Monday, October 02, 2006

Gimme A Break!!!!

I'm an ardent animal lover as well as an avid reader. Hence, I'm always interested in books on animals. Today, at the local library, I was looking at a book called "A Hunt For Justice". It's about a female undercover wildlife agent who tries to expose illegal poachers & hunters in the heart of the Alaskan wilderness. The book sounded interesting & had received good reviews, hence I went to the Amazon website to check out further details. One customer review described this book as a good book for hunters, and another claimed that while legal hunters are amongst the best conservationists, illegal hunters perform the most despicable acts! I immediately abandoned all plans of reading the book. This mightn't be very fair to the author, but the reviews indicated that there's a huge distinction being made between legal & illegal hunters. There's even a chapter in the book entitled "To Kill For Conservation"!
This is where I need a break! Illegal hunters might be even more evil than legal ones, but legal hunters are conservationists!!!! We human beings have taken over the entire planet and shamelessly use animals for bizarre sports, cruel medical experiments etc. etc. We have no qualms about ruthlessly killing them while fighting Our Dumb Wars which the poor animals have absolutely nothing to do with! When we talk of hunters, we're discussing a group of people who venture into severely limited animal terrain and shed the blood of innocent animals for the fulfillment of their idea of fun & sport! It would have been totally understandable had they been hunters & gatherers, had hunting being their mode of survival, their only means of feeding themselves & their families! However, that isn't the case at all. Granted, they can argue that the law permits them to hunt, hence technically they aren't doing anything "wrong". But hunters as conservationists!!!! Reminds me of an investigative report documentary that I had watched on TV, where an ex-cop used to enter the homes of single women at night, rape them at gunpoint, & then, before departing, give them detailed instructions about steps they should take to prevent crimes in their homes (good info too, considering his keen knowledge thanks to his professsion)! I don't know (nor am I interested in finding out) what kind of helpful info hunters provide to enivironmentalists, but as far as I'm concerned, their efforts at conservation are akin to this ex-cop-cum-rapist's attempts at ensuring women's safety! Hunters as conservationists....I'm still reeling from it! What next? Pedophiles as child psychologists? After all, they do provide info regarding all-important facts of life to naive little kiddies!