It was only a matter of time. The loopy animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has taken on anglers, Easter candy, pregnant women eating chicken, BBQs and a host of other issues.
Now they have published a primer called “9 Things No One Told You About Hunting.”
The first item on PETA’s list of 9 is that hunting is NOT a sport. The animal rights group contends that “hunters make up excuses to justify their pastime,” and that “REAL sports involve competition between consenting parties and don’t end with the deliberate death of unwilling participant.”
PETA then takes on wildlife management professionals by declaring that “Wildlife departments often cull majestic predators, such as wolves, bears, and coyotes, to prevent predation on elk, caribou, and deer so that hunters will have more animals to gun down.” Then the *cough cough* well-informed group opines that, while natural phenomena, such as predators, starvation, and disease kill primarily the sickest and weakest individuals, hunters strive to kill the larger, stronger animals (because they want to hang their heads on a wall) which weakens the remaining population.
The group offends wildlife law enforcement by claiming that most hunting occurs on private land, “where laws that protect wildlife are often ignored or difficult to enforce.”
PETA makes a few additional spurious claims, including the outrageous assertion that hunting dogs are often kept chained or penned, denied routine veterinary care and that some dogs are lost during the hunt while others are simply turned loose at the end of hunting season to fend for themselves.
The final statement in their ‘hunter education manual’ is “Millions of animals are killed by hunters each year. Stop the bloodshed by refusing to go hunting and by sharing this page and educating people about hunting.”
It seems that looking to PETA for education on hunting is like asking a podiatrist for a face lift.
