I know this will come as a shock, but I don’t believe in
hunting. I’m not an idiot, I know it
exists. I just feel strongly that it
shouldn’t. Like on a moral, ethical
level.
It’s not just that I’m a vegetarian and I won’t wear fur. I
also don’t eat in restaurants where animals hang on the walls for
decoration – and there are more of those than you would think. And yes, they are creepier than you can
imagine. (Who can eat with Babar looking over your shoulder?)
I admit I’m a softie. When I caught a mouse romping in my
house, I didn’t kill it. I released it
near the barn, where it probably went directly to the feed room to grab a snack
and mull over its next plan of attack.
I admit that Poppy
has dispatched a number of the mouse’s rodent relatives before I could save
them, but I chalk that up to circle of life. I didn’t use the unfair advantage
of a trap or poison.
My whole anti- hunting stance has pretty deep roots. Early
on I was traumatized by “Bambi” and have never seen it again. I saw a moose
once in Park City and was awestruck. The baby bobcat at my stable makes me
smile. I can’t imagine murdering any of them.
The only serious, ongoing battle my brother and I have ever
had is over hunting at my parent’s farm. He wants to, and I don’t. Thankfully
my mom is still healthy and sides with me. For that and many other reasons, I
hope she is with us for a long time.
So mom's land is posted and regularly patrolled by the local
game warden. Which doesn’t keep poachers out.
During hunting season we’ve learned stay out of the woods with the dogs
and horses, and sing loudly if we’re in the back yard.
But nothing prepared me for the feelings of impotent rage
I’ve had since the murder of Cecil the lion by the douchey dentist, Walter J.
Palmer. I probably don’t hate him more
than the other small-minded people who hunt endangered animals, but he put a
face on the despicable act. They all
deserve to be trolled and cyber hunted. It might teach them some empathy.
It doesn't help that Palmer was more brazen than most. He
claims he didn’t know that Cecil was protected. Um, right. Apparently he
thought he was paying more than $50,000 to kill a lion because everything was
all on the up and up. He truly believed that tying a dead animal onto a truck
to lure the lion out of a sanctuary is the way legal hunting is done. Okey,
dokey.
I don’t actually care if it is legal; it’s wrong. At the
rate that poachers are going, wild elephants will be extinct in Africa by 2020.
Five years from now, the only place you’ll be able to see these amazing animals
will be in zoos.
And circuses. But don’t get me started on circuses.
Hard as I’ve tried, and I really have, I can’t wrap my mind
around someone killing a creature for no purpose but pleasure. I get, sort of, hunting a maneating tiger that
has been snacking on your local villagers. But those tigers are far and few
between.
How small a person do you have to be to hire guides with the
latest technical advances to go into the jungle, where animals are minding
their own business, and murder them? Just to post a picture on social media,
and stick their heads on a wall. I
seriously can’t relate.
Please don’t bore me with deer hunting arguments either. I
understand that in some places the deer population is exploding. They are trompling
on people’s pansies and chomping their lettuce. That there are too many of them
and not enough food for them in the winter and they will starve. Except… they seem to be thriving.
And, by the way, hiding in a tree blind above an area baited
with a salt lick, and blowing away Bambi’s mother with a rifle outfitted with
scope the size of the Hubble hardly seems like a fair fight. Just saying.
Actually these days hunting is rarely fair. Unless you’re
going after an animal on foot, alone with no GPS and only a spear, hunting is
not a sport. Even then, you better be
eating that giraffe for dinner and wearing its skin.
I’m going to keep pushing Zimbabwe to extradite Walter J.
Palmer (though it will never happen) and I’ll continue outing all those other
idiots who are so proud of their murdering exploits (this means you Donald
Trump, Jr and Rebecca Francis).
I proudly defend my
right to arm bears. And bunnies. And lions.
RIP Cecil.
