Happiness is a Warm Gut Pile? by Randy Rowley
ByDid you know that we are in a war? “Stupid question,” you say; “outside of invalids and imbeciles there is not a person in the good ole’ U.S.A. who is not keenly aware of all the intricacies of the War with Iraq.” However, it is not the Crisis in the Gulf that I speak of; it is the war for hunting rights in America.
In case you have been on the lease so long that you have never heard of the war for hunting rights; allow me to briefly outline a history of the conflict.
Organized animal rights groups have existed since at least 1946. The most famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) of these include: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), The Humane Society of the United States, The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Friends of Animals, Fund for Animals, Greenpeace, The Sierra Club, Doris Day Animal League, The National Wildlife Federation, The Nature Conservancy and Earth First!. These groups seek to outlaw any and all practices that in their views threaten animals. After successfully turning the once obscure issues of laboratory animals and fur wearing into full-fledged national debates, animal activists now scent a new quarry – Sport Hunting. “We want to stigmatize hunting, we see it as the next logical target and we believe it is vulnerable,” says Wayne Pacelle, national director of the Fund for Animals.
The tactics of these groups include: Marches on Washington, animal rights oriented documentaries and audiovisual materials for prime time television and classroom use in our schools, law suits to stop hunts, employing full time lobbyists who attempt to influence legislation concerning animals, vandalism (shooting red dye on fur coats with water pistols) and protests designed to disrupt or block hunts on public lands.
Some published statements of representatives of these groups are even more bizarre. To quote Alex Pacheco of PETA, “Arson, property destruction, burglary and theft are ‘acceptable crimes’ when used for the animals’ cause.” Some other equally appalling quotes include: The Animal Rights movement is “part of a revolutionary process aimed at restructuring the major institution of society…;” “The ultimate objective of the animal rights view is the total dissolution of the animal industry as we know it;” and “It seems to me perfectly natural and a very moral thing for people to intervene directly to save animals from persecution. Of course, this would mean breaking the law, but those laws have been made by a selfish and arrogant human species without taking the interests of animals into consideration.” To protest animal use, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society encourages vandalizing fur stores, destroying billboards, spraying fur coat wearers with ink, and shooting out engine blocks of hunters’ trucks. Other outrageous quotes include, “We believe that the various species of sentient creatures on earth constitute a single, complex, interconnected, and mutually dependent web of life, and that humans are part of, not apart from, this biological network;” “AIDS is a welcome development in the inevitable reduction of human population;” and “let the deer starve.”
Perhaps the most frightening quotes are attributed to Ingrid Newkirk (PETA co-director). These include: “I don’t believe human beings have the ‘right to life.’ That’s a supremacist perversion. A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy;” and “Six million Jews died in concentration camps, but 6 billion broiler chickens will die this year in slaughterhouses.”
The Arizona Fish and Game Department has issued an alert to hunters warning that recent publications by the radical environmentalist group Earth First! contain information on how anti-cattlemen and anti-hunters can go out, especially during hunting season, and shoot cattle with rifles or bows and arrows and make it look like the work of hunters. These are the kind of kooks that we are dealing with.
These kooks also have some slogans that they are indoctrinating our school children with. These include: “meat is murder”, “hunting hurts” and “fur is dead.” The Slogan for the Fund for Animals is “Support your Right to Arm Bears.”
Sadly our enemies have been very successful in their endeavors. They have closed down the mountain lion and bear seasons in California and are close in Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and Washington. How this was accomplished is that the states are mandated by law to publish their findings of actual species herd sizes. Then, by the courts, the states petition the rights to hunt specific areas. Animal rights groups have found that the states do not have the funding nor the manpower or time required to accomplish this. They file lawsuits stating that the herd sizes are inaccurate. The judges then close the species for hunting. The season will remain closed until such time that the states comply. The states must comply for a period of 10 years in succession. The Committee to Abolish Sport Hunting’s’ (CASH) target this year is bowhunting for deer in the State of Illinois. They feel that the bowhunters are unorganized.
Nearly 16 million Americans – 7 percent of the population bought hunting licenses last year. A much smaller percentage of the population are members of animal rights groups. That means that roughly 90 percent of the American public is uncommitted on the issue. The war will be won by whichever camp can pull the majority of these uncommitted masses to its side. Unfortunately, the urbanization of America, audiovisual presentations (such as “The guns of Autumn”) and hunters themselves put the advantage in the animal rights groups’ court.
Most of us have probably seen the T-shirt with a picture of a pile of guts that boasts “Happiness is a Warm Gut Pile!” or we have seen a car pass us on the highway with a bloody deer tied on top of it. We have read and heard reports of hunters accidentally shooting everything from cows to dogs to human beings and we all know of unethical hunters who go out to the woods and get drunk and then shoot at anything that moves. Hunters also have a historical bad name from almost wiping out the Buffalo and wiping out the Carrier Pigeon and several other species of animals and birds. These type of actions turn an uncommitted public away from us and give birth to animal rights activists.
Even though it appears that the future for hunting in America is grim, we should not lose heart. There are several things that concerned hunters can do to make a difference. These include: 1) Join a pro-hunting/pro-gun ethical organization such as the NRA, The Safari Club and the Izaak Walton League of America (the animal rights activists consider us weak because we are unorganized), 2) Set a blameless example of hunting by the laws, sportsmanship and respect for wildlife (a non-hunter who sees a hunter come home with a large ice chest full of doves or ducks can easily be swayed to the animal rights cause), 3) Introduce non-hunters to the sport of hunting, 4) Help educate novice hunters (volunteer to teach a hunters safety course or be a big buddy to a youngster who is interested in hunting but does not have a father), 5) Eat what you shoot (or at least give the meat to others; again hunters who leave their game lying in the field do not win us any brownie points) 6) Be careful how you present hunting to non-hunters (emphasize conservation, being in nature and fellowship) – do not boast about what you killed. 80% of Americans are against killing animals for just hanging their heads up on walls as trophies so when you have non-hunters over for dinner emphasize that you ate the animal as well (if the subject comes up), 7) Leave a clean, non-polluted hunting camp, 8) Get involved in projects (such as Big Brothers, Boys Club or the FCS ministry projects) that place hunters in a positive light in their community), 9) Always check the accuracy of your rifle at least once a season (hunters who do not sight in their rifles will inevitably wound an animal) – non-hunters who see wounded animals do not think very highly of hunters), 10) Make sure of your target (hunters who shoot horses, cows or innocent bystanders turn thousands of non-hunters away from our camp), 11) Vote and campaign for Pro-Hunting/Pro-Gun candidates for public office, and 12) Pray for the preservation of our hunting rights (our enemies allegiance is to the enemy of our Lord).
Do not underestimate our enemies! Hunting in America is threatened. Our actions today will not only effect us, but future generations of Americans to come! If we sit on our haunches, the only hunting experiences that our children will have is to listen to bedtime hunting stories when we tuck them in at night!
