Vice President Dick Cheney went pheasant shooting recently
but unlike most of his fellow hunters across America, he didn't have to
spend hours or even days tramping the fields and hedgerows in hopes of
bagging a brace for the dinner table. Shortly before he and his hunting
party arrived at the Rolling Rock Club in Ligonier Township, gamekeepers
released 500 pen-raised pheasants and Cheney brought down more than 70
birds. During the morning shooting spree, his group killed 417 of the
exotic Asian ringnecks with their beautiful iridescent feathers and
20-inch tails. After lunch, they spent the afternoon shooting mallard
ducks, also produced as a crop to be "harvested" like so many live skeet.
Rolling Rock is an exclusive private club for the wealthy
with a world class golf course and a closed membership list. It is also a
"canned hunt" operation, a place where you can blast away to your heart's
content at confined birds and animals with kills guaranteed or your money
back.
As the fall hunting seasons draw to a close, many hunters
dedicated to traditional outdoor field craft and shooting skill will get
their deer, elk, pheasant or turkey. Some will go home empty handed.
Others will patronize canned hunts to kill half-tame, human-habituated
native game or exotic animals as they stroll up to a feeder. Like Vice
President Cheney, some will shoot farm-raised pheasants that are about as
wary as urban pigeons. It's essentially live target practice, as sporting
as shooting birds in Pittsburgh's National Aviary.
Outdoor writer Ted Williams estimates that some 500,000
individual patronize canned-hunts at the nation's more than 4,000 shooting
preserves. At many bird operations, flocks of pheasant, quail and other
feathered game are tossed from towers toward shotguns arrayed below, or
dizzied and disoriented before being placed in front of the hunters. Time
Magazine reports that perhaps 2,000 are game ranches stocked with both
exotic mammals and native wildlife. Some are surplus animals purchased
from zoos, circuses, roadside menageries, safari parks, and wildlife
dealers. Others are bred as raw material for this particularly repugnant
form of trophy acquisition, to be shot and stuffed by would-be nimrods
with the effrontery to call themselves "hunters." A total of 13 states
have banned canned hunts as inhumane and unsporting.
For centuries, European blue-bloods have shot captive game
in private hunting parks. The practice began in the United States some 30
years ago, driven by a variety of factors: habitat shrinking as sprawl
proliferates; landowners posting their property against hunting; public
lands becoming more crowded, not only with hunters but with campers,
hikers, birders, photographers, and off-road-vehicle enthusiasts.
Canned hunting is an affront to human decency. There is a
general public consensus against canned hunting, and in fact even most
hunters oppose canned hunts according to a survey conducted by Field and
Stream magazine.
Animal advocates can end canned hunting. It is time that
we demand our elected officials take action to end this despicable
behavior. Please write to Senator Bill Frist and ask him to take action to
end canned hunting. Remind him that both animal advocates, and responsible
hunters alike, object to killing penned animals.
Senator Bill Frist
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Go on to Warning -
Killer Dog Crate
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