Thread spiking and other hidden dangers

While in Sydney recently I had a very enlightening conversation with some friends and acquaintances on the current and fraught topics of global warming, the carbon tax and the environment.  Never one to let a chance go by, I invited comment on the equally controversial topic of hunting on public lands. Given that everyone present was a devoted city slicker, I was surprised to find opinion split as closely as 60/40 against. However the real revelations were yet to come!

In due course the topic turned – as topics are apt to do these days – to what people had been ‘Facing’, ‘Tweeting’ and ‘blogging’ about environmental issues. It was in this context that people began to compare experiences of otherwise productive online conversations that had been sabotaged by intemperate contributors who’s ‘rants’ so tainted the discussion that all input from more responsible contributors ceased.  This is something we see quite often in hunting’s online discussion threads and it can have far-reaching consequences beyond the confines of the net.

More troubling still was the revelation that some hard-core ‘conservationists’ will fabricate very complex identities for the sole purpose of making outrageous comments in online discussions, with which they strive to draw equally outrageous responses. When successful, they draw these comments and threads to the attention of the community, politicians and the media as justification for their concern about, for example, a growing and violent ‘gun culture’.  If no one takes the bait, they move to phase two, which involves using a second fabricated profile to respond even more outrageously to the statements they made in the guise of profile one. It can’t fail to reap a result.

Perhaps because I’m a boy from the bush, I immediately saw the parallels between this practice and the practice known as ‘spiking’.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with the tactics of irresponsible ‘conservationists’, spiking is the term applied to the practice of hammering pieces of steel (e.g. angle-iron from old bed frames), into tree trunks at heights calculated to destroy a logger’s chainsaw. The practice can also result in horrendous injury to the logger, and for this reason a tree assessed as having been ‘well spiked’ – that is to say, spiked in so many places it cannot be harvested safely – often escapes the saw. In both cases – trees and threads – something dangerous is intentionally introduced to an otherwise safe environment, with the sole intention of causing harm, and I now refer to the online practice as ‘thread-spiking’.

The more I think about it, the more I am certain I’ve witnessed thread-spiking in action. I’ve seen very moderate, constructive conversations, driven by reason and mutual respect, suddenly turned upside down by a couple of contributors who appear from nowhere to make offensive statements that seem curiously reminiscent of each-other in their poor grammar, appalling spelling and use of SMS-abbreviated english.  These calculated attempts to misrepresent the nature of hunters often remain in place for years, and so represent a lingering danger to the hunters’ cause.

During a recent, pre-recorded interview with ABC radio, a journalist – one of the more objective of his ilk – happened to mention to me that he was concerned by comments left on the ABC’s facebook page by people identifying themselves as “responsible hunters”.  His concern was genuine and as I would later discover when I dropped into facebook for a squiz, quite justified.  Most troubling was the fact that these irresponsible posts, which expressed intolerance and racism while threatening all manner of extreme violence against anti-hunters, were clearly colouring the journalist’s perception of hunters, and his reporting of the controversy surrounding hunting in national parks.  Let’s not pull punches; our ‘reputation’ in the public domain is not good, and highly visible threats on Facebook cannot do anything to improve it.

It is not hard to understand why some hunters might be tempted to lash-out in public. Green extremists take great pride and relish in portraying hunters as irresponsible, weapon toting homicidal maniacs in waiting, who threaten the very fabric of everything Australians hold dear. For the vast majority of we who contribute productively and responsibly to our communities, and conduct ourselves with dignity and our hunting activities with great care and responsibility, the defamatory statements of Green extremists, often calculated to deceive, are highly offensive. Yet this does not mitigate the fact that every time we lash-out, we issue ammo to the enemy; ammo that they are only too happy to shoot us down with.

If we are to preserve our hunting culture, we must work on our image every bit as hard as we work to retain our rights. This is not a simple matter of responding indignantly to each misrepresentation or falsehood. Nor can we afford to fool ourselves into thinking that because we know the truth about hunting, all will be well once the dust settles.

