Hunting

www.rmad.org

OutlineHunting Defined

Video

Opposition to Hunting

Animal Suffering

Environmental Degradation

Human Health and Safety

What You Can Do

Appendices

A. Canned Hunting In Depth

B. Quotations

C. Commonly Asked Questions

Huntingn The killing of wild animals for food, recreation or profit.

Hunting, Defined

Types of hunting• Subsistence

• Meat

• Trophy (“Sport”)

• Commercial

Hunting, Defined

Types of hunting• Subsistence

• Meat

• Trophy

• Commercial

Focus on obtaining food

Hunting, Defined

Types of hunting• Subsistence

• Meat

• Trophy

• Commercial

Focus on recreation, obtaining food

Hunting, DefinedTypes of hunting• Subsistence• Meat• Trophy• Commercial

Focus on recreation, acquisition of trophy, record

Hunting, Defined

Types of hunting• Subsistence

• Meat

• Trophy

• Commercial

Focus on profit

Hunting, DefinedCommon approaches• Self-guided• Guided• Game ranches and

canned hunts• Catch and release• Baiting• Hounding• Contest killing• Internet hunts• Varmint hunts• Pursuit groups

Hunting, DefinedVictims (a Sampling)• Black bears• Antelope• Moose• Pheasants• Cottontail rabbits• Snowshoe hares• Quail• Blue grouse• Mountain sharp-tailed

grouse• Sage grouse• Ebert, fox and pine squirrels

• Prairie rattlesnakes• Snapping turtles• Beavers• Badgers• Bobcats• Coyotes• White-tailed, Gunnison’s,

and black-tailed prairie dogs• Brown trout, rainbow trout,

spotted trout• Northern pike• Yellow and walleye perch

Hunting, Defined

ManagementUSFWSColorado LegislatureColorado Wildlife CommissionColorado Division of WildlifeColorado Department of

AgricultureColorado Public

Canned Hunting Video

Opposition to Hunting• Animal suffering

• Environmental degradation

• Human health and safety

• More than 200 million animals killed yearly

• High injury rates• Babies left to die in nests

and dens

We have to understand we are not the only beings on this planet with personalities and minds.-Jane Goodall

Hunting: Animal Suffering

• Disruption of migration and hibernation patterns and destruction of families and social units

• Extinction and extirpation of species, including wolves, passenger pigeons, bison, mammoths

How narrow we selfish, conceited creatures are in our sympathies! How blind to the rights of all the rest of creation!-John Muir

Hunting: Animal Suffering

Others suffer, too.

Hunting: Animal Suffering

Hunting: Environmental Degradation

Wildlife management is game management.

Game management is ensuring ample game animal populations and ample habitat on which to hunt game animals.

Hunting: Environmental Degradation

Mismanagement examples• Haphazardly stocking fish• Wrongly prioritizing non-

native species over native species

• Killing natural predators• Improperly managing

captive ungulates• Insufficiently regulating

lead shot

Hunting: Environmental Degradation

Mismanagement: Deer Populations

• Artificially inflated through killing of predators and buck hunting

• Taking healthiest of animals is contrary to nature; wolves target weak and infirm

• Nature responds with increased litter sizes, birth rates, etc.

Hunting: HumanHealth and Safety

Dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries are attributed to hunting in the United States every year. -The International Hunter Education Association

What You Can Do• Encourage your legislators to enact or enforce wildlife-protection laws -

currently canned hunting legislation is pending in both the Colorado and federal legislatures! - and insist that nonhunters be equally represented on the staffs and governing bodies of wildlife agencies.

• Advocate for the creation of a revenue stream from the general public toward species conservation.

• Support the work of local, regional and national animal advocacy organizations.

• Before you support a “wildlife” or “conservation” group, ask about its position on hunting. Groups such as the National Wildlife Federation, the National Audubon Society, the Sierra Club, the Izaak Walton League, the Wilderness Society and the World Wildlife Fund are pro-sport-hunting or, at the very least, they do not oppose it.

• To combat hunting in your area, post “no hunting” signs on your land, join or form an anti-hunting organization and protest organized hunts.

• Call 1-800-448-NPCA to report poachers in national parks to the National Parks and Conservation Association.

• Educate others about hunting.• Help protect habitat.

Appendix A: Canned Hunting In Depth

Canned Hunting• Commercial hunts that take place on

private land under circumstances that virtually assure the hunter success.

