We advocate on all animal protection and exploitation issues, including experimentation, factory farming, rodeos, breeders and traveling animal acts.
FROM
HSUS.org
May 12, 2018
WATCH VIDEO HERE.
On a freezing, rainy Sunday night, cold beer flows freely at the weigh-in
and judging phase of the Parlin Buck Club’s fourth Annual 24-Hour Predator
Killing Contest in Barnegat, New Jersey. An undercover investigator for the
Humane Society of the United States films a group of men laughing and posing
in front of about 15 dead foxes hanging by their feet from a rack. Several
weeks earlier and a few hundred miles away, our investigator filmed
participants in the Bark at the Moon Coyote Club’s New York State Predator
Hunt in Macedon near Lake Ontario, as they placed the animals they’d killed
in rows outside a restaurant. About 200 animals were piled up to be counted,
weighed and displayed.
These scenes of casual indifference to the suffering and death of animals
are captured in our undercover investigation video of wildlife killing
contests in New York state and New Jersey. The investigation was carried out
in early 2018
We’ve discussed these grisly spectacles before, where participants compete to win prizes for gathering the most animal carcasses; sadly, they happen more often than you might imagine. Our investigators’ video gives you a chance to witness for yourself what goes on at these depraved and cruel events.
The most common victims of these killing contests are native carnivores
like coyotes, foxes and bobcats, but other species in the crosshairs include
crows, wild pigs, squirrels, rattlesnakes, raccoons, rabbits, porcupines,
badgers, skunks and even mountain lions and wolves. Countless dependent
young may be orphaned during these events, left to die from starvation,
predation or exposure.
While some contest organizers say the events provide a service to hunters by
removing animal species that also eat deer or turkeys, there is no science
to support that claim. On the contrary, it is their victims, the native
carnivores they kill, who provide vital ecological services. They do so by
controlling populations of other species, benefiting crop and timber growth
and supporting biodiversity.
We’re making progress in our fight to stop these horrible events. In 2014,
California banned contests in which cash or prizes valued at $500 or more
are offered. Colorado now limits the number of animals that can be killed by
wildlife killing contest participants. In 2017, Maryland placed a moratorium
on cownose ray killing contests in the Chesapeake Bay. In New York, Assembly
member Deborah Glick, D-Manhattan, and Senator Phil Boyle, R-Bay Shore, have
introduced legislation that would end this senseless practice. In coming
months, more states will put forward proposals that seek to prohibit these
killing contests, and we’ll be backing them.
Last fall, we launched our toolkit, “Wildlife Killing Contests: A Guide to
Ending the Blood Sport in Your Community,” which has become a valuable
resource for wildlife advocates, organizations and even city governments. We
have also joined with Project Coyote and 19 other like-minded local, state
and national organizations to form the National Coalition to End Wildlife
Killing Contests, to increase public education and to encourage policy
change at the local and state levels.
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WESTCHESTER4GEESE is an adjunct of ANIMAL DEFENDERS OF WESTCHESTER. We advocate against all forms of animal abuse and exploitation, including hunting, experimentation, fur, circuses and rodeos - https://www.facebook.com/Westchester4Geese