March 29, 2000                                                                                     home
PENNSYLVANIA CONSIDERING BOB CAT SEASON
The Pennsylvania Game Commission has made a proposal to allow hunters to kill bobcats in the state of Pennsylvania. The six-member commission will be voting Tuesday in Harrisburg on whether or not to allow this.  It is in response to requests from hunters and trappers to have an "opportunity to bag a bobcat," according to an article in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

There are currently only about 3,000 to 6,000 bobcats in the state of
Pennsylvania. As far as we know, these animals have not been a problem for anyone. They are not edible. This is simply to give hunters the
pleasure of killing one. The commission will be voting on whether or
not to allow hunting and trapping. A spokesman for the Game Commission was quoted as saying that the commission would likely approve the kill.

Since bobcats weigh only 15 to 30 pounds and traps would be baited with meat that would likely attract any kind of cat, there is a possibility
that blood-thirsty hunters will be killing domestic and feral cats, too.

The e-mail address for the game commissioner is
comments@pgc.state.pa.us.
Please flood them with protest letters, and pass this on to anyone you
know who cares about cats. If we can't stop it, the hunt, which will be
approved for mid-October to February 2001, will be a very sad time here
in this state.

Thank you very much.
In Defense of Animals

March 28, 2000
STATE FISH AND GAME DEPARTMENTS NOW COURTING WOMEN AS WELL AS CHILDREN TO BECOME HUNTERS
With the number of hunters slowly but steadily declining, the state fish and game folks have reason to be concerned about the corresponding decline in the sale of hunting licenses.  Practices may vary from state to state, but in some states wildlife programs and the salaries of wildlife officials are paid for by the revenue from the sale of hunting licenses.  Thus, the officials have a personal interest in developing strategies to promote the sale of hunting licenses.

Hunters are aging along with the rest of the population and sitting in a tree all day in freezing rain becomes less enjoyable as maturity sets in.  Also, an odd phenomenon kicks in: As  the prospect of their own mortality draws closer, many hunters take less pleasure in ending the lives of other creatures and walk around with an unloaded gun to look the part or forsake hunting altogether.  Up until recently retirees were replaced by new recruits but now the drop-out rate increasingly exceeds recruitment.  Typically boys whose fathers hunted became hunters too, but young people are not taking up hunting at the same rate they used to. This is partly due to the appeal of other activities and  partly because more young people have a genuine concern for the interests of individual animals that leads them to question authority.

As the number of hunters began to dwindle, it became necessary to broaden the recruitment base.  This happened at a time when many women were obsessed with asserting their right to be equal to men.  Special hunter instruction camps manned by personable fish and wildlife professionals lured them to take up arms and assume their role in the false science of game management.  It probably didn't occur to them that they were abandoning nurturing feminine characteristics to adopt the more primitive characteristics of early man who had to kill for survival and got a thrill from exercising his skill to kill.

Hunter education camps and courses are also conducted for children, who are even more easily indoctrinated.  Some states offer special youth hunting opportunities and "Take a kid hunting" campaigns.  Girls are increasingly encouraged to participate.  "Get 'em while they're young" and there's a good chance of hooking them for life.

The programs are made possible by the general public acceptance of the doctrine of "scientific game management" advanced by training colleges run by folks bent preserving the hunting tradition whether or not they believe in the "game management" doctrine as individuals.


March 3, 2000                 
DEER HUNTING LEGISLATION WILL ONLY HURT FARMERS

Activist Seeking Position on the NJ Fish and Game Council will
testify against Assembly bill A2129 - Monday, March 3, at 10:00 am

This Monday morning, a bill will be introduced into the NJ State
Assembly Agriculture Committee that portends to help farmers
by enacting special deer hunting zones under the auspices of
the NJ Division of Fish, Game and Wildlife (Fish and Game) and
the NJ Fish and Game Council (Council).

The irony is that both Fish and Game and the Council are responsible
for the deer population and therefore crop damage in the first place.
At the beginning of this century there were few if any deer in our state.
Fish and Game, in their 1990 report An Assessment of Deer Hunting
in New Jersey, shows us clearly how our current state-wide situation
with deer began:

"Deer were re-established in New Jersey by sportsmen-conservation-ists for the purpose of sport hunting. Since that "restocking period" the responsible agency (now the Division of Fish, Game and Wildlife) has been managing the deer resource for this purpose." (pg.7)

When a large number of deer are removed from a herd through hunting,
competition for food, water, space and breeding opportunities is reduced. The herd reacts to the sudden kill with increased breeding, and, with plenty of food to go around, more females become pregnant and twin and triplet births often occur. This new, high birth rate not only replaces those that were killed, but it significantly adds to the size of the total population.

"Deer are a species that have been born and bred for the sole purpose of being killed for recreation," states Stuart Chaifetz, founder of Honor and Non-Violence for Animals. "Every deer you see is a survivor of this management, a refugee from the killing fields. We should be showing these animals compassion, and treat them honorably, not slaughter them by the tens of thousands."

In this century, Fish and Game has allowed the killing of more than 1,200,000 deer, 500,000 in the last decade alone, yet the population is larger than ever. If this is the end result of 100 years of deer management through hunting, then hunting is not effective in reducing deer populations.

In addition, Fish and Game has manipulated the land given to them under the Green Acres bond act to create more deer for hunting
purposes:                                                                                continued
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"Habitat development and maintenance to benefit deer are conducted
on 73 state owned Fish and Wildlife management areas totaling over