Posted on 02/20/2012 8:01:49 AM PST by SmithL
The divide between those who live in rural areas and those from cities ruptured wide this past weekend across America in a debate over a provocative photo of California Fish and Game Commission President Dan Richards and a huge mountain lion he shot legally after an 8-hour hunt in Idaho.
Some comments on Facebook suggest that Richards should be the one hunted and shot, that he should be jailed, that is unethical to shoot anything you do not eat, and hunting of any kind is barbaric.
Most from rural backgrounds would see nothing wrong with the photo. Mountain lions are predators that kill lots of deer and other animals, including house pets and farm animals, and fewer of them means more of just about everything else. Same with coyotes. Since the hunt occurred in Idaho, where mountain lion hunting is legal, there was nothing illegal about anything Richards did.
The photo first appeared in Western Outdoor News at http://www.wonews.com/Blog.aspx?id=1646 as an innocuous sidebar to a column post by Paul Lebowitz, 2010 California Outdoor Writer of the Year. The Humane Society of the United States, an anti-hunting organization, then copied and circulated the photo around the country.
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.sfgate.com ...
Actually, I am pretty shocked at the size of that cat. I had no idea that we had them that big in this country!
“Why don’t photos of politicians and other tyranny-related shots ever come with this kind of warning?”
Great point. In fact, I’ll offer the perfect example. I can’t figure out (or am to old and lazy to learn) how to post pics, but I am thinking of the one with Nancy the queen marching through the crowd of protestors with her giant gavel! It screamed “bow down to me you are now my subjects!”
Thanks, you kind of ruined the mood ....
It does not surprise me when screaming liberals turn up the screaming. I’ve rarely heard of the opposite trend. What puzzles me is why any self respecting veterinarian would have HSUS stuff on his or her counter. ASPCA I could see. HSUS? They would apparently as soon see that vet out of business.
Maybe Doug can say if he’s gotten a lot of come-ons from HSUS to tout them at his business, all totally misleading.
There’s a cat in the kettle at the Peking Moon
The place I go every day at noon
...
They say it’s sweet and sour pork
But it’s Garfield on my fork!
There’s a hairball on my fork!
Find your picture and get its http address (otherwise called a URL) on most computers by right mouse click and selecting Properties on the menu that appears.
Then use the symbology (called HTML) in FR posts of
<img src=http://the/URL/of/my/picture>
Only warning is that if you do and you include other text you will need to use <P> between paragraphs. You can't just leave a space any more between paragraphs and expect to see the space when it posts.
If you have an image on your computer you want to share you would have to upload it to a server. http://picasaweb.google.com is one place to do that, although some freepers frown on Google for political reasons.
Vets and other good people who love animals are misled by the name of the Humane Society of the US. They believe (as they are meant to believe) that the HSUS has something to do with the wonderful local animal shelters that do so much good work. In fact, almost nothing of the vast budget of the HSUS goes to local shelters or to animal rescue. It’s deliberately and cynically misleading.
You’ve personally seen even ASPCA losing it? That’s sad, as they seemed to be among the last with their heads screwed on halfway straight. It began sensibly enough and last I heard directly from ASPCA they wanted to stop people who ritually and habitually abused animals (and they were not talking about feeding the wrong kind of cat food, they mean things like wounding the animals on purpose or abandoning it for weeks in a locked apartment, that a sociopath might do). I had an interesting exchange with their president about the involvement of mental illness (no not theirs, the sociopaths’) — animal abusers are often out of their minds in other areas and warrant the attention of mental health professionals if anyone does, this is a problem that mere fines and jail often cannot address. They agreed with me but it never went further.
And anyhow, as a vet (you do have a business somewhere?) do you get totally misleading come-ons from HSUS in particular? It astonished me when the pretty competent lady vet (that has a double meaning) who looks after my cats’ rabies shots and the like put an HSUS stand ad on her counter. I didn’t feel like arguing politics at the time, but gee whiz ma’am doctor, these folks would just as soon see you wearing a barrel.
This animal is not a game animal in the sense humans consuming it for food but rather is a predator that belongs no where near people. As well problems exist in National Parks most of which ban hunting all together. The animals such as bears and hogs wander out into populated areas and become a huge nuisance and public safety risk. Anyone who hikes in some such parks take considerable risk as firearms are forbidden inside most parks. That policy needs changed.
So what happens when hunting slacks off? Nature becomes unbalanced. Case in point is Coyotes another predator. They never were native too my state at any time. But as food became more plentiful for them due to drop in hunting pressure of their food chain {deer} they crossed the Mississippi and now I have to dodge the loathsome things driving at night. Having deer jumping out into headlights is dangerous also. I'd like too see a bounty on Yotes actually. Much like if Florida was smart they would place a bounty of non native animals such as the Pythons some Idiots allowed to escape or purposely released to the wild. It would gives hunters income for their efforts and tallents and rid the state of an animal that has no natural enemy too control it.
Trophy be it the biggest deer, the fastest race, the largest airplane, the highest factory production, is what advanced civilization. Also trophy animals are not that easy to get. Think about it. The animal became such because it out smarted all others. There is a nice 10-12 point buck on my place 3 hunters including myself missed. That is on a 28 acre area BTW. Three smaller deer were harvested last season from by about 4 persons I allow to hunt it. I don't hunt much myself as my arthritis hates sitting in the cold all day.
He should have released it in downtown San Francisco. The whole city is a zoo.
“I’ll probably get some flack for this, but I think trophy hunting is worthless. If you’re going to hunt, don’t just take an animal’s life for no reason other than your own vanity. That’s really all trophy hunting is, an expression of vanity, which is a sin.”
Those things kill people. That’s why our ancestors, who seem to have been considerably smarter than we are, shot bears and wolves and mountain lions until they stopped coming around.
Laz, are you sure you want to hug a dead liberal? '-)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.