A QUESTION OF GREENS' HYPOCRISY AND DECEPTION

So, The Greens have joined forces with the National Parks Association to support SAFE's little putsch against HuntFest.

For those of you newly returned from a long vacation under a rock, SAFE stands for Stop Arms Fairs in Eurobodalla.

Members of the deceptive 'SAFE' movement

The Greens have initiated a statewide photographic competition, which the party claims is in opposition to "the pro-gun, pro-killing HuntFest". But hold the phone!

I wrote to The Greens some time ago, expressing concern with regard to the party's position on hunting. Their guns/hunting spokesperson, David Shoebridge, wrote back and his response contains much that appears to be untrue. In particular, the following:

"The Greens NSW recognise the damage feral animals can do to our native wildlife and environment, and support efforts to control their population that are effective and humane. There are many hunters, like you, who are respectful of the life they take and responsible in the actions they engage in to protect private land."

And...

"While there are people like you who are committed conservationists, and hunt for this purpose, the establishment of the Game Council and the relaxing of firearms laws in NSW has made it easier for irresponsible individuals to engage in cruel and unauthorised hunting in the name of conservation."

So, The Greens are happy to acknowledge that there are responsible hunters, like me, who are committed conservationists, who do the right thing humanely and respectfully. The Greens also admit that this hunting can be attributed to committed conservationists, and it seems The Greens even support the ‘control’ (killing) of destructive feral animals. They also say their concerns revolve around hunters who do the wrong thing and the existence of the pro-gun Game Council.

My question to all my Greens affiliated buddies out there is simple: with the Game Council long gone (mission accomplished) and given that your party’s spokesperson admits that there are hunters, like me, who do the right thing, why do you sit in silence while your party attempts to destroy HuntFest?

Why is it that you are happy for your party to paint all hunters as evil purveyors of irresponsible death and carnage, and a threat to the community in order to destroy HuntFest, when your party has absolutely no evidence whatsoever to conclude that the vast majority of people who attend the event won’t be responsible hunters just like me?

Why are you silent while your party tars all hunters with the same dark brush?

I don’t hate greenies. In fact, I describe myself as a greenie; something, incidentally, I have in common with a great many hunters. But I do wonder why so many of my Greens affiliated pals are happy to have their party lie to and mislead the public about me and my hunting pals and culture, while showing the likes of Tony Abbott absolutely no mercy whatsoever when it appears he’s misleading the community.

No, I don’t even hate The Greens. But I do hate their opportunistic double standards, their deceptions and the fact that they will back a bigoted community movement that is willing to tar me and thousands like me with the most appallingly disparaging epithets, simply because we would like to enjoy a hunting and outdoors expo in Narooma.

So go for it, tell me why it’s different for your party to, on the one hand, acknowledge that there are responsible hunters like me, while on the other, claiming that the presence of HuntFest can only bring doom and tribulation to an entire community?

Is that not just as bigoted and socially irresponsible as supporting a group that stands against the building of a Mosque in Narooma, on the grounds that all Muslims are oppressors of women and suicide bombers? 

Finally, why are you happy for your party to support an initiative that has admitted, in writing, that it will not restrict itself to facts?  Way down at the bottom of the SAFE site's home page (here) the following rider appears in tiny ant-esque print:

"It is hard to know what is 'absolute truth'. For this reason, we quote our sources."  Talk about things that make ya go hmm.

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

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OF VEGETARIAN POLITICS AND DECEPTION

The Master Chef of vegetarian politics is at it again, this time admitting the cynical nature of his activities upfront.

The website of Greens’ firearms spokesperson David Shoebridge advises that the ‘Animals in the Wild’ photographic competition has been launched as, “part of the Greens’ campaign against recreational hunting, and in particular, the photographic hunting competition run by Narooma’s pro-gun and pro-killing “Huntfest”.

The message is very clear; the Greens are not pro-gun or pro-killing. My question is simple, is this proposition a brazen lie, or a subtle manipulation of the truth aimed at deceiving the residents of NSW?

The Greens claim to be pro-environmental protection, and if that is so, they must accept that the Australian bush is seething with feral species that are causing great harm to the environment, devastating native species many of them rare and endangered.

So if The Greens are not pro-killing, I challenge David Shoebridge to divulge the details of his plan to domesticate or re-home:

• 7.2 million red foxes,
• 200 million rabbits,
• 150,000 water buffalo,
• 2.6 million wild goats, and
• 23.5 million pigs. 

We can catch up about his plans to not-kill 200 million cane toads, 300,000-plus camels, 300,000 brumbies and 5 million donkeys at another time.

