HUNTING
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1993:
Despite the scarcity of ducks,
Ohio taxpayers are shelling out $40,000
to elevate Clark Road in Franklin
Township so that wildlife officials can
open dams on nearby Killbuck Creek
without flooding it, which in turn will
bring ducks closer to the road for the
convenience of hunters.
John Paul Self, 18, of
Grovetown, Georgia, was in critical
condition October 19 after Johnnie L.
Sinns, 18, shot him in the back of the
head as both allegedly tried to poach the
same deer from beside their pickup
truck. Sinns and a third alleged poacher,
Paul Albert Johnson, 17, were charged
with six misdemeanors including hunt-
ing under the influence of marijuana.
Johnson was also charged with posses-
sion of marijuana, while Sinns was
charged with felony misuse of a firearm.
Gunnar L. Smith, 34, of
Glens Falls, New York, was charged
October 5 with reckless endangerment
for practicing bowhunting by shooting
arrows straight up into the air over his
yard. One arrow narrowly missed a
neighbor. Smith blamed the wind.
Deer hunter Scott Jouett,
22, of Santa Ynez, California, started a
week-long fire September 25 by drop-
ping cigarette ashes. It burned more than
34,500 acres of the Los Padres National
Forest, causing minor injuries to 10 fire-
fighters.
Legal Action for Animals has
asked the Environmental Protection
Agency to prevent the New York
Department of Environmental
Conservation from poisoning five
Adirondack lakes with rotenone, delib-
erately killing both native and non-
native fish in order to restock the lakes
with “pure” native species favored by
Trout Unlimited and other fish-and-
game clubs because they struggle longer
when hooked. The state has similarly
poisoned over 100 lakes since 1948.
Statistics kept by the Fund
for Animals during this year’s Labor
Day pigeon shoot at Hegins,
Pennsylvania, showed that of the 4,449
target birds, 30% were killed outright,
47% were crippled by gunfire and killed
by teenaged attendants, 11% were crip-
pled but not captured, and 11% appar-
ently weren’t hit at all. Thus two-thirds
of the pigeons who were killed did not
die quickly. Protest this year was muted,
as the Coalition to Stop Live Bird Shoots
planned to picket a similar but more
upscale private shoot at the
Powderbourne Gun Club near
Philadelphia instead. That shoot, how-
ever, was cancelled a few days earlier.
Hunters in Deer Ridge,
Indiana, made Newsweek recently for
seeking to bar a children’s picture book
called The Cabbages Are Chasing The
Rabbits from the local elementary school
library, claiming it “could breed intoler-
ance for hunters in children’s minds.”
Their efforts have precedent, as hunters
have been trying to kill anti-hunting
episodes of Bugs Bunny for 40 years. In
Trumbull County, Ohio, meanwhile,
hunters picketed the Warren Tribune for
taking an “anti-gun” editorial stance.
The National Shooting
Sports Foundation claims more than
15,746,000 Americans bought hunting
licenses in 1992, up 28,000 from the
year before, but the numbers are ques-
tionable. The annual NSSF hunter
counts consistently show more than a
million more hunters than the more rig-
orously controlled U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service counts, chiefly from
failing to account for all holders of mul-
tiple licenses and the effect of regulatory
expansion of permit requirements.
Twenty-two Vermont hunt-
ing clubs have formed the Vermont
Sportsmen’s Coalition to counter anti-
hunting activity. The VSC will attempt
to persuade Vermonters that growing
concern about hunting accidents––which
killed three state residents last year––is
all part of an animal rights plot to ban
pets, rodeo, and dairy farming.
Nova Scotia Agricultural
College chemists Robin Robinson and
Glenn Stratton have developed a protein
test to quickly identify meat by species
of origin. The test is expected to help
win convictions against deer poachers,
who commonly disguise venison by
mixing it with hamburger.
The League Against Cruel
Sports manual The Red Fox: Friend or
Foe refutes the myth of fox as livestock
predator. Get ordering info from 83/87
Union St., London SE1 1SG, U.K.
The Fort Leavenworth Hunt
Club , founded in 1835, is the oldest
active fox hunting club in the U.S.––and
is based on U.S. Army property. A N I-
MAL PEOPLE subscriber Andi
Sandstrom is probing the extent to which
tax funds are involved and wildlife is
harassed or killed. Ask your own ques-
tions c/o Commandant, H.Q.,
Combined Arms Center & Fort
Leavenworth, Fort Leavenworth, KS
66027-5050.
Between 200 and 300
skinned alligator carcasses washed up
along a one-mile stretch of the
Intracoastal Waterway south of New
Orleans in late September, indicating
that not all Louisiana gator hunters
respect tag rules and bag limits.
The House of Represent-
atives on September 31 killed a proposal
by Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., to
kill the 90-year-old Civilian
Marksmanship Program. Sponsored by
the Army, the program mainly teaches
hunting skills to Boy Scouts and 4-H
groups.
Douglas S. Drummond, a
city council member in Long Beach,
California, allegedly asserted in a recent
speech that gay people should not be
allowed to adopt children, that people
with AIDS should be quarantined, and
that gay political influence would be
short-lived because AIDS and nonrepro-
ductive sex would soon extinguish the
gay community. He then ducked media
questions by going hunting with city
manager James Hankla.
