Is "Canned Hunting" Good or Bad? - Democratic Underground

CO Liberal

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Tue Dec-09-03 06:27 PM
Original message

Is "Canned Hunting" Good or Bad?

Edited on Tue Dec-09-03 07:16 PM by CO Liberal

In that thread that was just locked, I found several links to more information about canned hunts from several different organizations. My question is this: are "canned hunts" a good idea, or a bad one? Discuss. - Wayne

ON EDIT - I realize that these threads all take a negative position on canned hunting. That's all I could find when I did a Google search. If you have a link to info about the other side of canned hunting, please share it.

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The Fund for Animals

The closing decades of the twentieth century saw the rise of a new kind of "sport" in North America: the "canned hunt." Although canned hunts advertise under a variety of names -- most frequently "hunting preserves," "game ranches," or "shooting preserves" -- they can be identified by the two traits they all have in common: they charge their clients a fee to kill an animal; and they violate the generally accepted standards of the hunting community, which are based on the concept of "fair chase."

In some cases animals may be shot in cages or within fenced enclosures; in others they may be shot over feeding stations; some of the animals are tame and have little fear of humans, while others may be tied to a stake or drugged before they are shot. But whatever method is used, the defining characteristic of a canned hunt is that the odds have been artificially manipulated against the animal so heavily that the notion of fair chase is subverted. Canned hunts are commercial hunts that take place on private land under circumstances that virtually assure the hunter of success.

http://www.fund.org/cannedhunts/

The Humane Society of the United States

Canned hunting is the killing of an animal in an enclosure to obtain a trophy. The animals are sometimes tame exotic mammals; some, in fact, have been sold by petting zoos to the canned hunting operation. These animals do not know to run from humans. Many groups that support hunting scorn canned hunting for its unsportsmanlike practice; patrons are guaranteed a kill. Several states now ban canned hunting operations, but the practice is spreading.

http://www.hsus.org/ace/12017

United Animal Nations

One canned hunt ranch owner in New York likens killing penned animals for pleasure to a golf outing. "You hunt hard all day, then have a nice lunch." The truth is not so benign, and has created strange bedfellows — animal activists and "fair-chase" hunters — who collectively declare that canned hunting is slaughter.

The gods of compassion must have been sleeping when canned hunting was invented. Animals, especially exotics, are staked, hobbled, caged or fenced to provide targets for hunters. (A "guaranteed kill" of a Cape Buffalo or a Rocky Mountain big horn sheep can be had for $5,000, meat, hide and trophy head thrown in.) One fair-chase hunter characterized it as "shooting fish in a barrel." UAN goes further. Pay-to-kill is brutal and cowardly, pot shots taken at hand-raised animals that have lost their fear of humans and have absolutely no chance. They’re shot, often repeatedly, with gun or bow and arrow; they’re knifed and even speared. Speared? And I thought Neanderthals were extinct!

http://www.uan.org/issues/cannedhunt.html

www.BornFree.org

Canned hunting is, essentially, the hunting of captive animals that have little chance of escape. North America is the hunting capital of the world with 11 million hunters but South Africa has the dubious distinction of hunting the most lions and elephants. Hunters like to draw a distinction between trophy hunting and canned hunting. Trophy hunters claim their prey is free roaming. Canned hunting, which is still widespread in the USA and South Africa involves the hunting of captive-bred animals often into enclosed areas.

http://www.bornfree.org.uk/big.cat/bcatnews013.shtml

Animals In Print

A hunter paid a $275 bounty for the head of a black Hawaiian ram. After a guide drove the ram directly into the path of his client, the hunter shot the trapped animal with an arrow at point-blank range. The wounded ram, with an arrow sticking out of his hindquarters, backed up against the fence that forced him to stay close to his killers. A shot to the head might have meant a quick kill, but would have spoiled the eventual trophy. So the hunter repeatedly took aim at the ram's body, and the animal writhed in pain for four minutes before dying.1 The Fund for Animals' hallmark has been our fight to end atrocious hunts such as the one described above. Perhaps no recent victory has meant more to us than the Texas ban on shooting bears, lions, elephants, rhinoceroses, and other large mammals on fenced-in preserves, which we achieved with the Texas Humane Legislative Network. No bill to restrict hunting of any kind -- no matter how indefensible a hunt -- had ever made its way through the Texas legislature before this historic achievement.

http://www.all-creatures.org/aip/nl-31oct2001-canned.html

ASPCA (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals)

Governor Pataki Signs Bill Outlawing Most Heinous Forms of "Canned Hunts" in New York

On Monday, July 12th, Governor Pataki signed into law a provision that will keep the worst types of "canned hunt" activities from taking place in New York State.

