Letters to the Editor
WESTCHESTER RISING
There are a few more hunting facts in addition to Rising’s article Must-Have Tools for your Hunting trip article (5/29). For example:
~ The public’s money – your money – is used to train hunters.Using public money – your money – the DEC guides the public through the state permitting process, plus actually providing specialized equipment using public money – your money – to provide electric, all-terrain tracked wheelchairs, permanent and portable hunting blinds, and, of course, technologies like the NiteSite device – so that even the blind and handicapped can partake in the joy of killing defenseless beings…using your money. NOTE: Though public money – your money – is used to fund the DEC/Bureau of Wildlife hunting efforts, non-hunters are banned from serving on their advisory board. If that seems unfair, its too bad.
~ Using public money – your money – the DEC builds wildlife populations specifically for hunting. Their subsidiery, the Bureau of Wildlife, is running a private hunting business on taxpayer money. The excise taxes on firearms, bows and arrows are insufficient to pay for their sport of killing animals. (New York State is required to match 25% of the federal excise tax that is contributed to the State.) All of the Bureau of Wildlife’s overhead costs are paid out of the general fund. With our money the Bureau of Wildlife increases “game” species – most notoriously the annumal Pheasant hunt, in which infant pheasants, hand-raised by people, are then released in a canned hunt for hunters to fire at.
~ Using public money – your money – the NYSDEC trains hunters and bow hunters, which is a discriminatory and unethical management of public funds. This is a doubly discriminatory use of public monies, since there are no programs to benefit birdwatchers, kayakers, nature-enthusiasts, etc. The link between hunting and other forms of violence has been established in such sources as the Journal of Interpersonal Violence (B.W.Boat, June 1995) and the Purdue University Press (Child abuse, Domestic Violence and Animal Abuse, 1999).
~ ~ Hunting is declining in popularity – and the DEC is panicking. In fact the CFAB, the DEC advisory board that bans non-hunters from serving on it, addressed the NYS Legislature in 2017, begging them to do whatever they can to promote failing interest in hunting – which normally puts almost $50 milllion of your money yearly into their coffers – and is dwindling.
~ The DEC encourages hunters to call themselves ‘conservationists,’ to put a pretty bandage on the reality of hunting. But the fact is there is no evidence whatsoever that hunting has contributed to ‘conservation’ efforts – indeed, the evidence solely indicates that hunting has brought several species to near-or total extinction.
And lastly, hunting ‘necessities’ such as camoflague clothing, special apps and rifle sights, fake decoys, sound and scent lures, are listed – and all are indicators that hunting is not a ‘fair fight.’ Folks with integrity will see this activiry for what it is: A deck-stacked, blatantly unfair horror wrought on innocent beings…and will instead choose a different pastime in which no one is killed for supposed ‘fun.’
Kiley Blackman
Founder
Animal Defenders of Westchester
