Some years ago, a house guest was bemoaning sport hunting and its awful, terrible onslaught of innocent animals, yada, yada, yada.
Lacking any diplomatic skills, I pointed out that his gloves, belt, wallet and shoes were all involuntarily confiscated from a contented cow.
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“Well,” he mused, head down to more closely examine his shiny shoe leather, “I like to think that the leather came from cows that had died a natural death.” Uh-huh. Sure. And I have a nice bridge in Brooklyn for sale.
That?s the problem with the animal-rights types who parade under the guise of protecting animals. Inconsistency. Naivety. Some anguish individually; others join groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals or the Humane Society of the United States. But you have to wonder about the Society?s singular opposition to bear hunting in Maryland.
There is no question that in some areas we sing off the same page of the same hymnal. We condemn dog fighting (check Michael Vick?s 23-month sentence in the slammer), cock fighting and the pandering puppy mills that crank out debilitated and defectively diseased dogs for the pet trade.
Most of us are OK with those who take a sledge hammer to a cow, then butcher it, slice off muscle for a prime rib or grind up the cow?s innards to make a burger. We just don?t admit it or think of it that way.
Burgers don?t share their whole life with a pickle, special sauce and sesame-seed bun or start out “flame broiled.” They come from a cow that might be reluctant to part with its burger-makings.
But some people who don?t mind paying someone else to kill for them get upset when fishermen and hunters do it themselves. Asthe TV ad used to promote: We do it the old- fashioned way ? “We earn it.”
“We oppose the opening of new hunting seasons on species such as black bear in states where they have traditionally been protected,” said Society Executive Vice President Michael Markarian in a prepared statement about Maryland bear hunting. He also noted that the Society puts most of its resources toward curbing activities such as “canned hunts, Internet hunting, contest kills and wildlife penning” that many hunters also find offensive and foreign to the true concept of hunting and free chase.
According to Andrew Page, director of the Society?s hunting campaign, the Society has no problem with deer hunting as an established control-management system. It does with bear. Maybe it?s the close relevance that real bears seem to have to Yogi and Smokey, both a little or a lot anthropomorphic. After all, real bears don?t wear ties, speak English or sport a forestry hat.
How come the Society hasn?t protested or picketed deer hunting? Perhaps HSUS sees the front end of Hondas rearranged from close encounters of the deer kind and decides that enough is enough.
Too many of any one animal, as a DNR biologist recently said, and that animal becomes vermin. However, bears bring out strong visceral and emotional ties. But perhaps the Society and others can ignore the 50 bears ? average ? that are killed annually on Western Maryland roads.
But beating up on hunters who take legal game legally for eating and/or trophy while at the same time sitting down to a steak carved from a contented cow that someone else butchered seems a bit disingenuous.
Oh yeah ? most of those 51 bears shot during the recent short bear season were converted into steaks, chops and burgers.
» The Department of Natural Resources? Dec. 17 Sport Fish Advisory Commission meeting (6 p.m.), which will address the tree-cutting incident on the Gunpowder River, is now scheduled for the Calvary United Methodist Church, 301 Rowe Blvd., Annapolis.
