NAROOMA'S ANTI-HUNTERS MISLEADING THE COMMUNITY AGAIN

Well the anti-hunters of Narooma have set-up a new "Narooma Anti Huntfest" community, and already they're revealing the depths to which the anti-hunter will descend in order to promulgate his message of intolerance and hate. 

I could wax imaginative about these people for hours, but I'll just call them for what they are - prejudiced, deceivers of a community and cultural bigots. They are no better than the Nazis who misrepresented the Jewish culture in order to intrench hatred in a community and facilitate widespread violence in order to engineer the nature of that community.

I could provide no end of examples drawn from their Facebook community's posts, but let’s look at just two that they hang justification for their anti-hunter sentiment on. Dylan the Wambat and the plight of a baby koala.

The site's administrator and founder advises that a baby koala was shot no-less than 15 times by hunters....plural of course...always important it suggest that more than one hunter was involved when your motive is to mislead and evoke hate sentiment. Of course the founder doesn't provide a link to the story that might reveal actual details, scant though they may be, but I will, here

The baby koala was not shot 15 times by 'hunters', but once, by a person wielding a shotgun, resulting in multiple shot entry wounds. Absolutely deplorable, yes, but not 'shots' or the work of 'hunters' plural. Nothing among the facts suggests that a hunter of any kind was involved.

To claim that everyone who owns a firearm is a hunter displays a level of intellectual simplicity bordering on impairment. Just as it does to suggest that every law abiding firearms or bow owner is a danger to the environment.

I mean, why stop there? Everyone who owns a car is a hit & run driver! Every Priest is a paedophile! Every biker who owns a full-face helmet is a bank robber! Every Muslim who buys fertiliser is making bombs! And let’s not forget the administrator’s own assertion, also drawn from his hate-site; everyone who shoots animals with anything other than a camera is not "a real man". What is he then, a transvestite...gay perhaps...a woman...impotent...what other prejudices does this statement thinly veil?

And on to Dylan the wombat (here) shot 5 times with a .22 calibre rifle, the standby of every owner of a rural holding. Again, a deplorable act and one that every hunter would condemn.

Where is the evidence that a hunter...or, for effect of course, “hunters” plural were involved? I’ll tell you where, in the administrator’s evil, manipulative, prejudiced little mind.

The number one assailant of the humble wombat is not hunters, but hobby farmers frustrated with the damage wombats do to fences. Can’t blame hobby farmers tho, oh no...they're the very people who picket logging roads and hunting shows and it would be counter productive to slight one's audience. Much better to blame a cultural minority that you just happen to hate.

So why the insistence on pushing the 'hunters' scenario? Well that’s easily explained. It is done for the same reason that people, upon learning that a car was broken into, think it is relevant to report that an ABORIGINAL was arrested for it.

It’s not enough to say that a thief was arrested, oh no. When one is a bigot, one must play the race and culture cards for added dramatic effect and justification for hating "them coons."

Well I am a hunter, and I'm a wildlife photographer too. I have never shot a native animal...not once, not 15 times...which is just as well given that I’m an archer, because I’m fairly certain that anything found with 15 arrows in it immediately acquires status as an honorary echidna.

If you think that what this site is doing to the community of Narooma is somehow different to those sites that stereotype and misrepresent gay et al culture, Muslims or refugees I suggest you go have a shave. Yes, a shave. And while you’re there, introduce yourself to a bigot. That’ll be the face looking back at you in the mirror!

Anyway, I'll get outaya way now...

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EXPOSING BIAS KEY TO RETAINING OUR HUNTING RIGHTS

A short time ago, I posted a rant on the Stand (here) and elsewhere via social media, that drew some considerable critical response. Nothing unusual in that; my opinion pieces and randomly shared views often get the public’s blood up, but the mail I received from hunters in response to this particular rant, genuinely surprised me.

The rant in question took the form of a response to an article published in a small rural paper (here). Said article centred on the plight of a swamphen that had been seen in a public area, impaled with an arrow. The article carried the headline, “Swamp hen used for target practice” and the journalist quotes witnesses to the bird’s plight, who claim that the swamphen had been targeted by a hunter – sorry  –  a cruel and vicious hunter. I say witnesses to the bird’s ‘plight’, because no-one actually claims to have witnessed the event that caused said plight. In short, the notion that ‘a hunter’ was responsible, and that the bird was deliberately ‘targeted’, is nothing more than simplistic speculation.

Some appear to think my response was an effort to cover for an irresponsible archer. Nothing could be further from the truth. I abhor both abject cruelty and the illegal ‘hunting’ of native species. However, there is not a single shred of evidence cited in the article that could not just as easily be put down to an arrow overshooting a target to impale a hapless swamphen that lay in long grass behind it, leaving the target archer – not a hunter – absolutely none the wiser.

