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New Jersey bear hunt

Published in the Courier News on March 13, 2004

After appeasing hunters and developers with last year's slaughter, Department

of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bradley Campbell now realizes

what a public relations debacle it was.

Gov. James E. McGreevey naively assumed the public would quickly forget.

To his dismay, far more New Jersey citizens expressed their outrage on this

issue than on any other.

Taking responsibility for one's mistakes is not taught in Political Ambition 101.

Though Campbell now admits the bear population numbers are less than half of

those used to justify the hunt, he still dishonorably claims that the hunt was

appropriate. He is furiously backpedaling over the lies, while trying not to make

enemies of former co-conspirators.

Campbell's letter to the Fish and Game Council stated that, while he cannot support

a bear hunt this year, he acknowledges that there is still a "huntable" population --

a population that can be hunted without endangering the viability or long-term

population of bears in New Jersey."

Animals are huntable when there are enough of them to recreationally slaughter

without threatening the future population and, therefore, future killing fun.

He assured the Farm Bureau (three farmers are on the council) that he would

allow them much greater flexibility to destroy nuisance bears.

Despite the governor's opposition to another hunt, and Campbell's sucking up

to the Fish and Game Council, the council ignored them (and the public) and

voted 8-3 in favor of another bloodbath.

Your pro-hunt editorial states that Campbell's decision against a hunt is "far

too influenced by politics." If politics could be abused last year to kill bears,

I welcomed its use, this year, to spare them.

Experts in the field had criticized last year's inaccurate, misleading population

estimates, but the documentation was ignored, as the agenda was to have a bear

hunt, no matter the lack of evidence to support it.

Campbell tried to assure the council that not killing bears this year would publicly

"build support for New Jersey's hunting traditions." That is the only reason their

jobs exist.

It is time for New Jersey citizens to demand a permanent ban on bear hunting and

the dismantling of the council. It should be replaced by an entity that, instead of

being tied at the hip to hunters and the weapons industry, will protect wildlife

and represent the more than 98 percent of us who do not.

Susan Gordon

North Plainfield NJ

Letter to Syracuse Post Standard (not published)

Raise your hands if you would accept the results of a study about public attitudes

toward child abuse, conducted by pederasts. No hands? How about a study about

public attitudes toward hunting, conducted by hunters? The latter is what we have

with the study lauded in Michael Kelly's 2/22 outdoors column, Study finds youths in

hunt.

The study, "Factors Related to Hunting and Fishing Participation Among the

Nation's Youth," conducted by the business, Responsive Management, does not

"find" what it purports to find; it manipulates or invents it.

Responsive Management, which is responsive only to consumptive users of

animals, is an opinion MANAGEMENT business, not an opinion RESEARCH

business. They are hired by such organizations as the National Shooting Sports

Foundation, Safari Club International, and various hunting oriented state game

agencies (whose salaries are dependent upon the sale of hunting licenses).

It proudly states, on its web site, that its clients include most sportsmen's

organizations. Their self-description, "The premiere survey research firm

on natural resource and outdoor recreation issues," is superimposed

over a photo of a hunter.

What do they do for these pro-hunting/trapping/fishing agencies and

organizations? They provide marketing and business plans, policy analyses,

and public relations plans, aimed at changing public attitude toward these

forms of animal killing - or they just skew the polling questions in such a

way that it appears that the public accepts the killing.

Executive director, Mark Damian Duda, writes "outdoor" (i.e. hunting)
columns and has received numerous awards from pro-hunting organizations

and agencies. Other staff members are likewise participants in animal killing.

Responsive Management's appeal to clients notes that, "outdoor recreational
opportunities ultimately depend upon the positive opinions and attitudes of
Americans.They key to instilling this commitment is through effectively
designed public relations campaigns.Public relations is the most effective
way to form a favorable opinion. It is clear that public relations efforts
must target specific groups with specific messages." They advise on "the
types of messages that will and will not resonate with the public."

RM will "focus an organization on where it wants to be and what
communication strategies can help get it there." Its policy analysis first
step, "initiation," begins when a potential problem is identified. It is
clear what this "problem" is - a decline in hunting in the past 2 decades.
It acknowledges that rarely does someone become a hunter without "hunting
initiation," before the age of 20, by a father or father figure, or by
exposure to hunting. The solution is to indoctrinate children into hunting.

RM would have us believe that "Ninety-one percent of American youths think
it is OK for boys to hunt" and that "34 percent had shot a gun within the
past year," when their web site's inflated hunting figures state that only
7% of Americans hunt each year. Who did RM poll, the children of the
mutants from "Deliverance."?

RM's agenda is most evident in their comments on public opinion on trapping.
They blame the public revulsion at this depraved activity, not on its
inherent cruelty, but on lack of public understanding. RM is clearly not
neutral on the topic: "Regulated trapping is an important way for biologists
to collect information about wildlife.Research shows that even endangered
species can benefit from trapping." They warn trappers that trappers must
recognize that the public cares deeply about wildlife and does not take
lightly the killing of wildlife, but that these unfortunate ethical quirks
on the part of the sentimental public are explainable because "the public is
highly uninformed about trapping."

RM's focus is "allaying the fears of Americans toward the perceived harm
caused by trapping." RM, at no point, acknowledges the real, not
"perceived," harm caused to animals caught in these sadistic devices. RN
assures their clients that trapping, itself, is not the problem; the words
used to describe it to the public are what counts. The proof that the public
is so uninformed is that photos of actual animals, writhing in pain, in
traps, actually upsets them! Causing suffering is not the issue; activists
exposing the suffering and the public reacting to it in an emotionally
appropriate way, are. Trappers cannot deny the reality - the cruelty - so
they are advised to pretend that they have "scientific methods" and
"credibility through reason" on their side, to bamboozle the public into
accepting it.

The obfuscation of those who derive perverse pleasure and profit from
killing animals is transparent to those of us who view animals, themselves,
as nature's ends, not means to rapacious human ends.

Go to www.all-creatures.org/cash to learn why the vast majority of Americans of all ages oppose hunting.

Susan Gordon, Representative
The Committee to Abolish Sport Hunting
Box 562
New Paltz, NY 12561
(908) 756-8709

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