Posted on 01/17/2005 3:30:37 PM PST by SJackson
Activists throughout Maine expressed outrage at a decision to hold a coyote-killing competition in eastern Maine, despite protests from anti-cruelty groups and a request by Gov. John Baldacci to forgo the event.
"We think all people should have the right to say how wildlife is managed in Maine," said Linn Pulis of Hallowell, a member of several humane organizations. "We have been excluded."
Twenty-three teams turned out as the two-day event got under way in East Machias amid unseasonably warm temperatures, said Mike Look, an organizer of the hunting derby and member of the Washington County Fish and Wildlife Conservation Club.
Look said he sees little difference between the Maine event and normal hunting of coyotes, which are viewed as a major cause of a deer population decline Down East.
"It's a huge sport nationwide," Look said. "It's a chip off the iceberg of what happens every day."
Opponents say the event does nothing to manage the coyote population and reopens old wounds from a recent bear-hunting referendum.
Event organizers offered prizes for the most coyotes killed in different categories, such as calling, baiting and hunting with dogs. Look said he would be surprised if hunters killed as many as a dozen animals.
Days before the event, the Humane Society of the United States sent a letter protesting the event to Gov. John Baldacci, asking him to use his influence to call off the event.
"We think that any derby that involves wanton killing of animals is uncalled-for," Hillary Twining, the humane society's New England coordinator, said Friday from the group's office in Vermont. She said the derby is "not sound wildlife management" and "has no place in the Maine hunting tradition."
Baldacci also finds the practice inhumane, spokesman Lee Umphrey said.
At the governor's request, Deputy Commissioner Paul Jacques of the state Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Department asked the sporting group not to go ahead with its derby, saying it's not an effective way to control the coyote population. He offered state biologists' assistance in rebuilding the region's deer herd.
Organizers decided to go ahead anyway, noting that some participants were coming long distances and it was too late to tell them the event was canceled.
Pulis said she hopes the hunting group's defiance will encourage lawmakers to ban the practice.
"This has been a terrible embarrassment to the governor," she said.
Activists said they were concerned the derby would renew antagonism between hunting and nonhunting groups barely two months after a statewide referendum to decide whether to ban baiting, hounding and trapping of bears. Maine voters rejected the proposed ban.
In late 2003, Maine's coyote snaring program was suspended after appeals to officials and emotional testimony to the Legislature.
Look said the derby is to make up in a small part for the snaring program, in which hundreds of coyotes were taken in Washington County. The former teacher said he founded the sponsoring fish and wildlife club specifically to rebuild Washington County's deer population, which has crashed since the 1970s.
One of the reasons of the decline, Look said, is coyote attacks on fawns.
"Our deer population is zero to two per square mile," Look said. "If we had a normal deer population, this wouldn't be happening."
I hunt and kill several deer a year.
I have been doing this quite literally my whole life.
You could safely say I've killed around a hundred deer.
I get a thrill out of it every time.
The thrill is not the reason for the hunt, but a by-product of it
that nature, or God, has placed in us for a reason. Man is a predator.
We hunt for the meat, not the racks. The deer are killed cleanly. After so many,
you would think there would be no thrill, yet there it is.
If someone of the hunters makes a bad shot, damages the meat or
wounds the animal that is considered kind of disgraceful at the deer camp.
Killing just for the thrill is indeed wasteful and cowardly and goes against everything
I have been taught about hunting, which is derived from family traditions going back quite a ways. But feeling a thrill at bringing down a nice animal is not wrong
or abnormal, it's just part of our programming.
You think she's a reprise of sungirl?
Personally I haven't hunted in years, but when I did I didn't feel the need to justify it by putting food on the table or anything like that. I did it because I enjoyed it.
I can't read the whole thread but.... they're varmints. Nuff said.
I got me a racoon the other day. Bump-Bump. Then I drove away.
Of course he was, like Aldo Leopold, and like Leopold, an avid hunter.
Imagine their outrage once we start organizing "liberal shoots"!
OK. I think I understand --- You recognize that coytotes are a legitimate problem, but you object to this particular hunt because Maine tried to make the hunt more enjoyable with a competition.
Well, man has done all sorts of things to make labor more pleasant.
People sang songs workin' on the railroad.
Soliers sing songs while doing P.T.
Sweetwater, TX has a rattlesnake roundup every year --- started because they had a real problem with snakes in the town. They have since made a big annual party out of it -- making the necessary, fun.
We had a horrid problem with ferrel pigs for a while (domestic pigs that go wild). Ugly, mean, dangerous, and disease-ridden creatures. They'd eat crops (rooting them up, no less, killing the entire plant), kill calves, rip up barbed-wire fences, you name it. Very smart, too.
We would --- when it was time to burn the fields --- sit in bds of pickups on the edge of the field (safety -- these pigs will kill you), drink Mickey's Big Mouth Malt Liquor, and have a competition on how many we could kill as they run out of the burning fields.
This "fun" made the necessary work of killing these varmits much more enjoyable.
Hence, I see this competition by Maine perfectly appropriate. You can't eat (or should not eat IMHO --- worm danger with anything with one stomach) coyotes. Pelts not exactly coat material. Hence, killing them needs an incentive, which is absent for the average person. This competition provides the incentive.
