AnimalRights.Net - Hunting

HSUS Activists Reportedly Not Happy at Being Caught on Film

Mon, 05 Mar 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Pro-hunt filmmaker catches HSUS allowing a seal to suffer for an hour while they film fund-raising promotion.

Activists Complain about Mitt Romney's Canned Hunt

Thu, 05 Jan 2006 04:00:00 GMT

A canned hunt . . . on a 45,000 acre preserve.

New Jersey Activists Arrested for Interfering with Bear Hunt and Making Terroristic Threats

Tue, 13 Dec 2005 04:00:00 GMT

As New Jersey's bear hunt finally got underway after two years of controversy and efforts by animal rights activists to stop it permanently, four animal rights activists were charged with interfering with the hunt and one was additionally charged with making terroristic threats (and a bizarre threat at that).

Two members of the New Jersey Animal Rights Alliance -- Angela Metler, 49 and Theresa Fritzges, 57 -- were arrested on disorderly persons charges. Metler is the director of the NJARA, and Fritzges is the organization's legislative coordinator. Both have played a key role in past efforts to prevent a bear hunt from going forward.

Arrested with them were Janet Piszar, 52, who was also charged with disorderly conduct, and Albert Kazemian, 49, who was charged with disorderly conduct and with making terroristic threats.

According to his arrest record, Kazemian allegedly told hunters and a state park officer,

I'll get my Arab friends and hunt you down; see how you like it

Making a terroristic threat is a third-degree offense in New Jersey. Obstructing legal hunting is a misdemeanor punishable by fines from $100 to $500.

All four arrested activists are members of the Bear Education and Resource Group.

Almost 300 bears black beras were killed in the six-day hunting season that extended from Dec. 5 through Dec. 10. It was only the second bear hunt in 35 years in New Jersey (a similar hunt in 2003 claimed 328 bears).

Source:

Four arrested, 216 bears taken, in N.J. hunt. Douglas Crouse, The Daily Record, December 11, 2005.

N.J. Hunters Killed At Least 297 Bears During Hunt. Associated Press, December 11, 2005.

Feds Hold Hearing on Makah Whale Hunt in Seattle

Tue, 11 Oct 2005 04:00:00 GMT

Hearing is part of process to determine whether or not to issue Makah a waiver from the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

HSUS Opposes Hunting at Federal Wildlife Refuges

Wed, 17 Aug 2005 04:00:00 GMT

Pending lawsuit filed by Humane Society of the United States will address what sort of impact statement is required before U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service can expand recreational hunting at federal wildlife refuges.

Hunting Heritage Protection Act Introduced in Senate

Mon, 15 Aug 2005 04:00:00 GMT

Bill would require federal lands to be managed in ways that are consistent with allowing recreational hunting.

New Jersey's Fish and Game Council Proposes Bear Hunt

Thu, 11 Aug 2005 04:00:00 GMT

This time around, Fish and Game Council working closely with environmental official who has ultimate authority to approve bear hunt.

British Court Rejects Latest Fox Hunting Appeal

Fri, 29 Jul 2005 04:00:00 GMT

Prospects for reversal of fox hunting law in Great Britain appears to be slim.

Why Activist Alfredo Kubra Gets Butterflies

Fri, 29 Jul 2005 04:00:00 GMT

Activist gets butterflies, apparently, when comparing hunters to Nazis.

Activists Target Red Lobster Over Canadian Seal Hunt

Thu, 28 Jul 2005 04:00:00 GMT

Activists demand that Red Lobster stop buying seafood from Canada.

Whaling Shock -- Japan Paid Solomon Islands for IWC Vote

Wed, 20 Jul 2005 04:00:00 GMT

The biggest non-secret in whaling becomes public -- Japan pays nations to vote for end to whaling moratorium.

California Lawmakers Wants to Amend Kangaroo Leather Ban

Wed, 20 Apr 2005 04:00:00 GMT

Currently California bans the import of all kangaroo products, but legislator wants to limit the ban to only products from endangered kangaroos.

Japan Reportedly Set to Expand Number of Whales Species It Hunts for 'Scientific' Purposes

Tue, 12 Apr 2005 04:00:00 GMT

Japan will reportedly almost double its annual 440 minke whale catch as well as start hunting humpback and fin whales.

Police Warn Hunt Opponents about Vigilante Activities

Fri, 01 Apr 2005 04:00:00 GMT

Police come out with wishy washy statement that they want to "discourage" illegal anti-hunt actions. Are officials in the UK really this clueless?

