We recently followed the controversy over the shooting of “Cecil the Lion” by an American dentist Walter Palmer from Minnesota. What was most striking was the complete disconnect in how such kills are seen by hunters versus the public at large, as shown by the subsequent controversy of a Idaho hunter taunting animal advocates. A new such controversy has emerged after a German hunter celebrated the killing of one of the largest elephant ever seen In Zimbabwe at the Gonarezhou National Park. The magnificent animal was estimated to be 40 and 60 years old with tusks that almost touch the ground and weigh 120lb. Again, the difference in how this killing is viewed is fascinating. Hunters celebrated the kill while many in the public were appalled that this hunter would pay tens of thousands of dollars to travel to Africa and shot such a beautiful and inspiring animal.
The elephant was shot on October 8th in a hunter who paid $60,000 (£39,000) for a permit to conduct a 21-day game hunt including the Big Five of elephants, leopards, lions, buffalo and rhinoceros. He then proudly posed next to the dead elephant. Many are appalled by the fact that this is considered a triumph to possess an animal by killing it. Some believe that this is the largest elephant killed in decades.
Anthony Kaschula, who operates a photographic safari firm in Gonarezhou, posted pictures of the hunt on Facebook, and objected that “individual elephants such as these should be accorded their true value as a National Heritage and should be off limits to hunting.”
Louis Muller, chairman of the Zimbabwe Professional Hunters & Guides Association, said the hunter had only realised how large the “tusker” was once he had been shot.
These legal hunts are adding to the decline in elephant populations that have been decimated by poaching and, as discussed recently, cyanide poisoning.
Karen,
I suggest you write to the author of the article and ask what was meant by “great white hunter”. Why this bothers you so much is anyone’s guess. Oh yes, did Rachel identify as a Liberal? I didn’t catch that.
Inga – when you post an article you have to stand behind it. So, what does ‘great white hunter’ mean to you?
Another aspect that I would like to point out is that if a large percentage of the population hunts, then a corresponding percentage of hunters would be represented in the legislature. Other examples of popular hunting and fishing states are Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho.
“Killing cartel”? Really? Are people mass murderers who eat Thanksgiving turkeys?
This is emotional argument is a very poor excuse for journalism. The writer should breathe their smelling salts, get control of emotion, and calmly discuss the pros and cons of hunting, from conservation of resources, public safety, wildlife management, and the perspective of those who would like non-hunting areas set aside where they can photograph or otherwise enjoy wildlife. See? Such an issue can be discussed without tears or racist rants.
I see someone is persisting in the “Great White Hunter” shameful practice of introducing race as relevant to hunting.
Are African American hunters OK in Wisconsin? What about Columbian? There was a horrid abattoir broken up by the police in CA run by illegal aliens from Mexico. Are they okay because they are not the “Great White Hunter?”
It is reprehensible to overuse the race card in this manner. And a great example of false logic via an emotional argument. No discussion with solid facts would require such a ploy.
The issue for voters in Wisconsin is how to regulate hunting in the state. The race, ethnicity, creed, or religion of the hunters is immaterial and a racist foundation upon which to base the discussion,
Rachel:
“Indeed, it is a fascinating tale that Karen tells. I hope we will soon learn about her Louisiana friends who have an excellent recipe for raccoon.”
Thank you for displaying the snide Liberal disdain for rural people. Does this also extend to blue collar workers? It’s OK to go to a 5 star restaurant and eat Lapin A La Coquette (French Rabbit Stew) but sneer at anyone who would catch their own small game. It sounds like you need to go out of your comfort zone and get to know people of all walks of life so you can be more tolerant.
Although, to be honest, a certain percentage of coons carry rabies. Eating them has never seemed like a good idea to me.
What, exactly, is your problem with the “tale” that I tell? I accurately described the poultry processing process, and remarked that an essential element to the pheasant hunting controversy in the article above is to compare the killing process between hunting and a processing plant.
Only about 1.5% of the population of the US is vegetarian, and only 0.5% is vegan. So, they are going to be quite busy if they despise everyone who eats meat. And an omnivore who opposes hunting for food but buys meat at the grocery store is simply a hypocrite. In such a case, the only pertinent facts are whether the animal was killed humanely and without suffering, and if the population is healthy.
Here’s more on the bill that proposes a law that would violate the 1st Amendment Rights of conservationists.
http://wolfpatrol.org/2015/10/15/wolf-patrols-response-to-wisconsin-representative-adam-jarchows-proposed-right-to-hunt-act/
“Wolf Patrol’s Response to Wisconsin Representative Adam Jarchow’s proposed “Right to Hunt Act”
Wisconsin Representative Adam Jarchow has chosen Wolf Awareness Week
to introduce the UNCONSTITUTIONAL ‘Right To Hunt Act’, which would criminalize the use of cameras or driving on public roads if a hunter feels that they are being harassed. Jarchow has targeted Wolf Patrol as the reason behind proposing this tightening of existing hunter harassment laws in Wisconsin, citing our recent citizen-monitoring of bear baiting season in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest.