I must say I was absolutely gobsmacked to discover that hunters were all too willing to draw and promote the same speculative conclusion proffered as fact by the WIRES ‘expert’ & Co.

There is nothing to be gained by hunters standing up to condemn actions based on scenarios that are pure supposition. To do so simply adds fuel to a fire that doesn’t even warrant a match. The public expects hunters to critically and angrily disassociate themselves from acts of cruelty.  It is all too predictable and serves only to give the public the impression that even hunters don’t approve of hunters.

For far too long we have been working on the assumption that if only we can find an argument cogent enough, we will strike some Aristotelian “golden mean” that will result in the antis appreciating our point of view. It will never happen! Objections to the hunters’ culture tend to be the stuff of core values, and core values are inviolate.  But there is a simple strategy, overlooked for far too long, that will go a long way towards preserving our rights, if only we have the will and the unified commitment to implement it.

The battle for the future security of our culture and hunting rights will be won or lost in the court of popular opinion, which is controlled by the media. As anyone who has tried will tell you, getting a positive hunting story in the paper – any paper – without it being editorialised negatively and to death is nearly impossible, so we have to think a little creatively. We also need to redefine our core objective.

In many respects we are very lucky. The vast majority of people don’t care if we hunt or not; they are unconcerned about the fate of the average feral pig or deer, until the antis, through their manipulation of the media, give the public cause to care.

Politicians, by and large, do not act to change legislation (laws) unless there’s a vote in it. Ergo, The Greens and the antis strive to incite anger in the community that will move politicians to act in order to garner votes, or at least not lose them.  The key to winning the battle therefore lies not in convincing the antis and the general public that what we do is noble and glorious or even just OK. The key lies in ensuring that the public continues not to care either way, and unlike the battle to turn the antis to our cause, this is perfectly achievable.

We need not struggle to get positive hunting stories into the papers if we learn to take strategic advantage of the fact that anti-hunting stories will certainly appear. The trick is two-pronged 1. get a word in on their coattails, and 2. Make sure that word is focused on why the antis’ view of the world cannot be trusted.

Alas, the second prong requires restraint and that’s a sacrifice that few are willing to make. It is important not to succumb to the temptation to tell the reader too much about why hunting is a good thing. Rather, one must respond in such a way as to imply that fact, and have faith that the public will draw the right conclusions. This requires a consistent approach over time, but it can be done.

My response to the swamphen story is an example of this strategy in play. A potted version will almost certainly appear in the Readers’ Letters section of the relevant paper. My response does not, as some appear to believe, make excuses for an irresponsible archer; rather it challenges suppositions and casts doubt on scenarios that would almost certainly be accepted as fact if permitted to go unchallenged.

We should make a concerted effort to respond to such stories, wherever they might appear. We must respond quickly and calmly and with logical and considered rebuttals that focus on deconstructing the antis’ simplistic version of the ‘facts’. Do this consistently and we begin to chip away at their credibility, exposing the antis’ lack of concern for the truth, just as long as their version of events suits their paranoid world view and associated objectives.

This strategy requires a centralised coordinated approach. It is my hope that the newly formed Field Archers and Bowhunters Branch of the NSW Shooters and Fishers Party will assume that role, but your assistance will be required too. The FAB will need the support of archers, bowhunters and fair-minded people throughout NSW willing to be on the lookout for vexatious reports in their local media, with a view to bringing them promptly to the FAB’s attention.

If we successfully sew the seed of doubt antis’ biased brand of truth, at the very least we will ensure that the public continues to feel justified in not caring about hunting, either way. And surely that’s more than half the battle won?

Anyway, I’ll get outaya way now......

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SWAMPHEN USED FOR TARGET PRACTICE....OR MAYBE NOT

Well, here’s another example of animal welfare folk jumping to conclusions, because, let’s face it, it’s easier to do that than tax their limited, over emotional and oh-so opportunistic minds.

Swamp hen used for target practice

 VICIOUS CRUELTY: the swamp hen - shot at with an arrow - could not be caught by

WIRES volunteers on Wednesday (click the image above to view the article)

Every morning I awaken and thank the good Lord that such people are not employed as motor accident investigators. If they were, every accident in which someone is injured would result in a charge of reckless endangerment occasioning murder with malice aforethought. By the way, the operative word here is accident!

Many accidents in our day to day lives result in harm, and not all are the result of malice or recklessness. That’s why reasonable folks refer to them as ‘accidents’...or at least they used to, before rampant social opportunism born of the promise of compensation dollars made every accident an ‘incident’ that someone must be held responsible for. 

The article covers an event in which a Purple Swamphen has been discovered impaled with an arrow. The evidence for this claim lies in eyewitness accounts of the fowl’s condition after the event and at least one photograph. That is every bit of evidentiary fact we have on the whole sorry episode right there. From that point on, everything is theory, and it’s simplistic theory born either of profound ignorance or vested opportunism at that. 