Hunts Continue Despite Ban

Thu, 31 Mar 2005 04:00:00 GMT

Even though ban forced them to change their methods, hunts supporters say 800 foxes were killed after the ban went into effect -- about the same as during the identical period last year.

Hunting on the Decline in Florida and Nationwide

Wed, 30 Mar 2005 04:00:00 GMT

Sales of hunting licenses declines almost 10 percent over 9 years in Florida, and more than 7 percent over 10 years nationwide.

North Carolina State Senator Introduces Hunter's Bill of Rights

Tue, 29 Mar 2005 04:00:00 GMT

Bill would, among other things, forbid any law or regulation that holds animals as anything but property under North Carolina law.

Activists Obtain Signatures to Put Michigan Dove Season on Ballot

Mon, 28 Mar 2005 04:00:00 GMT

Ballot measure sets up interesting urban vs. rural voter dynamic in 2006.

New Jersey Audubon Society Comes Out In Support of Deer Hunting

Thu, 24 Mar 2005 04:00:00 GMT

The New Jersey Audubon Society angered animal rights activists in March. After collaborating with animal rights and other groups in opposing New Jersey's bear hunt, the New Jersey Audubon Society released a report endorsing deer hunting as an effect method for managing New Jersey's large white-tailed deer population.

In a 25-page white paper analyzing threats to New Jersey's forests,, the Audubon Society said that the estimated 200,000 white-tailed deer in the state threatened to further stress the habitats of birds and other wildlife.

According to the report,

Deer are more abundant today than ever before. In many regions of New Jersey, they are driving rapid ecosystem alterations resulting in local extirpation of native plants and a subsequent takeover by invasive species. While white-tailed deer are clearly a native inhabitant of New Jersey, their current level of abundance is not. Since European settlement, white-tailed deer have expanded their geographic range and greatly increased in abundance. . . . Statewide, deer densities range from a low of 5 deer per km^2 in South Jersey in the Pine Barrens up to 30 per km^2 in central New Jersey. However, some local populations of deer are estimated to be as high as 78 deer per km^2 (NJ Division of Fish, Game and Wildlife 1999).

. . .

. . . Elevated deer densities have devastating impacts on the understory of forests and even the regeneration of the forest itself. Most wildflowers and herbs that grow in the forest understory are preferred forage of white-tailed deer and their disappearance is one of the earliest indicators of unbalanced deer densities. . . .

. . . When browsing on woody plants, deer show clear preferences, with sugar maple, white ash, oaks, yellow poplar, hemlock, white pine, and white cedar being a few of their favorites (Drake et al. 2002). This can lead to a complete alteration of the species composition of forests. In New England and the Upper Great Lakes, eastern hemlock has been undergoing decades of recruitment failure. . . .

If a forest or shrubland is subjected to continued elevated deer densities, the understory and mid-story layers will disappear. The long-term impact of such a scenario is the creation of "deer savannas" or "deer parks." These aesthetically pleasing but biologically destitute areas are characterized by higher densities of ferns and grasses (species not preferred by deer) or park-like habitats of large trees completely lacking an understory that are clear and open beneath, allowing extensive visibility for long distances (Rooney 2001). Such drastic changes in forest structure also impact wildlife. deCalesta (1994) found that both species richness and abundance declined significantly for intermediate canopy nesting birds (nesting 0.5 m - 7.5 m) on heavily browsed sites with a number of species absent entirely from the browsed areas. . . .

Okay, so deer are a problem. But aren't there solutions other than hunting? The animal rights activists are always talking about using birth control for deer, for example, won't that work? Not according to the evil animal exploiters at the New Jersey Audubon Society (emphasis added),

Reproductive control including sterilization, contraception, and contragestation has also been proposed as a means to control overabundant deer populations. Reproductive control agents have been demonstrated on individual animals but an efficient, cost-effective means of delivering large-scale population control of deer is not yet available. Difficulty arises in identifying a cost-effective means of treating individual animals. Surgical sterilization is highly effective, but extremely costly, requiring capture and handling of each individual animal. Effective contragestation drugs like prostaglandin are known, but require precise delivery within the gestational cycle of does to allow effective abortion of the fetus. Contraceptive drugs are currently classified as experimentally by the FDA and not legal for widespread use in the U.S. Safety concerns about drug impacts on deer meat are also slowing advancement of these drugs. Contraceptive and contragestation drugs carry a per animal cost between $430 and $1000 per animal per treatment with a need to retreat individual animals annually (Peck and Stahl 1997, Schantz et al. 2001).