A year ago today, the organization, Great Lakes Wolf Patrol launched its campaign to witness, document and monitor the recreational trapping and hunting of gray wolves in northern Wisconsin. Our October 2014 documentation of a trap set for wolves, led to a DNR investigation that confirmed that the trap was left in the ground beyond the close of the season. The trapper was issued a verbal warning. In December 2015, Wolf Patrol documented this country’s only hound hunt for wolves, which was in Wisconsin. Our monitoring of the hound hunt for wolves was instrumental in the DNR’s decision to close the hunt in Zone 3 before the statewide quota of 150 wolves could be exceeded.”
https://news.vice.com/article/members-of-congress-want-to-remove-the-gray-wolf-from-the-endangered-species-act
Members of Congress Want to Remove the Gray Wolf From the Endangered Species Act
Gray wolves have a storied past in the United States, once numbering in the millions. Hunting and the destruction of their wilderness habitats pushed them to near-extinction. Federal protections in the 1970s brought them them back from the brink.
In the last two years, a combination of legislative and legal actions have heightened debate over the extent to which gray wolves should receive federal endangered species protections. In December, a federal judge overturned a US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) decision to remove gray wolves in the western Great Lakes Region from the Endangered Species Act.
Now, in response, a Wisconsin Congressman is sponsoring legislation to return management of gray wolves back to the state regulators in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, and Wyoming. The bill, which has been drafted but has yet to be introduced, would delist the approximately 4,000 wolves in the region and allow them to be hunted.
“Wisconsin’s wolf population has significantly recovered over the last several decades, and I am confident in our state’s ability to manage the population,” Wisconsin Representative Reed Ribble, a Republican, told VICE News.”
https://ourwisconsinourwildlife.wordpress.com/2015/10/14/wisconsin-gop-legislature-seeks-to-attack-free-speech-allow-toddlers-to-hunt-and-promote-trespassing-and-poaching-just-another-week-in-the-bloodsport-capital-of-the-united-states/
“Wisconsin GOP Legislature Seeks to Attack Free Speech, Allow Toddlers to Hunt, and Promote Trespassing and Poaching: Just Another Week in the Bloodsport Capital of the United States
The poor great white hunter. They are such a persecuted entity in the state of Wisconsin. Not only can they shoot, arrow, hound, trap,bait, and kill almost any species throughout the year they also control the governorship, legislature, Natural Resources Board, courts, county boards, and apparently every other government entity, but that is apparently not enough.
As I pointed out last week there is a new extremist killing cartel shill in the legislature to take the place of the disgraced Scott Suder (R-ALEC) as the mouthpiece for the bear hounders. This week the legislative mouthpiece for the extremist killing cartels, Rep. Adam Jarchow (R-WBHA), introduced legislation to criminalize the First Amendment for those that share a different ideology and have the nerve to videotape and report on the myriad of illegal and unethical behaviors perpetrated by bear hounders and baiters on OUR public lands.”
Inga – if they are toddlers they are not great. And it doesn’t seem they are limiting the hunting to just whites.
https://ourwisconsinourwildlife.wordpress.com/2015/10/16/bill-in-wisconsin-legislature-poised-to-criminalize-free-speech-and-allow-a-bear-hounderbaiter-takeover-of-our-public-lands/
“Bill in Wisconsin Legislature Poised to Criminalize Free Speech and Allow a Bear Hounder/Baiter Takeover of Our Public Lands
As I wrote about yesterday the Wisconsin Bear Hunters Association (WBHA) and their allies are not content just controlling our legislature, courts, DNR,governorship and every other element of state government. They are now, with the help of their members/allies in the legislature, orchestrating a complete and total takeover of our public lands and the First Amendment rights of non-hunter users of those lands under the guise of a “hunter harassment” bill.
This week numerous anti-wildlife legislators introduced and “sponsored” a bill that would criminalize photographing, videotaping, and even being “in the proximity” of hounders, baiters, trappers, and other people harassing and killing our wildlife on OUR public lands. This is not hyperbole or an exaggeration. The WBHA and their legislative allies are waging an all out war on OUR free speech rights and the rights of non-hunters to use OUR public lands. This is the text of a bill, SB338, that will criminalize photography, videotaping, and free navigation of OUR PUBLIC LANDS to protect the unethical practices of hounding, trapping, and baiting:”
Indeed, it is a fascinating tale that Karen tells. I hope we will soon learn about her Louisiana friends who have an excellent recipe for raccoon.