There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever for the claim (captioned above) that the event was either an act of "vicious cruelty" or that the swamphen was "used for target practice". Unless the Bay Post has evidence it is not sharing with the reader, both statements are pure speculation based on a preferred scenario, and one can only speculate as to what might motivate that preference.

So let’s look at the ‘evidence’ – the photo and the post-event eyewitness accounts, or quotes – and see if there isn’t an alternative scenario that fits the facts at least as well as the “despicably cruel hunter” line the public is being force-fed.

The Purple Swampsen (Porphyrio porphyrio melanotus) clearly exhibits an arrow penetration wound. No evidence of ‘hunter’ involvement there, just the involvement of an arrow no-longer in flight.

The arrow appears to be a green 11/32nd aluminium number, fitted with plastic vanes (‘feathers’ for the uninitiated) and a field point, which is just about visible when the picture is enlarged. All this tells me, as someone with a practical knowledge of archery that transcends that acquired through watching Arrow or Brave on the tele, that no hunter was involved in the event and 'target practice' was unlikely to have been the motivation.

Field Points are not used for hunting in the field as one might be forgiven for assuming, but rather for field archery – shooting at targets, either paper, or three dimensional plastic animal facsimiles.

They are used specifically because they a) do minimal damage to a target, thus facilitating some sustained use, and b) because they are easily withdrawn from the target due to the head having no barbs or blades to take a grip. Should one attempt to hunt with a field point, one gets exactly the result outlined in the story, to wit, the target walks or runs away.

This rather defeats the point of hunting, which is to bring an animal down as quickly and as decisively as possible.

The arrow appears to be one of a class that is stocked by sports stores that want to stock a little basic archery gear, without providing too much variety. In fact it looks very much like an aluminium arrow known as the Australian Bushmaster, which is heavy and prone to bending and therefore not favoured by hunters. In fact I have heard them referred to as “31 inches of wretched desperation”, but that might have just been me?

While not popular among hunters, they are popular among parents who are kitting-out the aspiring young archer in the family, and among new archers who tend to think, very naively, that an arrow is an arrow. This misconception lasts only until an experienced archer explains the terrifyingly intimidating facts of arrow performance and the various associated technologies. This advice, above all things ‘archery’, is most responsible for the great many brand new bows that lie dust-covered and forgotten under beds today.

Arrows are hard...really, really, hard! Just to be clear, any archer foolhardy enough to haplessly confront himself with the physics of the “archer’s paradox” in action on YouTube, will quickly conclude that arrows are, in fact, bloody impossible! 

What else can we glean from the report and the photograph?

Well, the angle of penetration is interesting. It suggests that the ‘shot’ was taken from above the swamphen, as from the top of a bank or even from a tree.  Or, perhaps to those who do not work with WIRES and are therefore not obsessed with opportunistically blaming a hunter in order to add weight to the call to ban all bows, it suggests that the wound did not result from a targeted attack at all, but rather from an arrow falling from flight. And this brings me to the scenario I’d like to offer in explanation for the whole sorry affair.

I readily admit that it is pure speculation. I also admit to the grievous sin of entertaining the possibility that not every archer is John Rambo, smeared with mud, a quiver full of grenade-tipped arrows on his back, laying in wait in a rice paddy for choppers to land in some remote reach of the Songka River...but hey, no-body’s perfect.

A very responsible youth – let’s call him ‘Keane’ – purchased some basic gear from the local sports store. Upon returning home, which, given the area the swamphen was found in, may be set on acreage, Keane set up a target. The target was mounted very responsibly on a back-stop of stacked straw-bales. Behind the bales there lies a little swampy ground or perhaps even a dam, and a clear view across it to the property boundary some hundred metres or so away, and well out of range of the very light (as in weak) bow that the new archer will invariably be kitted-out with.

With the supervision of his doting mum and/or dad, Keane sets about a little target practice. One, or more likely many of the shots, goes over the top of the target, coming to rest in the swamp/dam behind. When Keane sets out to retrieve his shot arrows he finds he is one short, and presumes that it buried itself in the mud, got lost in the long grass, or went to the bottom of the dam.

In fact one of his arrows slipped clean over the target with sufficient momentum to skewer a hapless swamphen that just happened to be browsing the swampy grassland at precisely the wrong moment.

Of course the Bay Post article provides us with one more vital piece of information that I’ve not addressed ‘til now. The impaled swamphen is ambulatory. In fact it is so ambulatory that it successfully defied the best efforts of sundry committed and highly experience [sic] wildlife rescuers obsessed with its capture and treatment. Why, then, could the swamphen not have walked hundreds of metres, or even a kilometre from the scene of the accident, to the location where its plight came to the attention of the public? 

