Point Guards & PETA 

Hunters Better Wake Up


Last night I just got upset but figured on keeping it to myself.  Watching
the O'Reilly Show last night while reading something worthwhile I perked up
when they ran a clip of an overly-tattooed point guard for the NY Knicks
asking ,"what's the difference between fighting dogs and shooting deer?".
This was followed up by a one-on-one interview between an old acquaintance
who works for a national sportsmen's organization and Mr. O'Reilly.  The
interview was a bumbling affair on both ends.  O'Reilly knows about as much
about rural life and environmental/animal issues as I do about Saturn and
the "sportsmen's" representative was a prime example of why so many state
fish and wildlife employees and retired biologists and foresters believe
that hunting (and a lot of other things) will soon be "gone".

The essence of O'Reilly's probing was "what is the difference between dog
fighting and hunting?"  The theme of "our" (hunters) defender was that it
was a funny (as in HA, HA) comparison by this person that dog fighting was a
"sport" and that he hunts with his Dad and they eat what they kill so it is
different (i.e. a "sport"), oh and PETA was not taken seriously by anyone
anyway.  Well there you have it!

The only one of the three that had the faintest idea of reality was the NBA
point guard with all the tattoos.  He is EXACTLY right.  There is NO
difference between dog fighting and killing deer.  So Vick (ugh!) and this
point guard and their friends call dog fighting a sport.  Are they less
smart or less informed or less able in some other way to consider certain
animal use a "sport" than some other folks considering deer hunting a
"sport"?  According to the hunting defender dog fighting would be a "sport"
if family members attended together (some no doubt do) and you ate the dog.
Hello, earth to hunters.  If you aren't starting to realize your stake in
defending the rights of gamefowl breeders to fight their birds or horse
owners to sell their horse to a slaughter house or even dog owners to fight
their dogs WHERE ALLOWED BY LOCAL COMMUNITIES you better start thinking hard
about it.  The dogs and the gamefowl and the horses are all PRIVATE
PROPERTY, they are not your neighbor's cuddly toys that they can take
anytime they want.  The deer and the ducks and the pheasants and the beaver
and the fox et al are PUBLIC PROPERTY and they are RENEWABLE NATURAL
RESOURCES every bit as much as timber and forage.

So PETA and all their environmental and animal rights allies (not just other
radical organizations but the bureaucrats and academicians and pandering
politicians that feed off them) are out to destroy any use of animal private
property from dog fighters and cock fighters to hunters and trappers and
poultry operators and farmers and ranchers.  Do you not see the precedents
being set?  Do you not understand how the vilification and capitalizing on
incidents (like gun control) is the tool of those out to destroy your
rights?  Do you not understand that you (hunters, trappers, fishermen et al)
are exactly like that German in Nazi Germany that opined that "when they
came for the disabled I did not care; when they came for the gypsies I did
not care; when they came for the Jews I did not care; and when they came for

me, no one was there"?

Now I know I am thought to be fearless and outspoken but I figured last
night to just let it pass.  The guy on O'Reilly was an old acquaintance
(friend?) that, like all my old professional acquaintances, avoid me like
the plague and are known to say unkind things when my name is mentioned.
The sportsmen's organization he represents like so many other such
organizations characterize me as a nut and has openly discouraged others
from inviting me to speak or put on a seminar.  What this adds up to is that
to criticize their defense of hunting would be blown off as the winnowing of
some airbag, has-been.  Getting any traction for such criticism would be
very difficult and I have much else to do.  Then I cut my hair in the garage
after cutting the grass this morning.

A small radio in the garage comes on whenever I turn on the power.  The
radio came on to the Rush Limbaugh Show and Rush was talking about this
point-guard's remarks and then he played a tape of this morning's Today Show
and Ingrid Newkirk (the PETA Lady) being asked if there is any difference
between dog fighting and hunting.  Miss Newkirk (like the Knick's point
guard) gets it perfectly.  She very sweetly said that while PETA is (merely)
opposed to hunting: dog fighting is far worse than a hunter killing a deer
with a rifle.

Question to all hunters: why would the "kindly" Miss Newkirk speak so nicely
about hunting?  If you believe that she believes that or that she means it
or that if you just "be nice" she and her ilk (that is not a "big deer")
will forget about you when all the dog fighters and cock fighters and horse
slaughterers et al are in prison I prescribe more fish dinners to feed your
brain.  SHE SAID THAT, BECAUSE SHE DOES NOT WANT HUNTERS STARTING TO DEFEND DOG FIGHTERS OR COCK FIGHTERS OR ANY OTHER GROUP.  YOU ARE ALL SUPPOSED TO BE CONQUERED ONE AT A TIME LIKE HITLER'S PLANNED CONQUEST OF EUROPE OR NAPOLEON'S CONQUESTS OR ROME 'S CONQUEST OF THE ANCIENT WORLD.  Miss Newkirk and an NBA point guard get what the rest of us are too lazy or too proud to get.  By the time I hade cut my hair I knew I had to write this piece.

There is NO DIFFERENCE between killing wild animals from whales and seals
and porpoises to elephants and deer and scaup; and killing domestic animals
from cattle and poultry and lambs to horses and gamefowl and dogs.  A lot of
folks have come to believe that they have a right to take away other people's
rights in these affairs.  They do not have the right to take away our rights
UNLESS WE LET THEM.  If my romantic notions about dogs (I do have them)
based on pet's I have known gives me carte blanche to dictate how my
neighbor uses his dog then we simply validate the "affection" or romantic
notions others have used to dictate the destruction of seal management or
whale use or protection of deadly predators like cougars and wolves and
grizzly bears or the destruction of poultry farming etc.  THERE IS NO
DIFFERENCE.

Dog fighting, like cock fighting and horse slaughter should NOT be Federal
matters: they were always and should remain (for many reasons beyond those
mentioned here) under State and Local jurisdiction.  Like so many other such
subjects, the overarching control of rural communities by powerful and
densely populated urban jurisdictions on State policies (smothering
everything from hunting and gun rights to animal use) needs to be addressed
in each State.

So, sorry guys.  You blew it.  I say this not as some nut but as a hunter
who does not want hunting destroyed.  Unless hunters (forget about "our
organizations", they have become merely career centers) see and act on their
stake in what is being done to other animal users: we will see it destroyed.

One of my great heroes is Edith Stein.  I read a little from her writings
almost every morning.  Today's line read, "We can lead others only to do
that which we ourselves practice."  If we cannot practice tolerance for our
neighbor's rights nor defend their rights when they are being taken away:
how can we expect any one to be there "when they come for me"?

Jim Beers
23 August 2007

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- Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist,
Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow.
He was stationed in North Dakota , Minnesota , Nebraska , New York City , and
Washington DC .  He also served as a US Navy Line Officer in the western
Pacific and on Adak , Alaska in the Aleutian Islands .  He has worked for the
Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police Department, and as a Security
Supervisor in Washington , DC .  He testified three times before Congress;
twice regarding the theft by the US Fish & Wildlife Service of $45 to 60
Million from State fish and wildlife funds and once in opposition to
expanding Federal Invasive Species authority.  He resides in Centreville ,
Virginia with his wife of many decades.