The Joy of Killing and Euphemisms

by Stephanie Ernst · 2009-12-15 06:55:00 UTC
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Took, harvested, bagged, downed, secured, dispatched. A whole lot of euphemisms for one very basic concept: brutal killing.

In this horrifying blog post for "sportsmen" on a Pennsylvania news site, about the joyful "successes" of area bear hunters, the above euphemisms for killing were used 20 times. And animal advocates, I'll warn you now: you may not want to put yourself through reading the story and seeing the bloody photos. The animals' final, frightened, fleeing moments are recounted gleefully, with not a single thought given to what their experience of this "sport" was like.

The callousness and disregard, from both the blogger and the hunters, are disturbing. Take this, for example, which happened minutes after a human dad gunned down a two-year-old female bear, with the help of a "driving gang of 20-25 hunters":

When Dave discovered that other hunters in the gang had shot at and maybe hit another bear in the same area but were not concerned with confirming a hit, kill or miss, he went in search of any evidence he could find.

He soon found a blood trail and followed it into a thick stand of laurel, where he spotted an injured bear struggling to rise among a tangle of fallen trees. Only after dispatching the animal did the senior Mrksic discover that it was a smaller bear than his sons.

No sympathy for the struggling, suffering, terrified young animal. Just excitement that someone else had made this an easy kill for them. Just anticipation of getting matching father-and-son "shoulder mounts made from their bears" for a wall display at home. Such an enormous disconnect here, such a lack of connection with and understanding of what it is they're doing, of how that bear is feeling.

Someone want to tell me yet again about how hunters are "respectful" of the animals they kill? How we should respect and work with them, rather than challenge their mindset and perspectives, when it comes to conservation and protection of free-living animals?

Screw that. Hunt sabs and challenges to -- and frankly, outright violations of -- hunter harassment laws look better and better sometimes, don't they?

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Photo by Flickr user brownpau

Stephanie Ernst wrote the original Animal Rights blog at Change.org until December 2009. She can now be found at Animal Rights & AntiOppression.
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