Why is it not possible that Keane, who is now slapped with the ‘VICIOUS CRUELTY’ tag, is completely unaware of the injury he inadvertently caused? 

To further put this event into perspective, not to mention question the Bay Post's motivation - even if it were a case of an overzealous, and, yes, irresponsible archer taking a potshot at a swamphen, to think it worthy of reporting as 'news' is nothing short of bizarre.

One wonders if the Post chronicles every case of a fisher casting gang-hooks too close to the local pelican and cormorant populations, resulting in the birds swallowing the hooks and dying slow and painful deaths  through infection and malnutrition? Must be a hundred such events each year on the waterways around Batemans Bay, yet no talk of viciously cruel fishers who target helpless pelicans.

Why is that I wonder? Recreational fishing the lifeblood of the area perhaps? Archery a soft target maybe, and the reporter doing her bit to support the local Greens who would have bows banned because they're 'weapons'?  Jeez, one could have a lot of fun with this wild speculation and baseless allegation business if one were willing to descend to those depths, couldn't one.

I am tired of the flamboyant accusations hurled at archers by people who are completely unfamiliar with archery; by people who clearly have a one track mind leading to an account of events they have absolutely no evidence to support, and a whole bunch of self-interested motivation in disseminating to a naive and gullible public.

And I am absolutely fed up with the irresponsible unprofessionalism of those journalists who would print so much speculative drivel and think it ‘news’.

There was a very loud bang in Tumut NSW last night. Everyone heard it....shook all the houses it did....and they have Muslims there! Must have been one of them Mussies testing a bomb, ‘ey?

Of course a little patient, not to say rational thought and research reveals that a mild tectonic event was the culprit, but my scenario is better....if you hate Muslims, and if you want to sell papers.

Anyway, I’ll get outaya way now....

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FROM A DISTANCE: THE ANTI-HUNTERS' PERSPECTIVE

It has often struck me that the hard-core environmentalist's view of the natural world is somewhat egocentric. The language with which they describe the natural world and humanity’s place in it, smacks of a sort of divine apotheosis; as though they consider themselves raised on high, from whence they view all things as though through the eyes of divinities.

They don’t view humanity as just another stakeholder in the relentless struggle that is life on planet earth. Rather, they seem to consider themselves the guardians of all they survey, and final arbiters of humanity’s place in ‘nature’; that place being firmly outside it, looking in.

This attitude is perhaps most evident in the anti-hunters’ views on humans as hunters. It seems every syllable they utter, no-matter how simple or complex, boils down to the same message:

“Humans should rise above their primitive drives to hunt and kill. Such things are fit only for mindless beasts of instinct and necessity who know no better!”

The anti would have all humankind walking through the world without leaving a footprint, viewing it all from a superior, non-participatory perspective, much as God might walk through the world gazing at all that he had made and declaring it very good.

The anti-hunters appear to consider that their brand of non-participating observation of the natural world makes them somehow more “in tune” with it, and this I find strangest and most alien of all their philosophies.

"We don't own the planet. We're just managing it for future generations....or maybe a/god", appears to be their collective and very patriarchal attitude, and assuming this high-minded stewardship role sets them outside the fellowship of the eternal struggle that binds all creatures together.

All life on earth assimilates other life for its own survival; that is the nature of the eternal struggle. There are few exceptions to this rule. All creatures capitalise on some advantage – physical, intellectual or instrumental – in order to secure the basic requirements of daily life. The battle between hunter and hunted, predator and prey is not fair. It is intentionally and decisively unfair, just as nature intended it to be.

I have often heard it said that, “if humans want to hunt they should do it fairly, like the animals do it. The hunter should chase down his quarry and kill it using nothing but his bare hands”, which is an odd theory, given that all other animals exploit some advantage over their food. Nor is man the only creature to employ tools, yet it is specifically man’s use of tools (the gun and the bow) and the advantage this gives him over his prey, that the antis condemn most vehemently.

Another common view is the one that runs along the lines of, “man should pick on something his own size and see how he goes”, inferring that hunters should only wrestle with big healthy critters in the 80 to 120kg heavyweight range that are best placed to put up a fight he won’t soon forget, but this too naively romanticises the 'ethics' of other predators.

The lioness does not search a herd of Wildebeest for the heaviest, strongest buck that looks like he can give her a run for her money. The lioness looks for the aged-frail, the physically disabled, the malnourished social outcast, the newborn babe or the equivalent of the toddler, that’s her preference. Still sound noble?

The lioness has no concept of fair-play, nor is she familiar with the Marquis of Queensbury rules. These are purely human constructs, associated with the notion of ‘sport’, and this brings me to a point that the antis and I might actually agree on – hunting is not a sport!  Shooting may be a sport...archery may be a sport, but hunting is not.