Hunting is in the midst of a public relations war and we’re losing! The prize is the right to continue to engage in a safe and responsible and deeply spiritual cultural practice of many thousands of years. On one front we have the declared anti-hunters who will stoop to any means to misrepresent our cause in the hope of turning the balance of public opinion against us. On another we have the voting public, who probably doesn’t hold any firm opposition to our cause and could care less whether we hunt or not. Yet as the voting majority in a Westminster democratic system, it is they who will ultimately make the decision about our future, whether by direct vote, or by expressing sufficient concern to sway the Nervous-Nellies in Parliament.  On still another front we have the threat from within and this represents perhaps the greatest threat of all, for it is the ill-considered guerrilla offensives, launched by hunting’s hotheads that so effectively fuel the engines that besiege us.

There are readers who will take great exception to my suggestion that we need to clean up our act. They will say that we should not have to justify our views and activities to anyone, and they will be wrong! The fact is we want something from a public that is not particularly moved to give it to us, but could very easily be moved to take away what little we have.

Luckily, the ‘ultimate weapons’ in the battle for hunting’s legitimacy are free and already in every hunter’s hands. They include:

• Exemplary conduct in all that we say and do,
• Strategic and above all sympathetic representation of our views and activities, and
• Assiduous self-regulation of public media such as threads, magazine content, Youtube; even club posters and pamphlets.

Exemplary conduct
The vast majority of the voting public are not hunters, and may never have any contact with hunters that they’re aware of. Their perception of hunters spans the spectrum from the romantic to the vengeful – from Daniel Boon hunting in the American wilderness with his old Kentucky riffle, to John Rambo bent on revenge with his compound bow and grenade-tipped arrows.  It’s not hard to work out which the public is going to see in the least threatening light.

• It goes without saying (nearly) that a zero-tolerance for all representations of hunters having a human quarry should be our main focus, and we should proactively express our concern and distain for such representations, whether in the movies, computer games or elsewhere. This is a job not just for hunters, but for organisations like Game Council NSW and our peak-bodies, which will need our active support and direction if they’re to identify material of concern and address it.
• Exemplary conduct must also be reflected in the field. When we are cautious and responsible in the field we minimise the risk of accidents that might be reported in the media, and also the risk of wounded game escaping only to die somewhere very public where the ‘cruelty’ of the death will be cited as justification for hunting’s abolition.

• And of course our conduct in commentary must also be exemplary. Anyone taking it upon themselves to speak to the media has an obligation to do so armed with arguments and facts that are based on sound and objective research. Let the Green extremists rant illogically and emotively about their fears for public safety and their perceptions of cruelly, while we calmly and respectfully ‘beg to disagree’ in considered terms and measured tones.

Strategic and sympathetic representation of views and activities
This is a tricky one, simply because its success hinges on the cooperation of so many organisations, publications and websites, some of which would rather arrogantly tough it out and lose, than make some relatively minor concessions and win.  It’s also too complex an issue to comprehensively flesh-out here, but strategies might include;

• Assessing the names and cover images of magazines for their visual impact beyond the hunting fraternity. Is our objective to shock the public, or promote our publications so as to increase readership and public support?

• Adopting stringent low visual impact policies for the depiction of hunter-game images intended for publication is also important, e.g. saving the photo of the boar with its mouth jacked wide open for the mantelpiece, and trying a little harder to get a good camera angle to display his tusks in a natural posture if the snap is destined for publication. Clearing away excessive blood on the animal, and the hunter too for that matter, and trying to ‘arrange’ the animal in a way that looks less dead can also help. I recently saw two photos – one of a deer, the other of a camel – in which both animals, while quite dead, looked like they’d just curled up next to the hunters for a nap. I should add that both hunters looked justifiably proud, but neither wore a maniacal grin. There should be no visual reference to the wound that claimed the target’s life either – no proud photos of headshots, no arrows protruding from fatal wounds, and certainly no entry/exit wound comparison shots.

