January 2013
By
James McWilliams
As I’ve written before, and am probably the last to observe,
hunting is religion in Texas, where I live. On the occasions
when I find myself in East or South Texas—places where the
hunting habit becomes evangelical—I find it best for my own
mental health to don my anthropology cap rather than my ethical
one. To wear the ethical one in these places is to find yourself
suffering turmoil in the midst of an armageddon of gunfire. So I
just back up a bit and remember the words of my anthropologist
friend: “Culture is everything.” Boom.
This observational distance from the violence and deeper
reality of killing animals in the name of sport was, however,
recently challenged by my realization that citizen tax dollars
are being used to support not just hunting, but the teaching of
hunting to children. Turns out Texas Parks and Wildlife sponsors
the Texas Youth Hunting Program, whose mission is to:
increase the number of youths participating in wildlife and
hunting activities and to promote the hunting heritage in Texas.
The Texas Wildlife Association (TWA) and the Texas Parks and
Wildlife Department (TPWD) have joined forces to offer youth
hunts that are safe, educational and very affordable. We sponsor
introductory, instructive youth hunts for deer, turkey, hogs,
javelina, exotics, dove, small game, waterfowl, varmints and
other species. Normally, we provide mentors, lodging and meals.
Its list of intended goals is to “promote the highest ethical
standards in hunting.” This phrase, much like the program that
spawned it, reminds me how desperate humans are to hide the
reality of what we do in the garb of euphemism and illogic. What
can possibly be “educational” about killing animals with high
powered weaponry and, really, by what twisted sense of reality
does such an act of terror possibly come with “ethical
standards’?
In the state of Texas they are closing schools, letting parks
fall into disrepair, and failing to maintain state run nursing
homes for the elderly and infirm. But, boy-oh-boy, you wanna
grab your rifle and kill an animal, the state is here to make
sure it remains both “ethical” and “very affordable.” Hunting
might be sacred in the conservative state Texas, but so is the
effort to cut government spending. Programs like this one are,
in this sense, ripe targets for vegans to protest. With calls
for “cutting spending” at high pitch, now may be the time to
fire away in the name of animal rights.
