June 08, 2007

Hogzilla II and the Canned Hunt Problem

¶ Now all the world knows that Hogzilla II was a domestic pig passed off as a feral hog to some paying customers at a so-called hunting preserve in Alabama.

An Alabama newspaper offers details.

Blogger Patrick Burns suspected the truth last month.

I have been a hunter since I was 12 or so, but if I had to choose between still hunting and having wildlife in the world, I would take the latter. In other worlds, I value the wildness more. Twice in my life I've been invited to private bird-hunting farms (business junkets both times), but I assuaged my conscience by thinking that those farm-raised quail and pheasants could just keep flying if they wanted to. It's fine to manage land to produce optimum numbers of deer or whatever, but when you put a fence around it and turn the quarry loose inside the fence, something else is going on.

Then there is the whole issue of creeping towards private ownership of wildlife, which does no one any good in the long run, unless you really think that the British model of wildlife management (landowner owns the wildlife) is better than the North American. I do not.

Maybe that's why Americans and Canadians say they are going hunting, while in the UK they go "shooting," the assumption being that the gamekeepers have produced plenty of critters and all that matters is marksmanship.

With sportsmanship and ecological thinking pushed to the side, matters can go downhill in a hurry..

If you have read this far and you think all hunting is wrong, then you might wish to share the moral high ground of disapproval of the pig-killing. Such Christ-like thoughts you will find therein.

What a mess.

1 comment:

LOLNepal said...

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