Hunting
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1995:
An unidentified American, two Germans, and a South
African safari guide waited in Tanzania on December 15 until the old-
est bull elephant in Kenya’s Amboseli National Park and three male
companions wandered over the border, then blew them away point-
blank from a jeep. Often photographed by tourists, all four elephants
were virtually tame. The eldest, dubbed R.G.B., was 47 years old,
and had been studied by researcher Cynthia Moss since 1976. As the
killing was legal, the American will be allowed to import his trophies.
Showing similar hunting skill, John Joyce, 53, and Robert
Gerber, 70, of Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, were arrested on
November 24 in connection with the baiting, trapping, and jacklight-
ing of a 494-pound bear out of season. They were caught trying to fig-
ure out how to remove the carcass from a heap of doughnuts.
Greg Flemister, 37, of Ruston, Louisiana, evaded 80
searchers for 36 hours over the Thanksgiving weekend, after hunting
buddy Sammy Nalley reported him lost, because he thought they were
wardens out to arrest him for jacklighting.
Ohio hunters killed a record 138,752 deer last fall––and
only one fellow hunter. However, Ohio wardens for the second
straight year cited one hunter in each 10 they checked. Of 1,463 cita-
tions issued, 302 were for hunting on posted land without permission,
272 were for night hunting, and 70 were for hunting from a car.
Brian Gorski, 22, of Westlake, Ohio, was charged with
assault on December 5 after blowing a two-inch hole in the side of a
passing car while killing a deer. A steel reinforcing plate attached to
the shoulder harness saved the life of driver Robert Story. Gorski and
four pals were also charged with criminal trespass.
Wisconsin topped this year’s hunting accident list, with
14 fatalities. Remarked University of Wisconsin sociologist Elizabeth
Thomson, wife of ardent hunting apologist Thomas Heberlein,
“Hunting in Wisconsin, and throughout the U.S., isn’t very well regu-
lated. We have very limited skill requirements, and you can hunt with-
out even a vision test. Hunting continues to be dominated by a culture
of aggression, violence, and male control, at odds with the kind of
social world in which I’d like to live.”
As usual, most reported accidents were banal: Brock
Siebert, 13, suffered collapsed lungs and facial injuries on November
25 in Fairfield Township, New Jersey, when he got between his 15-
year-old cousin and a quail. Anson Wagler, 17, of Odon, Indiana,
had his head blown off on November 27 when a buddy goofed while
loading a weapon. A 45-year-old man who didn’t wear the required
orange vest was killed by his brother-in-law on November 27 near
Wiggins, Mississippi. Seven Virginia hunters were killed, the most in
a decade, including Charles D. Gee, 49, whose hunting partner on
November 16 mistook him for a turkey.
But then there was bowhunter David Ostby, of
Cambridge, Minnesota, who knelt in a roadside ditch on October 11 to
light a cigar. Edward Boroski of Badger, Minnesota, mistook him for
a fox and shot him dead––from his vehicle, using a high-powered scope
to be sure of his aim.
But the most bizarre hunting accident of the year came on
December 24 near Marjayoun, Lebanon. Assad Khoudor, 25, was
killed and his brother and two friends wounded when, out to shoot
birds, they drew return fire from an Israeli tank.
The New York Department of Environmental
Conservation on December 4 refused the Fund for Animals’ request
to shorten the squirrel hunting season, to prevent the deaths of moth-
ers with young in the nest. According to the DEC, only five of 376
squirrels shot during September and October and studied by staff were
lactating females. “The squirrel season opened September 1, but the
DEC’s check stations did not open until October 1,” responded Mike
Markarian of The Fund. “The random sampling of hunter-killed squir-
rels took place only in October, and the September squirrels were not
included. When squirrels give birth in the fall, it is obvious that more
will still be lactating in September. The September portion of the DEC
study consisted of volunteer DEC officials going squirrel hunting and
reporting whether or not the squirrels they killed were lactating. This is
like the fox guarding the henhouse.” Studies by squirrel expert Vagn
Flyger in Maryland and Virginia have found that 55% of females are
lactating in September and 40% in October, though that is in a warmer
climate. New York hunters kill about 500,000 squirrels per year.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service director Molly Beattie
declared on November 29 that a year-long review of purported
incompatible uses of the National Wildlife Refuge System has dis-
covered no conflict between wildlife protection and hunting, now
permitted at 272 refuges. However, jogging will be banned at five
refuges.
From a recent issue of the National Shooting Sports
Foundation magazine: “There’s a way to help insure that new faces
and pocketbooks will continue to patronize your business: use the
schools. Kids can’t buy guns, you say? Well, yes and no. In many
parts of the country, youngsters are shooting and hunting. Pop picks up
the tab.” The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1993 picked up a tab
of $229,000 to help the NSSF push hunting in public schools.
In Britain, more than 100 representatives of the opposi-
tion Labour Party on December 7 signed a Parliamentary motion
regretting Prince Charles’ action in taking sons William, 12, and
Harry, 10, on a fox hunt in October––and asking the government to bar
children from attending fox hunts.
Lt. Col. Dennis J. Foster advised fellow foxhunters in the
December issue of Covertside, the newsletter of Masters of Foxhounds
of America, that the Rocky Mountain Humane Society and the
Massachusetts SPCA “are the two most powerful state/national level
anti-hunting groups in America.” Former RMHS executive director
Robin Duxbury suspended operations in 1992 to assume the same post
with Animal Rights Mobilization.
The January/February 1995 edition of American
Handgunner features J.D. Jones on blowing away feral livestock with
handguns in the Australian outback. “Camels were tough,” Jones
claims. “Donkeys are very tough.” He went to Australia “to test ammu-
nition” because he could kill the animals in unlimited numbers.
