Tweet
Hunting ethics require sportsmen to do their best to assure a quick kill, and make every possible effort to find wounded animals to spare them prolonged suffering. HuntingNet.com says a true hunter will “search for an arrow hit or bullet hit animal that is wounded for as long as possible.” Those who follow the NRA Hunter’s Code of Ethics pledge to “do my best to acquire those marksmanship and hunting skills, which insure clean, sportsmanlike kills.”
Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty apparently had neither the skill nor the time to be a true hunter. He badly wounded a buck on Saturday at the Minnesota Governor’s Deer Opener, but rather than follow the blood trail, he followed the money trail to Iowa where he was headlining a Republican Party fundraiser. The owner of the land where Pawlenty’s group was hunting described the animal as “bleeding profusely” and searched for the deer all weekend, but turned up nothing.
It’s surely a sign of reckless and unsportsmanlike behavior to leave an animal severely injured and hope that others might take on the responsibility to end the animal’s suffering. If Pawlenty wants to hunt animals, he should at least have the decency to abide by basic, centuries-old values. Hunters talk a good game about ethics and humane treatment, and they should be held to their own professed standards.
Pawlenty was the same governor, of course, who enacted legislation in 2004 to allow Minnesota’s first mourning dove hunting season in 58 years. Mourning doves don’t cause nuisance problems, aren’t overpopulated, and don’t make a viable food source—that’s why they were protected as songbirds for more than a half-century in Minnesota and are still protected in many northern and Midwestern states. When they’re shot for target practice, the small birds are riddled with lead shot and are of little value to hunters, so about 30 percent of those hit are left wounded and unretrieved—a fact apparently untroubling to the state’s chief executive hunter.
When Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was on the Republican ticket in the 2008 presidential campaign, she galvanized animal advocates against the aerial gunning of wolves and her retrograde wildlife management policies. If Pawlenty decides to launch a presidential bid for 2012, we’ll give his behavior the scrutiny it deserves.
4 Comments
AFAIC, hunting with scopes and rifles that allow someone to be more than 100 yards away from that which is being hunted is NOT hunting but mental masturbation.
The hunters I have known that got my respect were those with a bow and arrow who would plan their hunts, often using salt licks months in advance to set up the kill.
The new name for Smilin’ Tim: Governor Gutshot.
My grandfather hunted deer from a stand with a shotgun.
Most years he didn’t get any. I think it was largely an excuse to sit up in tree and drink beer, which is equally entertaining, I suppose.
(Me, I like my beer in a warm bar that serves good food.)
I’ve never understood the entertainment found in hunting. I also fail to understand why so many of the same traditional values crowd who like hunting think that *videogames* are too violent. I mean, sure. I’ve killed tens of thousands of virtual people. Hell, I’ve wiped the life clean from virtual planets…. but, you know, none of them are programmed to feel pain. I’ve also helped kill vermin with a rifle, when it was necessary, being from a farm family. It… wasn’t a pleasant task. I can’t see it as a hobby.
Pawlenty and Palin types are just serial killers in their torture-animals phase. I think it’s really that simple. If they get into high enough office they can kill lots of real people with predator drones, and they’re warming up in the meantime.
Interesting… Thanks.