Stamp Out Cruel Form of Hunting

NY Daily News ^ | 8/6/03 | Wayne Pacelle

[Conservative til I die]

The Legislature has sent to Gov. Pataki for his approval or veto a bill that would ban trophy hunters from shooting or spearing nonnative mammals in fenced enclosures. The practice is known as canned hunting because the animals have no chance to escape. The Assembly passed the bill by a lopsided 97-to-48 vote, and the state Senate followed suit, 40 to 21. Now the entire humane community and many rank-and-file hunters are urging Pataki sign this long overdue legislation.

On most of these commercial operations, there's a no-kill, no-pay arrangement, meaning so-called hunters do not lay out a dime if they don't bag their penned quarry.

They can select from a menu of animals - from blackbuck antelopes to Corsican rams to European boars - paying higher prices for the animals most desired as trophies or more difficult to procure.

The animals may be bred at the facility or acquired from exotic-animal dealers or roadside zoos, where supposedly surplus animals are sold to the highest bidders.

Fed for most of their lives by the hand of man, the animals are often accustomed to a nonthreatening human presence, making the killing within the fenced enclosure even easier.

Most hunters say they hunt for meat or to serve a wildlife-management purpose, such as controlling the population. There is no such pretense here. The animals are killed for their heads with guns, bows and arrows or even hand-thrown spears. Because the animals are there just to be slaughtered, there can be no logical argument that some management exercise is being conducted.

Many hunters say they abide by an ethic of fair chase and sportsmanship. But there is no sport in shooting an animal confined in an enclosure and habituated to people.

It's not a hunt, but a slaughter - the equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel.

Most hunters join humane advocates in opposing this practice. A recent survey of readers of Field & Stream magazine - a hook-and-bullet publication - found that 65% of respondents oppose "the hunting of animals in enclosures or fenced-in ranches." Only 12% of hunters supported the practice; the remaining respondents stated no opinion.

While Texas is the center of the canned-hunting industry - it is thought to have more than 500 facilities - New York has several scattered around the state. They should be closed, just as dogfighting and cockfighting pits have been shuttered.

By so doing, New York would join many other states - including California, Wisconsin and Connecticut - that have banned canned hunting.

The Humane Society of the United States, with more than 500,000 members in New York State, strongly urges the governor to sign the bill.

It's the humane response to an appalling and indefensible form of cruelty.

Pacelle is a senior vice president at The Humane Society of the United States. www.hsus.org.

[Conservative til I die]

Nothing to add.

[coloradan]

To be consistent, NY should also ban the execution of non-residents. After all, they're just caged to be killed, and they're not from around there.

[CheezyD]

It's not a hunt, but a slaughter - the equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel.

Pretty much sums it up. The practice should be banned nationwide. I support hunters rights but this isn't hunting.

[CholeraJoe]

I'm a lifelong hunter and cannot condone this type of hunting. In Montana, you can drive out in a field and shoot a farm raised buffalo if you have the $1850. That's like shooting a cow.

[darkwing104]

It's not a hunt, but a slaughter - the equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel.

Not very sporting at all. Shame on the so-called hunters who participate in this crap. This isn't real hunting, it is a form af Nitendo hunting.

[Conservative til I die]

I can't make heads or tails of what you're trying to say here. Please elaborate.

[blanknoone]

I think these animals belong to their owners...if they can get someone to pay to kill them, its their property. I would agree that it is not really hunting, but it IS theirs. If a slaughterhouse could convince people to pay to work their instead of paying people...bully for them too.

[bayourod]

Most deer hunting that I am familiar with isn't much different. You lease the hunting rights to land where deer are plentiful, put seed corn out for a year in one spot, put up a deer blind, buy a high powered rifle with a scope, and go out chasing women.

[nightdriver]

Does Wayne Pacelle have the same revulsion for killing babies while still "canned" in the womb?

[Clara Lou]

Anyone who finds any sort of fulfillment hunting this way is sick.

[darkwing104]

put up a deer blind, buy a high powered rifle with a scope, and go out chasing women.

Didn't someone out in Las Vegas get in trouble for that not too long ago?

[T Wayne]

While I do not consider this to be hunting, I have a problem telling someone how they can kill their livestock.

Should we do away with slaughterhouses too?

[CCCV]

Ok, I’ll hop in here. I like swimming upstream anyway. I think you guys are letting the liberal mindset bleed over into you otherwise straight thinking head. Do you eat beef? How about veal? Ever been to a catfish camp? I don’t see any difference here. They all are penned up then either smacked in the head or shot by those who they trust. It’s an animal for crying out loud.
I myself am a hunter and I’d rather admit that I still wore diapers at night than go to one of these “hunts”. I would be humiliated to have to “hunt” like that, but its just an animal.
– OK Open fire…

[BOOTSTICK]

So it's wrong to shoot cows?????, screws my next bar-b-que;this whole issue is nonsense.

[CholeraJoe]

So it's wrong to shoot cows?????

If they're your own cows, you can shoot them.

[Centurion2000]

It's not a hunt, but a slaughter - the equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel.

So long as they eat what they kill, I really don't care. In fact this setup is just a slaughterhouse with an open air roof.

[kickstart]

What's the big deal? The same thing happens to other meat animals like beef. You raise them in a penned enclosure, then kill 'em. I agree it's not hunting in the true sense. If they only want the head, the meat can be harvested. If somebody wants to pay for this, it is their money.

[TroutStalker]

If they're your own cows, you can shoot them.

Or you can have a friend shoot them, or pay someone to shoot them, or have someone pay you to shoot them.

[CholeraJoe]

I have no problem with eating meat or fish regardless of how it's harvested. An ethical hunter who wants to hunt springbok bad enough will pay the money to go to Botswana and hunt them in the wild.

Most of the Chronic Wasting Disease in the US has been associated with game farms. I for one wouldn't want to eat any game farm animals for this reason.

[Hunble]

Hunt members of PETA?