I think your failing to see the inherent contradictions in your position. Adolph Hitler was a "vegetarian" and an "animal lover". His inability to differentiate between the value of human life and that of an animal allowed him to murder millions of people. As one who eats the flesh of animals you too are complicit in the killing of those animals. I presume you enjoy eating meat and therefore it can be said that in a way, you too enjoy killing, or at the very least the fruits of killing.
It is your ability to rationalize away your complicity in the killing of animals that poses a greater danger to your fellow man than you many imagine. Rationalizing intent, worth and situation provides the pathway for millions of abortions, a push for euthanasia and a host of other sick atrocities, including the acts of "animal rights" terrorists.
As humans we have rights and with those rights come corresponding responsibilities. Most hunters are remarkably responsible when it comes to the management of the game resource. We take great pains to ensure a quick clean kill and often pass up shots that could result in maiming or prolonged suffering. We spend hours at the range with our weapons to hone our marksmanship skills in order to convey death quickly. We spend many dollars and a great deal of time in habitat improvement projects that benefit not only game animals but thousands of other species, including us. What have you done? You may not hunt or fish but the simple act of living in a house and driving a car kills animals. Do you enjoy shelter and transportation? Your inability to differentiate between the mentally ill that torture animals and hunters speaks more to a defect in you than someone who enjoys hunting or fishing.
Because it's evidence of a defective morality that leads to mass murder. Hitler placed a higher moral value on animals that people too...
You lost it with me there. You should have just answered the question then.
You have no moral authority with me.
Thanks for your post. I understand what you are saying. I am not anti-hunting. I am just more pro-animal than a lot of people here. I appreciate people who take care in their hunting as you obviously do.
,,, no, you're stopping a potential dictator before the coup :) Always hide behind a mission.
Hence, I see this competition by Maine perfectly appropriate. You can't eat (or should not eat IMHO --- worm danger with anything with one stomach) coyotes. Pelts not exactly coat material. Hence, killing them needs an incentive, which is absent for the average person. This competition provides the incentive.
You write a good post and make a good argument. I would certainly kill an animal in self-defence or to protect someone.
I am still optimistic that there are better ways of doing the "necessary work" however. I am not advocating protesting this event or anything like that. I am just expressing my view that there's a fine line between "doing necessary work" and really getting a kick out of killing things.
No, I don't think you understand what I am saying. Read my posts again. I have said that I value animal life, perhaps, more than you do. But I have also said that I do not in any way devalue human life in doing so. In fact, I think that by valuing animal life more I raise the value of human life even higher. I think that a human life is much more valuable than an animal life. But it does not follow from that - that an animals life has little or no value. To make a comparison here to Hitler is hyperbole in the extreme.
It is your ability to rationalize away your complicity in the killing of animals that poses a greater danger to your fellow man than you many imagine. Rationalizing intent, worth and situation provides the pathway for millions of abortions, a push for euthanasia and a host of other sick atrocities, including the acts of "animal rights" terrorists.
Again, you don't seem to have read my posts. I choose what meat I eat. I care about "how" the animal lived and "how" it was killed. Factory farming is not ok with me. Feeding cattle ground up animals or filling them with hormones or cement or whatever else is not ok with me. I have nothing against killing animals in order to eat. And I have said so enough times. But I do care about "how" it is done.
As humans we have rights and with those rights come corresponding responsibilities. Most hunters are remarkably responsible when it comes to the management of the game resource. We take great pains to ensure a quick clean kill and often pass up shots that could result in maiming or prolonged suffering. We spend hours at the range with our weapons to hone our marksmanship skills in order to convey death quickly. We spend many dollars and a great deal of time in habitat improvement projects that benefit not only game animals but thousands of other species, including us. What have you done? You may not hunt or fish but the simple act of living in a house and driving a car kills animals. Do you enjoy shelter and transportation? Your inability to differentiate between the mentally ill that torture animals and hunters speaks more to a defect in you than someone who enjoys hunting or fishing.
What you say about the care that most hunters take is good. I am not against hunting. And I have said that enought times here. I am against "thrill killing". And there is something to be concerned about in those who kill for thrills, imo.
Ever seen this site?
She's not quite as clueless about other things at least.
I've always had a fascination with living off the land. Hunting would be part of that. That is also why I enjoy growing things.
FUN is wrong whenever people (or animals) somewhere else in the world are suffering. At least, according to liberals.
You: Because it's evidence of a defective morality that leads to mass murder. Hitler placed a higher moral value on animals that people too...
I'm just repeating myself here. You are not reading my posts. I have not said that I place a higher moral value on animals than I do on people. I have said that I place a higher value on an animals life than perhaps you do. I may also value a human life more than you do. I may also value plant life more than you do. I may value all life more than you do. But you are misquoting me...and badly. You are totally misrepresenting my position.
The irrational approach you take regarding hunting and killing is a result of your inability to rationalize, in a meaningful way your willingness to dine on the flesh of another (formerly) living creature and your opposition to "killing for fun". You know at some level that either way the animal winds up dead so to make your self feel superior, you attribute some sort of horrible mindset a "sickness" to those who enjoy hunting, which if practiced successfully results in killing.
Your posts are an irrational tour through your tortured logic.
So as someone who claims to "value animal life, perhaps, more than you do" what do you contribute in time and money to the well being of your illadvisidadly elevated critters?
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