Early European Hunters

When the hunter hunts for meat, skin, bone, fur, sinew or antler, it is a matter of survival and indeed a cultural process eons old, not sport. The level to which the hunted contributes to the hunter’s survival may vary with the individual, but regardless of whether he lives in the Amazonian rainforests and has to hunt every day, or in suburbia and chooses to do it only occasionally, the hunter who uses his prey to the utmost is participating in the eternal struggle. This is what affords the hunter the many intimate insights into participation in the natural world that the anti lacks so profoundly.

The fact that I may choose to survive by hunting and you by shopping, does not make me any less a man, but it does make me undeniably more a part of nature and its struggles than those who would roundly condemn me for my cruelty and inhumanity will ever appreciate.

“Ah, but”, the anti says, “humans have a choice!”, and this is often true. Certainly we have a choice to live a life devoid of killing, but does that make us superior, or just remote from what is natural?

Most who choose "not to kill", and criticise others for not making that same choice, are in fact killers by proxy, employing others to kill on their behalf. Even the vegetarian/vegan kills; he simply makes personal judgement-calls on the value of life, based on size, intelligence and charisma.

For instance, the rabbit is smart, fury, cuddly, big-eyed and seriously charismatic and so it is cruel to shoot him. Earthworms and bugs, not so much, so the vegan is quite happy to chop through thousands of their kind every time he turns his garden.

Oh he may make like a Buddhist and claim it fills his soul with woe, but he digs nonetheless....chop, chop, sorry, excuse me, wups, mea culpa, chop!

I’m unfamiliar with the philosophy that dictates that insects and cold blooded things are less worthy of respect than thermoregulating cuddly thangs, but I think it’s fairly safe to assume that bugs and cold blooded creatures weren’t invited to the synod where it was all thrashed out.

The sheer romance of the antis’ view of the wild world is also noteworthy.  They will sit enthralled watching one of Sir David Attenborough’s excellent documentaries, in which the lion or lioness stalks a herd of antelope, and they will view the death that ensues without moral or ethical commentary. But should a human hunter kill an animal, any animal, he is instantly criticised, rebuked, abhorred.

More interesting still is what I've come to think of as the antis’ legal code. If a human hunter kills an animal – any animal – said animal is immediately declared ‘innocent’, which leads me to presume that if a lion kills an antelope, the creature must have been ‘guilty’, though of what I cannot imagine. Perhaps it’s a case of “wrong place, wrong time, serves yaself right ya stupid bastard”? That would certainly be a very Australian way of looking at it.

Perhaps in this there are lessons to be learned? Perhaps if, when trying society’s worst criminal offenders – rapists, paedophiles, murderers etc – the courts were to empanel 12 lions and lionesses good and true, we might finally see some hint of the ‘truth in sentencing’ we all crave.

The more I think about it, the more I am forced to conclude that it is not hunters or hunting that the antis truly abhor, but humanity itself. We may never know in what epoch some members of the human race first began to think themselves superior for their inability or unwillingness to engage in the eternal struggle, but it happened and I cannot say the race is the richer for the ignorance and intolerance the occasion has fostered.

I often wonder when the antis will turn on chimpanzees, for the humble chimp breaks all the anti-rules. He is clever, he is mammalian, he acts very much like a human and he uses tools to hunt other mammalian species. Oh yes, he does! 

Chimpanzees have recently been filmed fashioning spears, which they use to stab those dear little bushbabies with the super-cute big eyes, when they retreat into tree hollows. They have even been filmed using clubs to kill piglets. It’s clear the chimps don’t have to kill...I mean, there’s loads of fruit and bugs in the jungle isn’t there? And the bushbabies and little piggies clearly don’t want to be speared and/or clubbed, or they’d not run away.

And a chimp against a bushbaby, I mean....surely that’s the equivalent of a super-heavyweight going up against a chronic asthmatic grandmother who’s trying to flee the scene while burdened with heavy shopping? Hell, chimpanzees even smile with the apparent joy of successfully providing for the family. Shame on them for there reverse-anthropomorphism!

But I’m betting the chimps will be safe from anti-hunter victimisation for as long as they don’t figure out that chucking the spear will give them an even greater advantage over their quarry.  Or maybe they’ll continue to be immune from ant-hunter contempt even then, because they are not people, and it is people; people who do not agree with them, not hunters that the antis really hate.

Anyway, I’ll get outaya way now....

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HUNTFEST, GREEN BIGOTRY AND LITTLE SISTERS OF THE INACCURATE DECEPTION

Once upon a time, in a more tolerant universe that now seems so very far away, if an individual didn’t approve of an event, a culture or a business, the way to demonstrate that disapproval was to deny it one’s support and patronage. For instance, if one didn’t like the Catholic faith, one went C-of-E. If one didn’t like Folk or Jazz, one avoided Folk and Jazz festivals, and of course if one objected to gratuitous sex and violence, one avoided watching Parliament Question Time on the tele.