Of course The Greens have no plans to re-home these creatures. Oh yes, they denounce the "pro-killing HuntFest" and they willingly mislead people by playing the emotive “they kill things” card at every opportunity, but in fact The Greens own policy position on feral animals includes the use of professional “killers” and poisons such as 1080, which has been denounced as cruel by every animal welfare agency in Christendom.

The garnish on this Master Chef’s tabouli of deception is the use of native Australian animals on the competition’s promotional material. The inference is clear, don’t let the big bad hunters slaughter kangaroos, koalas and kookaburras, all strategically chosen for their Aussie icon status to adorn their deceptive propaganda.

It is illegal to hunt such animals in NSW, as every hunter knows. Poachers, on the other hand, will do what they will, just as they have done through the centuries. If The Greens ever decided to work cooperatively and respectfully with law abiding hunters to stamp out this limited yet deplorable activity, they’d find us willing partners in possession of very useful expertise. Alas, The Greens’ fanatical bigotry makes this impossible.

The Greens are definitely anti-gun, but they are very much pro-killing, despite their efforts to deceive you into believing otherwise. Like the Borgias they favour poisons, which are notoriously difficult to target at a specific species, are by no means painless and always wasteful because the otherwise free-range organic meat cannot be consumed....except perhaps by carrion eaters, many of which are natives themselves, and so the gift just keeps on a-givin'.

The Greens also favour the use of professional hunters whose activities, despite their accreditation, render their victims no less dead than an amateur hunter’s gun or bow.

But there is an enormous elephant in the room of Greens’ deceit; something they are more than happy to be very vague about. 

They vocally condemn Australia’s white Anglo-Saxon hunting traditions, but they are silent on the matter of Aboriginal traditional hunting, which includes the harvest of native species. Is the abolition of Aboriginal hunting practices next on the Greens’ agenda, or does their cultural bigotry extend only to white folks?

Aboriginal Australia has long been a key supporter of The Greens. Perhaps it is time to seek assurances that your traditional hunting practices and your rights are not also on The Greens' chopping-block. 

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

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HUNTERS BLAMED, YET AGAIN

I received a call early this fine morn (Tuesday, March 4th, 2014), from my local ABC studios (ABC South East NSW), requesting comment on an incident involving a macropod (an Eastern Grey kangaroo) reported to be hopping around in distress, an arrow still lodged through its leg. The incident took place at or near Mogo (Batemans Bay area) on the NSW south coast. 

Arrow-shot macropod - Mogo NSW
(photo: WIRES)

I was given 5 minutes to prepare to respond to an interview with Mr Justin McKee (WIRES et al), and despite the short notice and the fact that I’d not seen any information about the incident, I agreed to respond rather than allow Mr McKee's rampantly bias non-sequiturs to occupy the airwaves unchallenged.

I was able to peruse the WIRES (Mr McKee’s) media release and accompanying photos that had got the ABC’s dander up, only as the interview went to air, so prep time was zero and I was forced to analyse a pittance of available information as I responded. Not an excuse, people, just a fact. 

I must say it was clear from the outset that the ABC’s presenter had made-up his mind that nasty hunters in state forests were the culprits. His line of questioning and his attitude toward Mr McKee, as opposed to his approach to me, was, in my view, indicative of an ambush and no matter how valid there is little one can do to make one’s points when the kill-switch is on a desk at the other end of the phone line. 

But I had a crack at making one or two points nonetheless, specifically that it is grossly irresponsible for anyone, be he a wildlife rescuer or an ABC radio presenter, to make assertions and accusations without a single shred of supporting evidence. 

Arrow clearly an off-the-shelf target arrow. Note penetration wound also suggests target arrow
(photo: WIRES)

I think it's fair to say that the ABC didn't appreciate me making that point, and honestly, when all's said and done, how well I got the point across is, well......? 

The interview can be found below, and I must say that the way the ABC has chosen to trivialise the event with their "...or just a naughty boy" title of the segment is yet more evidence that the ABC will, if given the opportunity, do anything it can to misrepresent responsible hunters.

At no time did I suggest that I believed the crime or the plight of the kangaroo should be downplayed or trivialised as the tenor of this 'headline' clearly suggests. The event should not have taken place, period, but the fact that it did is evidence only of the need for education. That is the solution, not the ABC's or WIRES' brand of vilification based on fantastical scenarios produced by vivid, if clearly limited imaginations. 

Zero points for ethics and professionalism in the instance, Aunty...perhaps even minus a point or two? As for MrMcKee's performance, well, it's hard to be disappointed with a self-serving and entirely predictable inevitability. You be the judge.

In closing I can only reiterate that I am very glad that neither Mr McKee nor Aunty ABC are charged with the weighty responsibility of jury selection, given that the presumption of innocence preceding proof of guilt is anathema to them both. 

You can listen to the interview here.

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

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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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