by Gary Yourofsky, Press Officer
North American Animal Liberation Press Office
Before I refute every hunting lie ever espoused, let me begin with a quote from the great philosopher Pythagoras: “As long as humanity continues to be the ruthless destroyer of other beings, we will never know health or peace. For as long as people massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed those who sow the seed of murder and pain will never reap joy and love.”
Antithetically, here’s a comment from Ted Nugent, the world’s most outspoken hunter: “I contribute to the dead of winter and the moans of silence, blood trails are music to my ears. I’m a gut-pile addict. The pig didn’t know I was there. It’s my kick. I love shafting animals.”
Animal rights humanitarians are fed up with hunters, their government cronies and their sick mentalities. Hunting is not sound science. It is sound fun for unsound individuals who commit unrepentant violence against animals.
Furthermore, the so-called experts who work for animal-killing state agencies, such as the Department of Natural Resource, the Natural Resources Commission and the Huron Clinton Metropark Authority, are not “experts.” They’re hunters and hunt supporters.
And it is remarkably scandalous that these agencies make decisions about the fate of wild animals. Using this logic, we should allow pedophiles to enforce child protection laws and misogynists to govern domestic abuse crimes.
Here’s an idea: How about discarding the hunting propaganda and employing a tactic rarely used by hunters: the truth.
Hunters hunt for the thrill of the kill. They receive a heroine-like rush to the senses. Hunting is blood lust and dominance. Hunting is hatred and violence. Hunting is murder. And it’s obscene.
Most people are unaware, but in 1971, there were about 500,000 deer in Michigan, but that wasn’t enough to appease the hunting community. So the DNR decided to change Michigan’s “old forest” situation by instituting the Deer Range Improvement Program. The DRIP clear-cut 1.2 million acres of forest to create a more accessible food supply for deer and further stimulate reproduction.
Add to this the disproportionate number of licenses issued to kill male deer and you have a major increase in numbers. Killing male deer increases the herd by causing the females’ internal reproductive mechanisms to go haywire, resulting in the births of twins and triplets. Any wildlife biologist not associated with the hunting community will aver that this is fact.
The DRIP program and buck-hunting caused the deer herd to reach two million last year, an increase of 1.5 million since 1971. That makes the hunting community solely responsible for the increase in deer-car collisions.
Here’s what Dave Arnold, a DNR executive, told the Free Press on Jan. 1, 1980: “Don’t lose sight of the purpose of the (DRIP) program. When the DNR decided several years ago to try and increase the herd to about one million animals, we knew the auto collision rate and crop damage would rise.”
In the early 1990s, pro-hunting Gov. John Engler created the Hunting and Heritage Task Force. In paragraph six of the edict, it states, “While Michigan offers widespread opportunities to hunt and fish, more could be done to encourage participation, especially in high population centers. All divisions within the DNR should work together, making hunting and fishing more accessible on both public and private lands. Where possible, expand opportunities to hunt and fish within urban parks and recreation areas.”
This was the sole purpose behind the recent deer killings at our Metroparks. The hunting community claimed that deer were eating up the trillium plants. But the hunters wouldn’t know the difference between trillium and helium.
The hunting community wants to perform deadly rituals closer to the anti-hunting suburbanites to make them indifferent to their blood sport. Hunters know that apathy benefits their bloody rites. Neutrality only benefits the oppressors.
Moreover, this nonsense about how killing deer helps donate food to the hungry is only a clever public relations gimmick to try to place a halo around those who murder animals for fun.
These animal killers also pulled a typical deceptive act. In an amazing attempt to discredit my activism, a few hunters claimed that I threatened to gut a hunter’s child and blow up some cars over the recent deer killings at our Metroparks. Those charges are untrue, insidious and outrageous.
I threatened to take a bullet for the deer via civil disobedience and form my own deer-police unit.
However, I did challenge six hunters to show me how tough they really were. I wanted to beat them down and show them what oppression, violence and domination was all about. Unfortunately, they refused my challenge.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in six years of intense activism, it’s that all hunters, vivisectionists, circus trainers, furriers, trappers, rodeo cowboys and factory farmers are cowards who never fight those who fight back.
Gary Yourofsky is founder and president of Animals Deserve Absolute Protection Today and Tomorrow http://www.adaptt.org/ in Royal Oak, MI.