There also seems to be a lot of outrage against pheasant hunting in the article. I am curious, does the author never go to France? Never enjoy the French cuisine? Faisan? Hunter Stew with Pheasant? Pheasant Normandy? The bird is a quite common menu item. Mankind has hunted pheasant and other birds since prehistoric times.
On the one hand, wild pheasant hunting is just like hunting any other fowl – duck, goose, or anything else edible. On the other, farm raised pheasant hunting is a type of canned hunt, where the birds are raised without survival skills. Canned hunts are unpopular among a large segment of the hunting population.
I dislike canned hunts. As far as hunting pheasant in general, what also is pertinent is whether a shot pheasant dies a more humane death than one who is exsanguinated in a killing cone. In poultry processing, the bird is put upside down in a cone, its jugular cut, and then it bleeds out very quickly. The blood has to drain to avoid tainting the meat. Although I dislike canned hunts in general, my first impression is that a clean shot would be a faster kill than the usual processing plant method. But I’ve never been pheasant hunting so I’m making assumptions.
Pheasants are inherently wild, and basically untamable. Even if you go out and feed them every day, they still freak out like they’ve never seen you before. Still, farm raised birds released for a hunt are at a disadvantage. I don’t think it’s “sporting” to go out to a barnyard and shoot the livestock. There is an element of shooting practice, because it’s quite difficult to shoot a moving small target, plus they are harvesting food. So I suppose there are positives and negatives in farm raised pheasant.
I do have friends who enjoy hunting wild fowl with their dogs, but they eat what they kill.
I love old movies, but don’t know anything about these actors’ off screen life. What do film actors have to do with it?
I guess Karen never heard of Stewart Granger or Jeff Chandler.
Honestly, why do people have to drag the race card into every single argument? “Great white hunter”, indeed, as if race has anything to do with it. As if white hunters are in some way worse than Hispanic, Asian, African American, Italian, or Russian hunters.
There are hunters of all races and ethnicities. And, in fact, China is a major driving force in poaching endangered species.
This is just more Liberal ploys to try to gain votes by some sort of race war or white guilt or other manufactured crisis.
It is up to the people of Wisconsin to decide how they want to regulate hunting.
I have relatives who live in Idaho and Montana, also very popular places to hunt and fish. Thank goodness, too, because hunting has filled the freezer when times were bad. Are they “Great White Hunters”, somehow evil because they are melanistically challenged? People who eat meat, fish, and poultry are not somehow holier than hunters because they buy it already wrapped in plastic at the grocery store.
Paul C
Seriously–why do you keep calling Annie by Inga? It’s not like you to repeatedly ignore someone’s request. Way too juvenile. I don’t get it.
Bam Bam:
“Does your empathy for wolves extend to foxes, as well? Your comment at 6:47 pm, on 10/17/05, appears to justify the engaging in the blood sport of fox hunting as an indication of one’s ability to be comfortable in all environments and in any element–hailing it as an indication of one’s flexibility to be as comfortable at a fox hunt as one is in a ballroom.”
No, I do not condone fox hunting. I repeated a common British saying and then applied it to the perfect American citizen. The point of the saying is that someone should be as comfortable with dirt on their boots as they are in a gown and diamonds. Jumping cross country is a lot of fun, although those are big fences that do not come down if you knock them. You can chase around the countryside on horseback without harassing or killing small animals. Do you remember the opening scene in Black Beauty? A hunt was using hounds to catch a hare, and a rider and his horse were killed.
There is also a saying, “I ain’t had so much fun since the hogs ate my little brother.” I also do not condone letting small kids into a pen with hungry, non socialized hogs, because there is some truth to this saying, as the mob can tell you.
I think foxes are lovely, cunning, and fluffy, although they have a surprisingly strong musk. I know someone who has a fox and a serval who play together. They do, however, do a shocking amount of carnage if they get into a hen house. They have a lot of fun killing every chicken alive. They are one of the few predators who kill more than they can possibly eat. Weasels, too, can go Hannibal Lector.
http://www.fox9.com/news/19925713-story
The brave dentist Dr. Palmer, the notorious lion hunter also killed a black bear illegally here in Wisconsin and bribed the guide to try to cover it up.
http://host.madison.com/ct/opinion/column/patricia-randolph-s-madravenspeak-support-law-to-ban-trapping-and/article_828c57c4-7af5-554c-aa19-df62def3a5aa.html
“We have a chance to restore 1 percent of the 100 percent insanity of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources’ destruction of our wildlife — and have safe parks. Sen. Fred Risser, D-Madison, has proposed legislation to ban hunting and trapping in all state parks. It is urgent that citizens contact their legislators, in both the Senate and the Assembly, to ask them to co-sponsor and promote this legislation. The deadline for co-sponsorship is Oct. 20.
• LRB 3204/1 prohibits the use of steel-jaw traps, body-gripping traps, and snares in all state parks.