What one certainly did not do was seek to stop the event or practice altogether simply because it offended the individual’s sensibilities in some way. To do so would have been considered profoundly un-Australian. In fact, I think it still is.

Enter The Greens, and suddenly selective tolerance and an ‘ends justifies means’ philosophy sprinkled liberally with subterfuge, bigotry and hate-speech, becomes the new community standard. This is not my opinion; it is simple fact, and fact that is borne out in The Greens’ own propaganda. 

Nowhere is this fact so clearly demonstrated than in The Greens’ views on hunting and firearms ownership.

There are seemingly endless examples of Greens’ statements referring to a “guns culture” or a “hunting culture”, so it is clear by the evidence of their own mouths that they recognise both as cultural pursuits, and having done so they wilfully encourage the community to be utterly intolerant of those cultures.

They claim their justification in statistics drawn from overseas, and based upon the occasional deplorable incident on our own shores, but their true motivation is simply cultural intolerance and paranoia – in short, ol’ fashioned, uncomplicated bigotry.

Were one to suggest that the culture of Islam is unwholesome and dangerous based on the activities of suicide-bombing, acid-tossing, female-oppressing zealots overseas, there would be a hue and cry from The Greens, deploring such suggestions as irrational and xenophobic.  Yet they openly and proudly condemn hunters and vilify them for their cultural pursuits, which are not to Green tastes.

If anyone doubts their campaigns against hunters are racially targeted, for proof one need look no further than The Greens’ relative silence on matters pertaining to Australian Aboriginal hunting.

The Greens’ make no bones about their opposition to the activities and culture of Australia’s white Anglo-Saxon/European (WASE) hunters, claiming they’re cruel, irresponsible, a threat to delicate ecosystems and the sustainability of vulnerable native species, despite the fact that WASE hunters are restricted to hunting non-indigenous (‘feral’) species alone.  However, Aboriginal traditional hunters harvest native species and often with technologies that offer nothing like the accuracy and the swift death promised by even the most basic modern recurve or compound bow, let alone the rifles of today.

Yet The Greens are absolutely mute on the issue of Aboriginal hunting practice, and nothing short of gushing in their praise of efforts to preserve Aboriginal culture in all its diverse and wondrous complexity.

The image of an Aboriginal Elder teaching a child how to fashion and wield a spear or a boomerang is something to be celebrated as an example of a cultural practice preserved. The image of a WASE Elder (grandpa or an uncle perhaps) showing a child how to use a bow or a gun is viewed as an image of manifest irresponsibility; an effort to brainwash children into a culture of violence and cruelty with all manner of negative ramifications that should be of deep concern to the public.

Should Aboriginal Australians hold a festival celebrating their hunting culture, it is seen as something wholesome and cause for celebration. In fact Greens will come from far and wide for the opportunity to immerse themselves in a “highly spiritual cultural experience”.  They will enthusiastically acknowledge the significance of hunting traditions and applaud their preservation as integral aspects of Aboriginal culture.

Should a white Anglo-Saxon/European hunter be photographed with evidence of the success of his/her hunt, the image is repudiated and the hunter reviled as a heartless, violent, sick and in all ways morally corrupt “murderer of innocent animals.”

And the list of racially bias and culturally bigoted hypocrisies goes on.

Of course The Greens have their “anti-hunter” minions, upon whom they rely to make the outrageous statements and conduct the vile and unethical campaigns that the public simply wouldn’t tolerate if they came directly from political representatives. The Greens turn a blind eye to even the most offensive and patently illegal activities of their minions, until challenged to denounce them, at which point they may claim that they had no direct involvement in the activity, and, at a push, perhaps they will even mildly criticise those responsible. But seldom do they denounce actions that deliver on Green objectives.

It’s a real piece of work, is your hard-core anti-hunter. Utterly bereft of ethics, conscience and self-restraint, let alone commonsense, they form The Greens’ front-line national guerrilla network. They come from all walks of life – doctors, public servants, full-time rent-a-crowd activists, schoolteachers, hairdressers; even nuns – and they all claim to be peace-loving nurturing non-violent souls who aspire to build a safer more loving world for us all.  But when it comes to demonstrating tolerance for a culture they cannot empathise with, they demonstrate time and again that they have no ethics and within their breasts beat hearts that are colder than an Alaskan well-digger’s arse.

