Saturday, February 18, 2006

Canned Hunts: Killing for Fun

















Ok, ok, so call me Buddhist, but "Go Fuck Yourself" Dick Cheney's armed and hammered quail kerfuffle that almost killed his hunting buddy brings Cheney's take on life way more clearly to mind. As a confirmed pro-torture-ist, Dick's stance on how actual life should be conducted is pretty sadistic. As a long-term devotee of canned hunting, his commitment to not taking life is pretty feeble, if not outright sadistic, too.

Cheney was doing a passel of canned hunting down Texas way over last weekend, when he shot a buddy after having a beer, and then, after he'd shot him, fixed himself a nice drink while buddy went to the hospital, Cheney had certainly killed before.

The tale of Cheney's "hunt" at Ligonier, Pa. a while back, here:

Statement by The HSUS in Response to V.P. Cheney's Shooting Spree at a PA Canned Hunting Facility

WASHINGTON--Monday's hunting trip to Pennsylvania by Vice President Dick Cheney in which he reportedly shot more than 70 stocked pheasants and an unknown number of mallard ducks at an exclusive private club places a spotlight on an increasingly popular and deplorable form of hunting, in which birds are pen-reared and released to be shot in large numbers by patrons. The ethics of these hunts are called into question by rank-and-file sportsmen, who hunt animals in their native habitat and do not shoot confined or pen-raised animals that cannot escape.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette [reported]that 500 farm-raised pheasants were released yesterday morning at the Rolling Rock Club in Ligonier Township for the benefit of Cheney’s 10-person hunting party. The group killed at least 417 of the birds, illustrating the unsporting nature of canned hunts. The party also shot an unknown number of captive mallards in the afternoon. . .

"This wasn’t a hunting ground. It was an open-air abattoir, and the vice president should be ashamed to have patronized this operation and then slaughtered so many animals," states Wayne Pacelle, a senior vice president of The Humane Society of the United States. "If the Vice President and his friends wanted to sharpen their shooting skills, they could have shot skeet or clay, not resorted to the slaughter of more than 400 creatures planted right in front of them as animated targets."

The Humane Society of the United States deplores the shooting of captive birds and animals where traditional “fair chase” hunting ethics are discarded and kills are guaranteed. . . For more information, visit The HSUS’ Web site – www.hsus.org.

Another article on sadistic, shooting-fish-in-a-barrel canned hunting:

In Their Own Words: How Canned Hunting Ranches Advertise the Means to a Kill

In their brochures and advertisements, operators of canned hunting facilities routinely flout the most basic principles of fair chase in hunting. Here's a sample of what they're saying, and how these operations brag about stacking the odds against captive animals:

"No kill no pay."
—Triple R Ranch

"...comfort of a large enclosed blind with sliding window overlooking heavily used corn feeders."
—Barnes-Keith Ranch

"...all weather blind overlooking feeding areas."
—Beaver Creek Ranch

"...hunts are from elevated box blinds overlooking food plots, senderos or feeders."
—Edmund Tom Ranch

"The animals are fed on a feed routing that runs daily."
—Gunn Ranch

"...we have the daytime cover and water...so they MUST come to us to hide and drink."
—Itchy Acres Ranch

"The preferred hunt will be from elevated blinds and enclosed tri-pods overlooking automatic feeders."
—Kinsel Cattle Company

"Our hunters have 90% to 100% success...we put 40 lbs of corn at each stand twice a week so the deer and hogs are used to coming to them. You may put out corn at the stand you are hunting...36 comfortable box stands."
—Lange Ranches in the Texas Hill Country

"Hunting is done from tower blinds overlooking feeders which have been operating continuously since August. Any predators seen may be taken as well."
—Mann Outfitting

"...hunting is usually done from double box blinds overlooking feeders...we're going to do everything legally possible to make your hunt a productive worthwhile experience!"
—Rojo Grande Ranch

"Each stand has mineral licks and timer controlled feeders."
—Solano Ranch


This isn't hunting, it's just killing.

If he likes killing, there's something wrong with him.



(Painting by Jose Picayo, "Dead Quail and Duck")

7 comments:

Neil Shakespeare said...

I have a brother (the evil one) who hunts in those all-weather (read 'heated') blinds with the sliding windows. They sit there and drink beer until the owner of the game farm brings a cage of birds and releases them and they open the sliding window and fire away. I asked him what sport there was in that and he shrugged and replied: "I just like to kill things." But they all get down on one knee and pray first. Not for the birds, but for a 'good hunt'.

No Blood for Hubris said...

Testing, testing.

No Blood for Hubris said...

neil--yikes. that's disturbing.

jen said...

thank you for this, noblood. i feel sick. you know you can hunt from home via the internet now, right?

my brother hunts but it is not canned. he smears deer urine on himself and then drinks himself silly. he used to never hit anything which was nice, but lately he has. then he tries to palm off deer meat to everyone. no thank you.

neil, i'm sorry about your brother.

Anonymous said...

This canned hunting thing has bothered me since I read about Cheney's hunting date with Scalia.

Cheney is a very bad man. Remember the Auschwitz memorial service, when he dressed like he was going out to shovel the driveway? At the time I wondered how an apparently intelligent man could make a mistake in protocol like that, and also, how a man with so many advisors around him (including a well-educated, worldly wife) could avoid someone button-holing him and saying, "Dude, the outfit is not okay".

But it's clearer now. Cheney doesn't care. He doesn't care so agressively that his aides are afraid to tell him anything he doesn't already know. Of course he went for a nice dinner while Whittington got emergency treatment. For Cheney, his own comfort is paramount. He believes in advancing his own interests, preserving himself, and keeping himself comfortable. Birds, people...they're all not-Dicks, and thus subordinate to his needs.

Now I want to remake Hitchcock's "The Birds". Oh, don't tell me the imagery doesn't resonate....

Larkspur

enigma4ever said...

Sorry Neil...and thanks for posting on this NB...wellwell deeply disturbing...not a sport at all is it?

No Blood for Hubris said...

Good points.

That Auschwitz thing deserves another look.