• LRB 3198/1 prohibits hunting in all state parks.
The Dec. 23, 2012, Madravenspeak column covered the push by hunters and trappers to take over state parks for their killing pleasure. The proposal went before the Natural Resources Board, which by legislative mandate is dominated by hunters and trappers. Jane Wiley, a turkey-hunting board member, revealed that “7.5 million acres of public land, over 99 percent of the total, are open to the 10 percent who hunt. About 60,000 acres, less than 1 percent, were previously set aside as for the 90 percent of the public enjoying safe quiet sports and wildlife viewing.”
Man — “kind”? Does anyone really believe that killing should be fun and government-promoted?
In Wisconsin, trapping has been deregulated on public lands, public waterways, and state parks. The slaughter begins Oct. 15 (just as the bear slaughter ends) and continues for six-and-a-half months, through April and the birthing time for wildlife. Just as the bear kill leaves spring-orphaned cubs to die (they need their mothers to den the first year), trapping leaves baby beavers, bobcats, coyotes, foxes and other “fur-bearers” to die. So the multiplier effect of devastation goes far beyond trappers’ reporting of a half-million animals killed in traps (and additionally, a half-million nontarget animals are trashed).
Since the state parks power grab went into effect, the killing-recruitment panel initiated a program of $5 for new trapping and hunting licenses. The DNR recruited 2,041 new trappers in 2014. If all three years of $5 license incentives had the same level of new recruitment (no response from the DNR for numbers the other two years), another 6,000 trappers have been added to the 10,000 trappers already on the take. That is a 60 percent increase in just three years, 2013-2015. Additionally, trappers lobbied and won night trapping, for 24 hours of unlimited killing.”
http://host.madison.com/ct/opinion/column/patricia-randolph-s-madravenspeak-support-law-to-ban-trapping-and/article_828c57c4-7af5-554c-aa19-df62def3a5aa.html
“Patricia Randolph’s Madravenspeak: Support law to ban trapping and hunting in Wisconsin parks
http://host.madison.com/ct/opinion/column/patricia-randolph-s-madravenspeak-support-law-to-ban-trapping-and/article_828c57c4-7af5-554c-aa19-df62def3a5aa.html
We have a chance to restore 1 percent of the 100 percent insanity of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources’ destruction of our wildlife — and have safe parks. Sen. Fred Risser, D-Madison, has proposed legislation to ban hunting and trapping in all state parks. It is urgent that citizens contact their legislators, in both the Senate and the Assembly, to ask them to co-sponsor and promote this legislation. The deadline for co-sponsorship is Oct. 20.
• LRB 3204/1 prohibits the use of steel-jaw traps, body-gripping traps, and snares in all state parks.
• LRB 3198/1 prohibits hunting in all state parks.
The Dec. 23, 2012, Madravenspeak column covered the push by hunters and trappers to take over state parks for their killing pleasure. The proposal went before the Natural Resources Board, which by legislative mandate is dominated by hunters and trappers. Jane Wiley, a turkey-hunting board member, revealed that “7.5 million acres of public land, over 99 percent of the total, are open to the 10 percent who hunt. About 60,000 acres, less than 1 percent, were previously set aside as for the 90 percent of the public enjoying safe quiet sports and wildlife viewing.””
Lisa, If the Dems in Wisconsin had any kind of a candidate worth a damn they would have beaten Walker. All they got are idiots and buffoons. Barrett is both.
https://ourwisconsinourwildlife.wordpress.com/tag/scott-walker/
“Kill, Kill, Kill: The Wisconsin Solution to Everything and other Bits and Pieces from the Bloodsport Capital of the United States
It should be no secret to anyone what a cruel and barbaric country the United States of America is when it comes to wildlife. Even when choosing from all 50 states Wisconsin holds the distinction of being the bloodsport capital of the United States. This is a state where the great white hunters can blow away pretty much any animal on the land, in the sky, or in the water. The great white hunters of Wisconsin can litter the landscape with brutal and sadistic landmines known as traps through much of the year with little or no oversight. The great white hunters of Wisconsin and from around the country can haul in massive 55 gallon drums of stale junk food and deposit it all over our lands, including in our National Forests, for six months of the year with no license required and no limits as to how much in total they can deposit. Then we have the obsession with using dogs as weapons in this state. Dogs can be used against one form of wildlife or another 24/7/365 in Wisconsin. The hounded species include wolves (when not under ESA protection), bears, coyotes, bobcats, and even turkeys.
It’s not enough that they can kill an almost unlimited number of species in this state with every weapon short of artillery. The great white hunters of Wisconsin also get off on shooting tens of thousands of mourning doves each year and even more hand raised non-native Asian pheasants specifically bred to be living targets for the sadists among us.”