Posted on 02/26/2010 2:54:37 PM PST by SJackson
PETA is calling on the Boy Scouts of America to retire its "Fishing" and "Fish and Wildlife Management" merit badges (to read PETA's letter to Milton H. Ward, president of the Boy Scouts of America, click here). Fishing is no longer considered a benign activity. It is hunting in the water, and the idea of a scout armed with a gun or rod, setting out to actively attack animals who were minding their own business, is not in keeping with the image of scouting, now or in the past.
Fishing is also inconsistent with the Boy Scout law, which states, "A Scout understands there is strength in being gentle. He treats others as he wants to be treated. He does not hurt or kill harmless things without reason." Clearly, there is no reason to inflict the pain and suffering that fish endure at the hands of anglers.
Promoting fishing teaches young people that hooking, maiming, suffocating, and killing is acceptable. This is a dangerous lesson, one that hurts not only the fish struggling for their lives at the end of a hook, but all of us. According to FBI profilers, the American Psychiatric Association, law enforcement officials, and child advocacy organizations, cruelty to animals is a warning sign often seen in people who eventually direct violence toward humans. In fact, published reports show that in every single case of recent school shootings, there has been one consistent factor: All the young killers abused or killed animals before turning on their classmates.
Of course, not every child who abuses animals will hurt or kill a human being. But every child who picks up a gun or a rod and uses it to harm another living being must deaden a piece of his or her heart. Adults—parents, teachers, scout leaders, and others who work with children—must start making lessons of compassion a priority. Showing children how to use a camera, instead of a rod and reel, teaches them the valuable lesson of empathy.
What You Can Do:
Please write to the president of the Boy Scouts of America, urging him to replace the outdated "Fishing" and "Fish and Wildlife Management" merit badges with a "Waterway Cleanup" badge. Scouts could perform a marvelous service to the community and to the environment by clearing fishing debris from rivers, ponds, lakes, and other waterways. Scouts can also learn to appreciate nature, rather than destroy it and its inhabitants, through birdwatching, hiking, and many other humane outdoor activities that merit badges. Please send your letter to:
Milton H. Ward, President
Boy Scouts of America
P.O. Box 152079
Irving, TX 75015-2079
Fax: 972-580-2079
Heh... Yah... hunting Barbie is, last I checked, a problem. :-)
I did a lot of Barbie hunting back in my day!
Well, yah... but that’s different... :-)
the idea of a scout armed with a gun or rod, setting out to actively attack animals who were minding their own business, is not in keeping with the image of scouting, now or in the past.
I love it when people who don't know jack-$h!t about Scouting try to tell us what Scouting's history and what it is all about.
I am holding a copy of the Boy Scout Fieldbook, 2nd Edition, copyright 1967. Chapter 16 is entitled "Survival". On page 317 it is descibed how to catch fish and small animals. On pages 318 and 319 there are descriptions of how to snare or kill small animals along with pictures of snares and traps and directions of how to build them. Finally, pages 320 and 321 have pictures of primitive fishing gear, including spears of various kinds, along with descriptions of how to make and use them.
My son goes trap shooting with his Boy Scout troop. I’m glad he’s had the opportunity, and he seems to like it. Knowing how to properly handle a shotgun is a good learning experience for a young man.
I suspect we agree that these are personal choices, you make yours, I make mine. As to the video, personally I eat mostly game or meat from a butcher I know, open facilities, he'll butcher whatever you bring him. Or what you saw out in the fields last week. So I don't completely disagree, as to watching the video. It would be good for smaller, local facilities. Perhaps Joe Biden will become an advocate in the name of j-o-b-s, but I doubt it.
So much information packed into those "old" books. I've not a clue what's in them today, hopefully the same stuff. "Survival", that's a term unwelcome to many people, if you're in trouble, look to the government. In this context, lots of search and rescue teams would have stories to add relative to ignorance of the outdoors, but that's for a different thread.
I personally have no problem with just downing Bambi in the wild anyway. Many of these deer have no natural predators, so if we restrict hunting, they’re just going to go haywire. I remember one time I was right outside the Minneapolis/Saint Paul area cycling and I nearly got toppled off my BMX by a deer. This was about 10 minutes away from both downtowns in Burnsville, MN. This was close enough to both urban areas that public transportation went there. The deer would be hunted by the black bears over there except the black bears don’t exist anymore and the coyotes seem to disappear en masse once they start eating people’s pets. So humans have to be the apex predator over there or else the deer suffer from a population boom and starve. They need to be gunned down in the most humane way possible.
Same goes for those disgusting wild pigs too.
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