• When talking about the efficiency of a weapon we should strive to avoid terms such as ‘killing’ or ‘stopping’ power, referring instead to the weapon’s capacity to minimise trauma to our quarry. This terminology helps to convey a consistent message of concern for animal welfare and a commitment to mercy.

• We should never try to assert that we can take an animal painlessly. Such assertions are all too easily refuted and, in fact, any suggestion that hunters have a responsibility to bring a quarry’s life to a painless conclusion is flawed. Perceptions of how an animal’s life will end in the wild are driven by the public’s experience of domestic pets. We fuss over them and monitor their welfare daily, and if they appear a little ‘out of sorts’ we rush them off to the vet. When, at a grand old age we deem them to be approaching the end, we assess their quality of life and if we find it wanting we seek veterinary intervention to bring life to a swift and merciful conclusion.
  
  Animals in the wild state do not fade away peacefully in an analgesic haze, safe in the bosom of devoted family and friends. They struggle to avoid healthier predators and eventually they lose that struggle and the end is rarely either painless or swift. Our real obligation is to ensure that our actions do not result in greater trauma than is inevitable with a so-called ‘natural death’ in the wild, and this is an important distinction that is made all too infrequently.

• Removing the ‘sex’ from hunting publications couldn’t hurt either. Associating hunting and dead animals with swimsuit-clad buxom blonds only reinforces perceptions that hunting is all about testosterone and machismo, and little to do with an abiding respect for the wild and a desire to preserve elements of an ancient and noble culture.

• Adopting a zero tolerance for any reference, either visual or verbal, to an association between alcohol and hunting is crucial. There should be no beer cans visible in hunting or campsite snaps, and no references to enjoying a few beers around the campfire before or after the hunt should appear in hunting articles.

• We should foster new hunting terminology e.g. instead of saying, “I killed the deer with just one shot to the head”, consider the alternative, “I took the animal cleanly”. This might seem pedantic to some, but in terms of its impact on the public’s sensibilities and their perception of hunting, the latter conveys the same message, while being far less challenging.

•  In all that we say and write we should strive to convey the thrill of the hunt, as opposed to the thrill of the kill. In doing so we could do worse than attempt to communicate something of the ‘spiritual’ association we feel for the bush and wildlife, especially native flora and fauna. It would not hurt to include the odd photograph of a waterfall, a native bird, a beautiful sunrise or a butterfly on our websites and in our hunting journals, and if we can depict them in the context of sharing such wonders responsibly with our kids, so much the better.

Assiduous self-regulation of public media
Again, this is tricky, simply because we often hold little sway over what appears in public. However, we can sometimes register our disapproval.

• If someone makes a comment in a thread that is clearly out of line, all the other contributors should express their resolute intolerance for statements of that kind. If the source refuses to withdraw the comment and adopt a more moderate and responsible line, the thread should be abandoned with a clear indication of why the discussion closed. The intemperate contributor should be reported to the website’s administrator, who should be in a position to issue a strong reprimand and, if warranted, withdraw access to the site or forum completely.

•  Youtube is seething with video evidence of the most appalling ‘hunter’ conduct, which brings responsible hunters into disrepute. When we find examples of mindless behaviour or senseless slaughter we should complain about it, resolutely and articulately. For instance, some months ago I came across a Youtube video entitled “Bustin’ Birds”. In it, an American youth proudly demonstrated his prowess with a compound bow by targeting the US equivalent of a Willy-Wagtail using arrows fitted with rubber blunts. The resulting explosion of feathers and bird remnants drew shrieks of hysterical laughter from the assassin’s mates, who considered ‘bustin’ birds’ great sport. I held an altogether different view, which I registered in the comments section below the video, and also expressed to Youtube via the ‘report this video’ link. The video was removed soon after.

These are just a few strategies we could employ in an effort to improve our public image. They are not the whole solution, by any stretch of the imagination, but nor are they complex or onerous activities. You will have more and much better ideas, and I encourage you to explore them with other hunters, with a view to implementing strategies that will help to counter the negative image fostered by our detractors.
Remember success is not stumbled upon; it is hunted with passionate action.

I’ll get outa ya way now...