldn’t want to see this pass even if it were a painfully annoying kidney stone. The Sportsmen’s Act of 2012 is a must-fail piece of legislation.

 

Thanks to the Animal Welfare Institute for the following action alert:

On November 13, their first day back in session following the recent election, the U.S. Senate will resume consideration of The Sportsmen’s Act of 2012 (S. 3525). Please call and urge your Senators to oppose S. 3525.

If enacted, S. 3525 will have substantial and direct adverse impacts on wildlife, public health and existing conservation efforts. This bill would weaken protections offered by laws such as the Marine Mammal Protection Act, Toxic Substances Control Act and Endangered Species Act. Included in the bill’s language are provisions that would:

•Eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority under the Toxic Substances Control Act to regulate hazardous substances—including lead, a dangerous neurotoxin—released by ammunition and sport fishing waste.

•Encourage federally-funded construction and expansion of public shooting ranges on state and federal land, including land managed by the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management.

•Amend the Marine Mammal Protection Act to permit importation of polar bear carcasses taken before the species was listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act in 2008—including those taken despite multiple warnings of an imminent ban on imports.

This legislation, if enacted, will interfere with important statutory protections affecting animal welfare, human health, and the environment.

The Senate is moving quickly on this bill, so your help is urgently needed TODAY.  Please contact your Senators by phone, email, or fax and tell them to oppose S. 3525!

You can identify your Senators and their contact information here.

Sample Message:

As one of your constituents, I urge you to help protect human health, wildlife and public lands by voting against S. 3525. This legislation, if passed, will undermine provisions of existing conservation statutes including the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Toxic Substances Control Act. It will also interfere with the exercise of authority by federal agencies responsible for managing federal lands and protecting public health. Please oppose S. 3525, and help to protect wildlife, habitat and the public.

Thank you,