Reproductive controls can be effective when used on a closed or nearly closed deer population, with little or no ingress. For example, reproductive control may be effective on captive herds or in small, self-contained urban parks generally lacking corridors connecting the park to other potential habitat and deer populations. However, when reproductive control methods are used on deer populations that are already creating overbrowsing problems, they will not be successful without a companion strategy to lower the current deer herd to levels compatible with local ecosystem health. Urban and suburban deer experience extremely low annual mortality rates, increased longevity and high birth rates. An effective reproduction control program would have to be paired with an initial population reduction in order to meet restoration objectives (Nielson et al. 1997).

So what's the solution? The New Jersey Audubon Society endorses hunting provided that it is coupled with policies to sustain deer populations at a level that takes into account the biodiversity issues it raises in its report, rather than following policies that seek to maximize deer population in the state,

Because regulated deer hunting generates revenue through license sales, it can be a cost-effective and efficient means for deer population management. However, the effectiveness of deer control via regulated hunting is contingent upon a clear departure from traditional goals of "maximum sustained yield" and "biological carrying capacity" to a more biodiversity based objective. Wildlife management to facilitate hunting opportunities has been a key contributor to deer overpopulation. Traditional deer management centered for years on the maximum sustainable yield model. Under this form of management, deer populations are maintained from year-to-year at a level that produces maximum recruitment with the maximum number of animals available for hunters to harvest (McCullough 1984). The major problem with this method is that if deer herds are managed for maximum sustainable yield, they are being maintained well above relative deer density levels associated with sustaining biodiversity and timber productivity and regeneration (deCalesta and Stout 1997).

So, in the end, the New Jersey Audubon Society's endorsement of hunting is guarded. Yes, it concedes, hunting is an efficient method to reduce the deer population. But, the New Jersey Fish and Game Commission has to stop managing deer in such a way that encourages the deer population to reach levels that are harmful to other species even if deer themselves are below the state's carrying capacity.

Stuart Chaifetz, Director of New Jersey's Animal Protection PAC, fired back a lame non-sequitur that said the Audubon Society "had no standing to demonize deer when they themselves bear responsibility for the destruction of thousands of trees."

In Chaifetz's world, because the New Jersey Audubon Society supported a 2002 plan to clear-cut 125 acres in a South Jersey forest, its complaints about the effect of white-tailed deer in the state are not credible. Chaifetz wrote an op-ed responding to the New Jersey Audubon Society in which he wrote,

How many birds were exterminated when all those magnificent trees were torn down and pulverized? How many animals were crushed under the massive weight of the bulldozers that devastated that once glorious forest? All this environmental destruction was done in the name of promoting hunting and Audubon was credited for helping make it happen. For them to declare ware on deer is one of the most obscene forms of hypocrisy imaginable.

Chaifetz -- not surprisingly -- leaves out quite a bit of information from his rant.

The development he complains about split environmentalists with the Sierra Club opposing, and the New Jersey Audubon Society, New Jersey Conservation Foundation, and Nature Conservancy supporting it. The idea was that prior to European colonization of the area, this several hundred acres of forest had actually been a grassy savanna. Fire suppression over the past couple centuries had led it to become forested.

The project aimed to restore a portion of the area back to a savanna on the hypothesis that it might provide habitat for rare plants and butterflies, such as the endangered frosted elfin butterfly.

Hunters supported the plan because it would potentially lead to more quail in the region for hunting, and forestry experts supported it to create a fire break after a 2002 fire that in the region.

At a minimum, Chaifetz embarrasses himself by depicting the New Jersey Audubon Society as rapacious developers who wanted to increase the deer population with the 2002 clear-cut project.

And what does Chaifetz propose to solve New Jersey's deer problem,

1. The immediate cessation of all Council and Division programs to produce food for deer. This includes all clear-cutting projects.

2. Hunters must not only become a minority on the Council, but must be removed from positions of authority within the Division. Without this vital reform, nothing will ever change.

3. Biologist working for the Division, who have lost their credibility because of their extreme pro-hunting stance, should be replaced by modern-day biologists who are objective and care more for doing science than selling licenses.

4. The scientific foundation for non-lethal reproductive control is real and workable -- but only if the state chooses to put the effort into making it happen. We live in the 21st century with all the technological and scientific advanced that were promised at hand. Better we should embrace this instead of turning shotgun shells and arrows that cripple as many as they kill.

We put a man on the moon, isn't it obvious that non-lethal reproductive methods must be efficient? And Chaifetz complains about others who lack objectivity!

It is also interesting that shooting deer is apparently cruel and not sufficiently "21st century", but starving deer to death (or forcing them to even more intensively stress the forest understory) by the sudden suspension of food is perfectly acceptable. Ah, those compassionate animal rights activists.

