"Sportsmen" get carried away

[pscot]

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/6420ap_wa_elk_hunt.html

CONCRETE, Wash. -- The killing of about seven elk cornered in a farm pasture in eastern Skagit County has spurred state officials to close the elk archery season in the area and angered others who either witnessed or heard about the killings.

"Obviously, this got a little out of hand," Dave Ware, state Department of Fish and Wildlife game division manager, said during a phone interview from Olympia on Monday.

Ware said the hunters who gathered around a herd of elk on Bill Johnson's beef ranch five miles west of Concrete on Saturday "lacked discretion" and "took advantage of the situation" when they shot dozens of arrows into the panicked herd.
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A Fish and Wildlife officer was at the scene Saturday, but didn't stop the hunters because they had not violated the law.

The property's owner said Monday that once neighbors spotted the elk in his south pasture, the word .... began to spread until a dozen or more bow hunters were in Johnson's field trying to encircle the herd, which by then had moved to the north pasture. Johnson, whose family has farmed on the Wilde Road property since 1915, wasn't pleased with the way the situation progressed. "The whole thing kind of got out of control," he said.
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Last year, some hunters were licensed to hunt elk in the area with muzzle loaders. Some of the hunters trespassed on private property or took shots from the highway, officials said. So Fish and Wildlife limited this season to archery to try to prevent some of the abuse, Ware said. Next year's season will be more restrictive, Ware said.

Seven animals were killed. Others escaped with arrows in them. Twenty cars pulled off a nearby highway to watch the circus. Many observers were disgusted. Incidents like this make it hard to argue that the human species is undergoing some sort of evolution of consciuosness. We're animals who think, but civilization is a thin veneer that we sluff off pretty readily. I had a friend who took up bow hunting, then abandoned it. I asked him why. He said you lose too much game, and the idea of an animal running off to die with an arrow in it bothered him. Not these guys.

[stuntcat]

1. sick

"How can you call that hunting?" asked Bob Coombs, 70, of Mount Vernon. 'You pin some animals inside a barbed wire closure then allow people to come in there and take shots at them with arrows. Good Lord. That can't be called hunting. There are some fair chase rules that any ethical hunter subscribes to."

Everything about people makes me sicker every day.

[Arkansas Granny]

2. You were right to put the word sportsmen in parentheses. There was obviously

no sportsmanship practiced in this incident.

[Nederland]

3. You contradict yourself

Seven animals were killed. Others escaped with arrows in them. Twenty cars pulled off a nearby highway to watch the circus. Many observers were disgusted. Incidents like this make it hard to argue that the human species is undergoing some sort of evolution of consciousness.

You make completely contradictory statements here. On one hand you point out that many observers were disgusted, while on the other you claim that humanity isn't progressing. The obvious point to be made is that 100 years ago, more than likely none of the observers would have been disgusted. To say that human attitudes regarding the morality of harming animals for sport haven't improved in the last century is to be completely and utterly ignorant of the facts.

[pscot]

4. I didn't say human attitudes have not changed

Right now there's a social consensus that disapproves of this sort of excess. I do say that consensus is far from universal, and where it does exist, is barely skin deep; sustained largely by what we've become accustomed to. We are, to some extent, self-domesticated. That hasn't changed the essential nature of the beast. At our best we disapprove of our bloodier tendencies. We're conflicted. Despite the social veneer, we are still predators who are sometimes excited by violence, and who are still driven by fear of the the other, the unknown, the dark.