There is no tactic so low that the anti-hunter will not stoop to plumb its depths, and no threat too evil. Threats of extreme violence against hunters and their families for “murdering innocent animals” are often grotesquely imaginative and unimaginably perverse. For instance, who could forget Emma Garcia's heartfelt wish for a hunter on facebook:

"I hope they get your children, Corey. I hope they get them in the most physically agonizing and psychologically excruciating scenario imaginable. And I hope there's a picture we can share. I mean it and pray for it. I look at that picture of him with that dead, mutilated [insert species here] slaughtered in its prime and I think how better the world would be if the offspring of this monster who share his values would be photographed with rusty saws inserted into their external sphincters as they were beaten to death. If you share his values and have children (I'll be looking so adjust your settings) I hope they meet the same fate.”

Corey’s crime? Well, he shot one of the world’s charismatic species. He shot it legally and humanely, and regardless of one’s personal philosophy with regard to trophy hunting, I ask you....rusty saws for his children, is that an appropriate response, ever?  It is certainly not a rare one!

Every hour of every day, Australian hunters are subjected to unparalleled hate messages and violent threats, both in person and via social media, all from defenders of animal ’innocence’ and people concerned for the existence of guns in the community.

But violence is not their only weapon, nor threats their only language. Public misinformation campaigns, fear-mongering, standover tactics and even forgery are all routinely employed as the weapons of green minions and anti-hunters.  Take the continuing saga of Narooma’s HuntFest for example.

For those readers unfamiliar with the name, HuntFest is a hunting expo held in the NSW south-coast township of Narooma, on the June long weekend. It’s a very new event; in fact this year will be only its second, but the organisers, a small local hunting club, hope that it will someday grow to rival Bendigo’s very successful, annual Wild Deer and Guiding Expo.

Narooma itself is a very beautiful town that was once a recreational fishing Mecca. Caravan parks and hotels were always filled to capacity during the Christmas/New Year period, and the local economy did OK out of seasonal game fishing events and a fairly consistent flow of recreational fishers throughout the off-season too. Then came The Greens, who pushed for the area to be declared a marine park. They were successful, and according to the locals the town’s economy has suffered ever since.

Hotels and businesses are struggling, many shops lay vacant and the economic future for Narooma is a little uncertain. The local Greens and anti-hunters claim the way forward to a future of prosperity for all, lies in the development of ecotourism, based on the re-badging of the area now referred to as “The Nature Coast”. Nothing may be allowed to get in the way of this dream!

If you are a resident and your culture, ideals and philosophies are not commensurate with those of the local Greens and antis, you will be persecuted, your culture roundly criticised and condemned, your initiatives and festivals will be objected to at every step, sabotaged, misrepresented and lied about relentlessly. If you are a hunter or a shooter, you will be called thill-killer, redneck, weekend cowboy, weekend warrior, cruel, heartless, sick, a disgrace etc. You will be accused of putting the community at risk, attempting to normalise a US-style guns culture, trying to brainwash local youth into that same culture, and, in general, the Greens will represent you as a threat to the very fabric of society, harbouring antisocial behaviour, death and mayhem as your ultimate goals.

The Greens may even open a facebook cause page in opposition to your initiative, and if you are really ‘lucky’ you might find your photograph posted on the site to serve as the focal-point of their hatred, below which the antis will post comments making puerile comparisons between gun and penis size, or they may even suggesting that you, “look like the sort of man people should keep small children away from”.

This is what happened to Mr Dan Field, Narooma resident of many years, contributor to the fabric of his community, hunter and one of the organisers of HuntFest.

When Mr Field’s teenage daughters stumbled upon the facebook site vilifying their father for his culture, they pleaded with the administrators to remove the offensive comments, and demanded that the vilification cease.  The response was so very heart-warming. 

A local Greens councillor responded expressing regret that the young women had been offended by the comments made about their father on what the Councillor very tellingly referred to as “our site”, but regretfully informed the teenagers that their father was a public figure and so subject to public criticism. Not until a concerted effort by outraged hunters brought pressure to bear, along with the threat of exposure, was anything done to address the young women’s concerns.

The facebook cause page was pulled down completely, though, I might add, not before a certain outraged hunter (hello!) saved the whole offensive shebang as a stand-alone .HTML file, a copy of which is awaiting the scrutiny of a firm of very competent forensic investigators in order to ascertain if it was, as suspected, a cause page hung off the Eurobodalla Greens’ official facebook presence. Stay tuned!

The inaugural HuntFest was held in 2013 and it was a modest, but encouraging success. Not a single bushwalker was gunned down, the streets failed to run red with blood, mass graves filled with slaughtered native animals failed to materialise in the bush as predicted, milk didn’t curdle, the anti-Christ was not born of the Jackal, the sky didn’t fall and the sun done rose again over Narooma the day after HuntFest 2013.

Not to be out manoeuvred by unaccommodating Fates, the anti-HuntFest offensive is on again in 2014 and already it has exceeded all previously set low standards.

Last night I received an email forward from and anti-HuntFest campaigner.  The email purports to be the work of a local Franciscan nun with form as an anti-Huntfest campaigner, among other things.  Yes, I kid you not, a nun! The email begs people to hearken to the concerns expressed by the good Sister, and pleads with people to sign her anti-HuntFest petition. Further, the email entreats people to pass the word thither and yon, because the Sister’s petition hasn’t found quite the support in the local community it was hoped it would. And boy oh boy, haven’t some run with the ball!  The forward email trail reveals that it has been sent to politicians (local, state and federal) and the entire membership of the National Trust for some bizarre reason, amongst other destinations.

But the plot thickens, because you see the email forwarded on the good Sister’s behalf also carries an attachment purporting to be an example of HuntFest promotional material, which is, in fact, a forgery and a fraud! Oh it carries the HuntFest logo alright, and the South Coast Hunters Club logo too, but they’ve been appropriated from the net, as have the photos of gun-toting kiddies that also adorn the pamphlet without parental consent. And of course the accompanying text has been contrived specifically to misrepresent, mislead and generally infuriate the reader and prejudice his/her views toward HuntFest.  Deary me, a nun?  I may never look at Julie Andrews in quite the same light ever again. Perhaps I have been naive all these years, thinking that Maria risked her life and virtue for love of Austria and the Captain. Perhaps she was a Nazi sympathiser all along, leading those dear little Von Trapp kiddies to their doom trekking aimlessly through the freezing Alps yodelling: edelweiss, edelweiss, every morning you..... 

Fraudulent flyer distributed to damage HuntFest

But seriously, where do these people get off fraudulently misrepresenting HuntFest in order to manipulate opinion and thereby control what may and may not be celebrated as culture?  Is there nothing to which they will not stoop; no depths of unethical conduct too great to plumb?

Bendigo’s Wild Deer and Guiding Expo has been a boon to its community. Last weekend more than 6,000 visitors passed through the gates on day one of the event, and over the whole weekend organisers were hoping to better last year’s figures, when more than 15,000 people attended the Show. Add to that the partners and children who came along for the trip but didn’t attend the event, and we’re talking a lucrative draw-card for the Bendigo community. In fact a quick cruise ‘round the online fora reveals that many didn’t sally forth to Bendigo last weekend, simply because local accommodation was maxed-out. Yet there will be no reported increased in gun violence, no wholesale slaughter of man nor beast; just a culture celebrated and a substantial boost for the local economy rendered as a public service.

Even temps in the 40s failed to deter people from lining to enter
Bendigo's Wild Deer and Guiding Expo

 One cannot help but wonder what will be the consequences of bigoted anti-HuntFest lobbyists denying Narooma the benefits of a similar boost to the off-season economy? Well, let’s look at that...

The Greens and antis claim that guns and the hunting culture pose a threat to the community and imperil the welfare of local youth. Well NEWSFLASH - so does economic hardship!

Suicide rates are at crisis point in the bush, and two of the main drivers of the epidemic are debt and economic uncertainty. When businesses struggle, families suffer, relationships break down and the emotional needs of children are neglected as parents work obscene hours in an effort to keep the family business afloat. Men in particular are given to taking their own lives under the burden of responsibility and due to the feelings of failure they harbour, leaving their partners and children to deal with their loss as well as the loss of the family business and the family home. And of course there’s the knock-on effect.

Each business that fails will have had a staff that now shares in the boss’s misfortune. They also have homes and mortgages, families and financial obligations they can no-longer meet. Unemployment is a strain that will test any relationship and impact negatively on the children of that relationship. When parents are stressed and pushed for time, kids go off the rails. They leave school and in their impotence they may turn to drugs and alcohol as an escape. Youth are by no means strangers to the despair that leads to suicide either. This is something we know only too well on the far south coast!

So tell me Greens, anti-hunters and nuns...how much responsibility will you shoulder for the senseless social carnage your bigoted opposition to HuntFest may bring about? What level of community contempt are you willing to suffer in humble silence because you opposed an initiative that had the potential to relieve the economic burden on the families of Narooma, simply because you are culturally intolerant? 

You have put no plan on the table outlining an alternative to HuntFest with the same economic potential. Will you open your wallets to help these struggling families with the same remorseless vigour that you applied to opening your mouths in opposition to people who are trying to establish a festival to help ease the economic destruction that your Marine Park wrought on a community dependent upon the recreational fishing industry?

To use an overworked catchcry, “exactly how many lives will it take” before you accept that your preferences are not all important, and that your bigotry may in fact cost lives?

I don’t live in Narooma, but if I did, I might be inclined toward a little social activism of my own. I might visit the homes of the local Greens and Antis, and for every suicide or drug overdose that can be associated directly or indirectly with economic distress, I might tie a little posy of flowers to their letterboxes in peaceful recognition of the lives Green and anti-hunter cultural intolerance have destroyed.

Anyway, I’ll get outaya way now...

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