Hunting
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1995:
Robert “Buzz” Barry, 64, assis-
tant executive director of the Sportsmen’s
Alliance of Maine, told reporters on January
21 that he’s giving up hunting mammals after
40 years because of second thoughts he’s had
since a TV debate with an anti-hunter in
November; because his anti-abortion convic-
tions have caused him to review his attitudes
toward the sanctity of life; and most of all
because of the pain and fear he’s seen in the
eyes of animals he’s killed. He asserted, how-
ever, that he isn’t an “anti,” and said he hadn’t
yet decided if he’ll quit shooting birds.
Stan Pabst of Perry Sound,
Ontario, gathered 4,000 signatures on a peti-
tion asking the provincial legislature to ban
spring bear hunting last year, which often
orphans cubs; then was told the petition didn’t
use the proper format and therefore couldn’t be
presented. After that made the papers, some-
one on Thanksgiving night massacred the 11
bears, including three yearlings and three cubs,
whom he’d fed on his own property to protect
them from hunters and poachers. Pabst is now
petitioning again, in the proper format, with
help from Citizens Against Hunting. He may
be contacted at Box 17, Site 4, RR #1, Parry
Sound, Ontario P2A 2W2.
The Campbell County Chamber of
Commerce in Gillette, Wyoming, on January
6 cancelled an “annual” coyote-killing contest
they began with great fanfare a year ago. “It
was not an issue of ethics or animal rights,”
said Chamber president Charlene Murdock,
lest anyone think the cancellation was perhaps
made from a twinge of conscience.
A three-year survey of the ethics of
more than 10,000 waterfowlers b y
Mississippi State University professors Rick
Kaminski and Brian Gray has discovered that
35% admitted to either shooting-hour, bag-
limit, or baiting violations over a two-year
period; 47% admitted to “accidental” bag limit
violations. Those who killed birds either too
early or too late in the day were seven years
younger on average than those who obeyed the
law, and 23% of them admitted committing
the violations on purpose. Violators said they
enjoyed hunting more than other waterfowlers.
Poachers have cut the migratory
bird population of Iran from 10 million to
four million since 1965, says zoologist Behzad
Behzadirad, of Nicosia.
Australia on January 24 cancelled
this year’s duck season due to drought, which
has severely harmed habitat and caused water-
fowl numbers to crash. “I think this is the start
of the end of duck shooting in Australia,” said
Laurie Levy of the Victorian Coalition Against
Duck Shooting. Levy secured a permanent ban
on duck hunting in Western Australia in 1990.
Washington D.C. wags recently
spoofed the Wildlife Land Trust, a project of
the Humane Society of the U.S., by faxing
around a photo of Bill Clinton in hunting garb
above the WLT logo, below a caption reading,
“If you don’t want t h i s on your land, we can
help.” WLT accepts land bequests with the
pledge to keep them free of hunting and trap-
ping––but not necessarily of presidents.
The West African nation of
Burkina Faso is offering hunters the chance to
shoot 23 lions at $1,600 for the first one and
$1,800 apiece for more––less than the going
rate at Texas canned hunts.
The Missouri Department of
Conservation in 1994 found 406 trophy-sized
deer carcasses abandoned with just the heads
hacked off, officials said on January 26.
Egyptian president Hosni
Mubarek on December 28 banned hunting
on the Sinai Peninsula and in the Western
Desert, near the Libyan border, until the year
2000, to protect fast vanishing wildlife.
