[TN-Bird] Shot Whooping Crane in South Dakota brings # to 12 dead in 2 yrs.
- From: Cynthia Routledge <routledges@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Tn Bird <tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 3 May 2012 09:58:30 -0500
I chose to copy and paste this journal entry from Operation Migration regarding
the latest shooting of a Whooping Crane in South Dakota. Joe Duff makes some
excellent points and leaves the reader with much to ponder and consider.
Please take a minute to read it.
Thanks.
Cyndi Routledge
Clarksville, TN
Date: May 3, 2012 Reporter: Joe Duff
Subject: THE IDIOTS ARE WINNING...
Another Whooping crane was shot last week, this one in South Dakota.
It was an adult, in the company of two others and on its way from the gulf
coast of Texas to the Wood Buffalo National Park in northern Canada. Whooping
cranes are not colonial birds that flock together in large numbers. Instead
they generally migrate in family groups, so the two others could have been its
mate and their chick from last year. They still had another 1000 miles to go to
reach their nesting grounds. If the third bird was their offspring from last
season, they would have shooed it off before they re-claimed their territory
and built a nest for this year’s eggs.
Whooping cranes are anything but camouflaged. At five feet tall in bright white
feathers, they stand out like a beacon and make an obvious target for those so
inclined. This bird was shot with a high powered rifle while it stood in a
field. That brings the number of Whooping cranes shot in the last two and a
half years to twelve.
I purposely used the word “shot” so it wouldn’t be confused with “hunted.”
There are two words to describe the activity of using a gun to harvest wild
prey. One is hunting and it describes the legal taking of game species for
sport. The other word is poaching but that has connotations of stealing
something for food and that was not the case here or in any of the other
shootings. There should be another name for people who shoot things just to
kill them.
It is hard to understand why someone would want to kill a Whooping crane simply
because they can. Maybe it’s an act of defiance or a belief that the rules
apply to everyone but them, or perhaps it’s displaced aggression; they kill a
Whooping crane because they can’t kill their boss. One of the arguments we have
heard consistently is that they didn’t know what it was and if we had done a
better job of educating people, it wouldn’t happen. Now there is a warped sense
of privilege for you.
Many words can be used to describe that attitude. The list starts with terms
like self-serving and arrogant and degrades to adjectives like ignorant. Then
it drops below the line that is only printable if it’s scrawled on the wall of
a public urinal.
The one term you can’t use to describe them is “hunter.” Real hunters obey the
rules; in fact they often make the rules. They are also responsible for most of
the conservation work that takes place. Hunting groups like Ducks Unlimited and
the Wild Turkey Federation protect thousands of acres of habitat while a tax on
firearms and ammunition known as the Pittman Robertson Act has provided over 5
billion dollars to wildlife projects. But twelve birds in just over two years
is far too many and maybe it is time we asked hunting organizations for help.
Perhaps they would welcome the opportunity to educate the morons with the
twisted values.
Or maybe you can’t reach people that stupid. They say that if you make it idiot
proof, they will simply make a better idiot.
<")
( \
/ |` Cyndi
"When one tugs at a single thing in Nature,
he finds it attached to the rest of the world."
~John Muir
Other related posts:
