Support the PAW Act -- Spread the Word

[naamah_darling]

McCain's new running mate is horrible in many ways. It is not the most offensive of her crimes against human decency, but her support for aerial hunting in Alaska is certainly revealing. She opposes measures that would end this barbaric practice, and last year, she proposed a bounty of $150, to be paid to anyone who brought in a wolf's left

Comments

[flewellyn]

Aerial hunting? Like hell...that's drunk assholes who want to reenact the "Ride of the Valkyries" scene from Apocalypse Now. With all the attendant atrocities.

[kyra_neko_rei]

I would love it if some benevolent higher power saw fit to give her nightmares in which she is a wolf being hunted by air.

But then, do nightmares even get nightmares?

[allrightwithme]

Ewww. I didn't even know aerial hunting existed, much less that people still did it.

Unfortunately can't sign the petition because I'm in Canada, but sheesh.

[kayjkay]

I brought up the fact that I'm FOR hunting, but there's nothing sporting about it, shooting wolf pups in the head just doesn't sit right with me, nor would it with any of my friends really. Response from someone else? Well it's predator control... so it's efficient that way.

Right... because the ONLY way to control a species is through aerial shooting, trapping, or poisoning? I don't buy that. In Alaska in particular, the supposed reason is to cull the wolves so that moose populations can boom so hunters can hunt.

Alaska isn't an island in the middle of nowhere. It's not cut off from the rest of the world. I fail to believe that every Alaskan must hunt moose or caribou in order to survive...

[kayjkay]

Also, WOOT! My rep's on there :D

[naamah_darling]

The very idea that they need to be controlled is faulty and based on faulty science. There are more humane ways to do it anyway, efficiency be damned. One should never make more efficient something that should not have been done in the first place. Someone important said that, I just forget who

[kayjkay]

Oh it makes me angry, trust me, I'm right there with you. I've pointed them to links showing that humans are overhunting the populations of moose that they're whining are being preyed on more by wolves. I pointed out facts to show that moose populations are fluxuating not because of the wolves, but poor habitat, weather, and human encroachment. I also linked them to a study that said "We fucked up in Yellowstone, now the ecosystem is completely out of whack..."

I sincerely doubt it will sway them, but I gave it my best, my most educated fight that I could.

Why, WHY is the simple, easy answer to KILL something? I need tea. Right now.

[misanthrope1]

I'm very impressed with everyone's comments. Personally, I'm against hunting . Raised with it, have it all around me, and almost always every one goes out hunting deer with a rifle and beer. In fact stores up here sell beer especially marked and marketed to hunters. Hmm, that's clever. Guns and alcohol. I respect those hunters who actually do it right-respect the animal, use all of it, take only what they need. Unfortunately, the majority of people I run into aren't in this for that. They 're in it to watch blood run or for a trophy to stick on a wall. I had a meats teacher in college who made his students slaughter some of the college farms lambs and pigs. (People bought them, we dressed them out to learn to cut.) He said quite clearly. "You need to respect these animals. They are DYING. Their life is all they have." He made sure everyone treated the animals gently and kindly. I wish everyone did. Kill for food and that's it.

[jubilo]

I had a meats teacher in college who made his students slaughter some of the college farms lambs and pigs. (People bought them, we dressed them out to learn to cut.) He said quite clearly. "You need to respect these animals. They are DYING. Their life is all they have." He made sure everyone treated the animals gently and kindly.

Right on. I was raised in Mississippi by a hunter (my dad) who despises the concept of going out drinking and shooting guns. He raised me to understand that hunting was for food, not sport, and that to be a good steward of the earth you should take hunting seriously and not fuck around with it because you want to shoot guns and kill things. He said that's why we have target practice.

I am a vegetarian, but I have nothing against people eating meat -- *if* the animal has been treated gently during its life and killed as quickly and painlessly as possible. Your meats teacher absolutely had the right idea.