• Also known as “shooting preserves”.

• Native and exotic animals are trapped within enclosures; they are sometimes shot in cages, while at feeding stations, while tied to a stake and/or drugged.

• Most animals are raised by humans and fully habituated to them.

• Fencing, shrunken and/or artificial settings and regular human interaction eliminate any element of “fair chase”.

• Common high density of animals also helps ensure a kill.

• Animals often come from private breeders, animals dealers andzoos – including the Denver Zoo.

• Lucrative and expanding – an estimated 1,000 facilities now operate in at least 28 states.

• No federal laws ban canned hunting; the majority of states allow it.

• The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service does not prohibit private ownership of animals designated as threatened or endangered under Endangered Species Act.

Canned Hunting in Depth

“Preserves” and Regulations in Colorado

• An estimated 300 “preserves” exist in Colorado, most of which provide canned hunts of deer and elk, ranking the state first in the nation.

• Until 1994 the Division of Wildlife (DOW) regulated Colorado’s elk ranching industry; the DOW publicly opposed keeping wildlife on ranches.

• Regulatory responsibility changed hands when the state legislature enacted house bill 1096, thereby transferring responsibility to the Colorado Department of Agriculture (DOA); proponents claimed that the DOW had no business managing what had become an agricultural economy; the bill classified deer and elk as “alternative livestock” which largely turned them into “cattle with antlers” (Peter McBride and Carol Busch, High Country News).

• Authority over disease control, licensing, inspections and primary enforcement moved to the DOA; the DOW retained responsibility for fencing regulations, game-ranch hunting and genetic testing.

Canned Hunting in Depth

• Recent events have sparked a clash between the DOW and the DOA; Historically the reaction to a positive chronic wasting disease test on a ranch was to immediately euthanize the entire herd; in two recent cases DOW has let sick animals live and has allowed ranchers to repopulate areas where infected animals once roamed.

• The DOA is taking a case-by-case approach to dealing with CWD, which is upsetting DOW officials and other wildlife activists.

• In recent years many ranches have been forced to close when their herds were culled after a CWD outbreak or as costs of keeping their herds CWD-free have steadily risen.

Canned Hunting in Depth

Zoo Complicity• Because baby animals are popular, zoos continue to breed

their animals, resulting in a glut. Many animals are “warehoused” at the Denver Zoo. Zoos generally do not keep track of the animals they sell.

• Some zoos, such as the San Antonio Zoo, sell their animals openly and even include owners of canned hunting facilities on their board of directors.

• The Denver Zoo has done business with billionaire B.J. “Red” McCombs, a known dealer of hunting ranch animals.

• Denver Zoo paper trails often find animals destined for American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA) “survival centers” ending up on “pay-as-you-go hunting operations”.

• Denver Zoo claims animals only go to AZA-accredited institutions, but they worked with disgraced dealers Larry Johnson and Jim Fouts (the latter exposed by “60 Minutes”).

• The HSUS exposed Colorado Spring’s Cheyenne Mountain Zoo as having sold animals either directly to canned hunts or to dealers who have done business with auctions or hunts.

Canned Hunting in Depth

The CWD Connection

• Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD)An infectious and fatal disease in deer, elk and moose that causes neurological degeneration in parts of an infected animal's brain and slow wasting away.

• CWD was first identified in captive mule deer in Colorado in the late 1960s.

• Most wildlife scientists agree that CWD proliferated in captive breeds; the disease is highly infectious and transmissible via saliva, urine, feces and blood.

Canned Hunting in Depth

In the Media: MotherwellMotherwell Ranch is at the center of the spreading disease epidemic and the debate over how to handle it; solutions range from mass extermination to completely shutting down game ranching in the state.

• In January 2002 the Colorado Division of Wildlife decided to “depopulate” all wild deer and elk enclosed within Motherwell Ranch, a hunting ranch; wild deer and elk were trapped in the facility when fences were built or found their way into the facility (the DOW has a policy that enclosed wild animals should not return to the wild.

• From January 9 to February 16, DOW employees and members of the public killed 406 deer and elk at Motherwell Ranch; all the animals were tested for CWD.

•  Two wild deer from within the Motherwell fenced facility were found to have CWD.

• Wes Adams, owner of Motherwell Ranch, has consistently denied that any of his elk were infected with CWD and has resisted DOW efforts to “depopulate” his ranch (Theo Stein, The Denver Post).