Sources:

New Jersey hunters get an unlikely ally. Concord Monitor, March 20, 2005.

Cutting down trees may preserve species. Kirk Moore, Asbury Park Press, August 13, 2002.

AP-PAC's Response to Audubon and the Slaughter of Deer. Stuart Chaifetz, March 22, 2005.

NJs Forest Health Is Threatened; Immediate Action Needed. Press Release, New Jersey Audubon Society, March 2005.

Forest Health and Ecological Integrity: Stressors and Solutions (PDF). New Jersey Audubon Society, March 2005.

Arkansas Legislature Debates Amendment to State Constitution to Protect Right to Hunt

Mon, 21 Mar 2005 04:00:00 GMT

Proponents aim to have proposed amendment on the ballot for Arkansas' 2006 general election.

New Zealand Whaling Commissioner -- Whaling Moratorium Likely to Be Rescinded Soon

Fri, 18 Mar 2005 04:00:00 GMT

New Zealand's representative to the International Whaling Commission, Sir Geoffrey Palmer, gave a speech in March in which he predicted that the moratorium on commercial whaling is likely to be reversed sometime in the next few years.

In an interview on New Zealand Radio, Palmer didn't really say anything that hasn't become obvious over the past few years. Those nations that want to re-start whaling have done an excellent job of recruiting other pro-whaling countries to join (often providing said countries with economic incentives to side with the pro-whaling forces). As Palmer notes,

They [IWC nations] adopted a moratorium on commercial whaling in 1982 and it came into force in 1986. Since that time, most New Zealanders, and I think many people around the world, have thought, well, there are not going to be anymore whales killed by commercial whaling. That position is now under threat. There is going on in the International Whaling Commission, a concerted effort to come up with a plan to allow commercial whaling to resume. It is going to be very, very difficult indeed. There are meetings going on. There is one in Copenhagen at the end of the month that I am going to. There is another is Korea in the middle of June which will be a very important meeting to determine where this effort is going.

There are a number of nations who have joined the International Whaling Commission in recent times who are in favor of a resumption of commercial whaling. For the first time, the majority is under threat. That is to say, the majority of the nations who belong to the International Whaling Commission do not want a resumption of commercial whaling, and that majority looks to be under threat. On my calculations, it seems that those who favor whaling now may have a majority of about two. Now of course to bring about a resumption of commercial whaling, you need a majority of 75 percent. But having a simple majority will change the whole philosophical approach

Palmer also noted that the IWC currently has almost no enforcement ability,

Enforcement by the Commission in relation to scientific whaling is impossible because of the provisions of the Treaty. But the enforcement mechanisms of the Treaty in relation to the rest of the activities of the Commission are also exceedingly weak as you state. They are weak because there is no effective way of actually enforcing the provisions of this Convention to see they are complied with.

The only thing keeping Japan and other countries from openly restarting commercial whaling today is the public relations hit they would take for breaching the moratorium. That lack of enforcement is going to be a major problem if and when commercial whaling resumes and it comes time to set enforceable quota limits.

Sources:

Whaling moratorium likely to be dumped, New Zealand official warns. Associated Press, March 15, 2005.

Linda Clark Interview with Sir Geoffrey Palmer. March 16, 2005.

In Pennsylvania, At Least, Turkey Hunting Is Most Dangerous

Fri, 11 Mar 2005 04:00:00 GMT

Study find generally low rates of injury among hunters, but says rates could be brought down even further with more training for young hunters and forcing hunters to once again don orange clothing.

Hunting Over the Internet? I Say Go for It

Fri, 11 Mar 2005 04:00:00 GMT

A brief defense of hunting-over-the-Internet and canned hunting.

We Don't Need Pro-Hunt Liars

Tue, 08 Mar 2005 04:00:00 GMT

Heritage Foundation pro-hunt writers match animal rights activists for deception by ommission.

New York Assemblyman Wants Anti-Hunting Office

Mon, 07 Mar 2005 04:00:00 GMT

Felix Ortiz introduces legislation that would create new department designed, in part, to find alternatives to hunting, fishing and trapping for wildlife management.

New Jersey Supreme Court Decision Effectively Ends Bear Hunt, But Still Activists Unhappy

Mon, 28 Feb 2005 04:00:00 GMT

Commissioner and Council disagree on bear hunting, but that's about all they disagree on.

Tennessee Lawmakers Consider Constitutional Amendment to Protect Hunting, Fishing

Mon, 21 Feb 2005 04:00:00 GMT

Worried about well-funded campaigns by groups such as the Humane Society of the United States, Tennessee lawmakers propose constitutional amendment to protect hunting and fishing in that state