"Canned hunts" are controlled "hunts" which typically use exotic big game mammals non-indigenous to the area, that have been captively bred and raised by humans. At canned hunt facilities these essentially tame animals are tied, hobbled, caged or fenced so that they cannot escape. These animals are prized for their trophy value. To preserve the head for mounting, the "hunter" may shoot or spear the animal many times in its hindquarters, virtually assuring a prolonged and agonizing death.

This deplorable practice has been outlawed in other states. It has nothing to do with wildlife management or recreational hunting. In fact, ethical sportsmen oppose "canned hunts" precisely because they lack the fundamental elements of ethical hunting – a fair chase and quick kill.

http://www.lobbynet.com/canned/

Alberta Outdoorsmen

The high, heavily wired fence running next to the road indicated I was passing a game ranch, one of several hundred in Alberta. As my car crested a rise I saw a group of animals sunning themselves on top of a bald hill. They were impressive: a six-point bull elk, some elk cows and a couple of four-point buck white-tailed deer. They were all lying down together several hundred metres from anything that remotely looked like cover. I stopped my vehicle to get a better look. As I approached the fence, all eyes watched me, seemingly unconcerned. Finally, one of the bucks arose and walked towards me as if I might have something for it to eat. As I watched him stop and look at me curiously, I asked myself, "What's wrong with this picture?"

My mind raced back to the words of a wildlife officer from Colorado speaking to a meeting of Alberta Fish and Wildlife Officers. "The one message I want to leave with you today," he said near the end of his speech, "is don't allow game ranching in your province!" It was the early 1980s when game ranching was not yet allowed in Alberta, although it was a topic of heated discussion. Ranchers were lobbying the government to permit them to raise domestic elk for the antler velvet trade in Asia.

Colorado had several years of experience with elk ranches and the officer had been invited to the meeting to explain the enforcement problems associated with the business. He warned that allowing game ranching opened a whole "can of worms" of problems that went well beyond enforcement issues to the health and viability of domestic livestock, indigenous wildlife and hunting. Unfortunately, much of what he warned about has come to pass in Alberta.

http://www.donmeredith.ca/Outdoorsmen/CannedHunt.html

Animal Rights Foundation of Florida (ARFF)

There are more than 1,000 hunting ranches across about 25 states in the U.S. that offer opportunities to shoot confined exotic mammals, who have virtually no chance to escape. There are approximately nine canned hunt facilities in Florida that supply mostly exotic species to be shot as trophies. Canned hunts range in size from an acre to more than 10,000 acres. At these facilities, participants shoot tame or habituated animals for a fee, usually in “no kill, no pay” arrangements.

http://www.animalrightsflorida.org/campaigns_hunts.htm

www.cnn.com

Hunting made easy

Shooting captive animals to mount their heads on a wall is a booming sport. Should Congress step in?

By Jeffrey Kluger
With Reporting by Melissa August/Washington, Mike Billips/Austin and Broward Liston/Lake City

March 4, 2002 Posted: 12:32 p.m. EST (1732 GMT)

The exotic corsican ram trotting about the 100-yard-long pen in central Pennsylvania paid little mind to the men approaching across the field. People were always walking in and out of the pen, as often as not with food for the flock. So the ram didn't resist when the men drove all the animals toward one end of the enclosure. It was only when the first arrow--fired from just yards away--struck it in the haunch that it realized something was up. The ram hobbled off and was struck by a second arrow, then a third. It stood for a moment staring beyond the fence line and then settled onto its haunches, bleeding. A gunshot to the abdomen finished it off--preserving its head as a trophy.

It has never been easy being an animal at the business end of a hunt, but these days it's hard being the hunter too. Dwindling ranges and herds make the ancient business of stalking prey an increasingly difficult proposition. The answer for many Americans is to shift their shooting grounds from the wild to one of the country's growing number of hunting preserves.

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/time/2002/03/11/hunting.html

Editorial in the St. Petersburg Times

'Canned hunt' isn't sportsmanlike

© St. Petersburg Times
published June 17, 2002
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There's nothing sporting about hunters shooting big game in fenced-in hunting preserves. A bill that would severely limit the practice has been introduced in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. The Captive Exotic Animal Protection Act would ban the interstate transport or possession of an exotic animal for the purpose of killing or injuring it. Game ranches across the country charge clients a fee to kill animals (both domestic and exotic) kept within fenced enclosures. It is slaughter without even the thrill of the hunt.

http://www.sptimes.com/2002/06/17/Opinion/_Canned_hunt__isn_t_s.shtml