Canned Hunting in Depth

In the Media: The VP

• Vice President Dick Cheney killed 70 birds before lunch.

• His hunting partner likened the experience to “kind of like how Tyson’s and Pilgrim’s Pride harvest birds”.

Canned Hunting in Depth

Public sees these events asaristocratic and unsporting

Addax $1,200-$4,000 • Antelope, Sable $3,000-$8,000

Aoudad $750-$2,000 • Barsingha $5,000 • Blackbuck $750-$2,500

Blesbok $1,500-$3,000 • Buffalo, Water $3,500 • Impala $1,000-$2,400

Kudu $3,500-$6,000 • Mouflon $400-$1,500 • Waterbuck $1,500-$3,500

Wild Boar $200-$1,000 • Zebra, Grants $800-$2,000

Canned Hunting in Depth

Opposition to Canned Hunts

Many hunters oppose canned hunts

• Canned hunts have nothing to do with connecting with animals and wilderness.

• Animals raised by humans and sold to canned hunts may be licking hunters’ hands before they are slain.

• One hunter recalls: “I had the experience of taking part in a ‘hunt’ on a commercial game preserve in California. We watched while the ‘wild’ turkeys were taken from their pen… The panicked bird wouldn't budge. I reached into the tangle and pulled it out by its neck, feeling as foolish as the turkey was scared. We repeated this embarrassing sequence three or four times before putting the bird out of its misery and bringing this caricature of hunting to a pitiful close.”

• Sports Afield columnist Ted Kerasote has repeatedly criticized canned hunts, stating that “ignoring the cancer within our ranks is indefensible and makes us hypocrites in the eyes of nonhunters.”

Canned Hunting in Depth

Opposition to Canned Hunts

Canned Hunting in Depth

• In the 2008 Colorado legislative session, CWF impeded the passage of a bill outlawing canned hunting in Colorado.

• That [HSUS’s involvement] is one of the factors keeping his group on the sideline, Smeltzer [John Smeltzer, CWF board member] said. Instead of being an animal-rights issue, the federation believes canned hunts violate the respect sportsmen should show for wildlife.– Colorado Springs Gazette, 2/4/08

• Rep. Debbie Stafford, who carried the bill, said she was willing to amend it.

Solutions

Congress failed to crack down on canned hunts by failing to pass S. 304/H.R. 1688, the Sportsmanship in Hunting Act of 2005, which would have halted the interstate traffic of exotic animals for the purpose of hunting and trophy collecting.

The HSUS expects there to be a renewed push to get this important piece of legislation passed in the 110th Congress.

• Contact your senators and representative. Ask them to sponsor legislation to stop the interstate commerce in animals for the purpose of shooting them in fenced-in preserves.

• Send a letter to your local newspaper.• Contact the Denver Zoo and Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. Politely tell them that you care

what happens to surplus animals and that you oppose canned hunts.• Boycott zoos! Spend your entertainment dollars at establishments where everyone is

valued and no one gets hurt.• Go vegetarian.• Question authority.

Canned Hunting in Depth

Appendix B: Quotations

We have to understand we are not the only beings on this planet with personalities and minds.-Jane Goodall

Tradition will accustom people to any atrocity.-George Bernard Shaw

How narrow we selfish, conceited creatures are in our sympathies! How blind to the rights of all the rest of creation!-John Muir

Wildlife across the world live in a state of perpetual retreat from human development, until for many species there is nowhere else to go, as we have seen for a generation in mankind’s long good-bye to the elephants, grizzlies, gorillas, tigers, wolves, pandas, and other creatures who simply do not have room to live and flourish anymore.-Matthew Scully, Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy

All beings tremble before danger, all fear death. When a man considers this, he does not kill or cause to kill.

All beings fear before danger, life is dear to all. When a man considers this, he does not kill or cause to kill.

He who for the sake of happiness hurts others who also want happiness, shall not hereafter find happiness.

He who for the sake of happiness does not hurt others who also want happiness, shall hereafter find happiness.

-The Buddha

Appendix C:Commonly Asked Questions

What does the Bible say about human’s relationship with other animals?And God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. – Genesis 1:24-26Dominion means stewardship, companionship. Dominion does not mean domination.

Don’t hunters pay to conserve land?It’s a 2 billion acre country, with 700 million acres of public lands. The contributions of hunters have been small by comparison. Public lands protection is not hinged upon hunter contributions.