ALLEGED SPORTSMEN
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1995:
Clay Peterson, age 11, wrote a
letter to the Nashville Tennesean criticizing
poachers, published on April 6. “He was
thrilled,” his mother Debra wrote to the
paper a week later. “I was immediately wor-
ried when I noticed that his address was also
printed. My fears were justified,” by a bar-
rage of hate mail, including one missive that
warned Clay, “armed force is necessary to
eliminate those who would force the issue.”
The Tennessean then published the Peterson
family address again. Tell the Petersons they
have friends c/o 1667 Highfield Lane,
Brentwood, TN 37027.
An instructor at the Mohican
School In The Out of Doors i n
Loudonville, Ohio, shocked 20 students
from two different elementary schools in
mid-March by twisting a live rabbit’s head
off, with help from a student volunteer,
before doing a skinning demonstration.
Several fifth-grade girls called him a mur-
derer, made the deed public, and obliged
Mohican executive director Ronald Reed to
pledge, “We won’t be doing it any more.”
The Bowhunting Association of
Michigan is pushing fish-killing contests as
“a family activity,” in the words of secre-
tary Rick Sanders, of Berrien Springs.
Entrants shoot as many inedible carp, dog-
fish, gars, and suckers as possible within
12 hours, all to be dumped later at a landfill.
“We promote ethical shooting,” claims
Sanders. Events are set for April 29 at
Grand River, June 10 at Pointe Mouille,
July 8 at Three Rivers, and August 12 at
Allegan Lake.
Maryland SB 232, passed in
early April by the state General
Assembly, allows hunters to kill unlimited
numbers of captive-reared waterfowl at so-
called Regulated Shooting Areas, a.k.a.
canned hunts. Many such sites along
Maryland’s Eastern Shore have long been
suspected of illegally using bait to keep
ducks on their premises––and to draw wild
ducks into shooting range. In 1985 former
Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge man-
ager Don Perkuchin cracked down on the
practice, making more than 30 arrests for
illegal baiting at nearby canned hunts. Some
arrestees were friends of Senator Phil
Gramm (R-Texas), now a Republican presi-
dential nominee. In 1987 Gramm called
then-U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service chief
Frank Dunkle on the carpet; Dunkle soon
transferred Perkuchin to the Okefenokee
swamp in central Florida.
