Hunting, Vegans, and Apologists

Throughout twenty years of fighting the one thing that seems ever-refusing to die, hunting animals as foor or trophy, as well as a more recent endeavor, ending the use of animals slaughtered for food, used for entertainment, or used for fur, milk, or any other reasons, i have arrived at an ever-increasing problem--apologists.

Any person fighting for animal rights has probably heard the terms 'ethical farming' or 'certified-humane, raised and handled' before, as they are futile (i hope, at least) attempts of the meat/dairy industry for legitimizing animal production and animal agriculture on the grounds of welfare or treatment alone. as many humans are pretty aware of animal slaughter via videos shared by activists and vegans all over the globe, many have started to question the use of animals for food or oppose it entirely (i.e., by going vegan) because they cannot stand the idea of eating someone who has been treated horribly due to industrialized agriculture. animals are often unable to ever see the light of day during their short lifespans, many cruelly beaten on their way to be slaughtered, transported long distances in sub-optimal conditions without even food or water, and some brutally done in in the final moments of death. beaten as they bleed out all over the floor. for this and many other reasons people choose to abstain from animal flesh or animal products (milk, leather, fur, etc) by going vegan.

Vegan differs from the popular term 'vegetarian' in that unlike vegetarianism, being vegan goes well beyond diet alone. while vegetarians may give up meat and possibly even dairy or fish and eggs, many have no quarrel with anyone drinking the milk of a cow, or don't care if they wore a leather jacket. vegans oppose any form of use of animals, right down to the clothes on their backs. veganism is a baseline goal behind animal rights, which differs from animal welfare by advocating the end of and abolition of all forms of animals being used by humans, with the ultimate goal of total liberation of all animals and the end of the use of animals as pets by ending breeding and spaying and neutering them until they cease to exist.

BUT, and this is a large but, animal rights is being co-opted by animal industry. the vegans who went vegan because they were made aware of their treatment but still maintained views of humans being a natural meat eater (which meant they probably take supplements assuming veganism is a choice against nature) and therefore are likely to be lulled into the promotion of 'happy' animal use. aka, utilitarianism. animal industry has lost enough customers due to animal rights advocates taking the risk just to upload images and videos of animals in slaughterhouses or industrialized 'factory' farms, and many have gone vegan as a result. unfortunately, the industry is also aware, and working together with bigger high-dollar animal  organizations such as PETA, HSUS, and FARM, have convinced those fully aware of the brutality behind animal agriculture (and these vegans who went vegan from seeing their horrid treatment) that they have changed, and that recreating old Macdonald's farm, the image of idyllic pastures of daisies and grass, the image often used in kids books regarding farming, and milking even, is the answer, and the best way to work towards the goal. unfortunately it's the biggest gimmick to get people to look at animals as things all over again. many see animals in factory farms and say 'no!' but when they see animals given names, lots of room, and lots of love from the farmer, they usually have nothing against consuming meat from such a place.  the vegan who went vegan due to shocking videos of animal slaughter sees these new models out there, and the quick, often painless death as a reason to get right back on meat again, and usually foregoes veganism entirely. then, as a result, these 'ethical omnivores' as they often seem fond of calling themselves promote the new 'humane certified' as a way to love animals, and have your steak, too. even some lingering vegans are falsely lulled into being proponents of such tripe, usually saying something along the lines of this:

"Animals are being treated horribly, and meat ain't going away overnight. it seems logical to at least reduce their harm in the here and now by promoting humane ways of slaughtering them and consider this as a baby step towards the goal of abolition"

this is known as being an 'apologist'. someone who speaks the same language as the industry they claim to fight, while ignoring the facts of how much meat consumption has skyrocketed since establishing these 'family' farms, and the focus on ending 'factory' farms seems to imply that the new 'family' farm is not committing any act of cruelty. many people out there hate any form of animal abuse, and fully support animal welfare. hardly anyone wants to support brutality as seen in videos such as Earthlings, which focuses on the factory farm model as evidence to go vegan. these people sadly will have very little to convince them that eating from a 'ethical' farm is wrong. after all, they still believe they need meat and milk, and if all they see is cows living peacefully on a large pasture, and even the occasional lick on the cheek if they pass such a farm by on a walk to their church for example, how are they going to see this and assume it's the same cruelty as seen in Earthlings?

even worse, there is the promotion of hunting animals for food as 'more ethical, fair, sustainable, and drug-free way to get meat'. many cite flawed data of humans being hunter gatherers and that hunting is 'our natural way to get meat for the table'. along with this, the 'animals are never caged or bred solely for human consumption and it's more fair to the animal because we are doing the same thing natural predators do, and a deer won't see a human hunter any differently than he already sees a cougar'

the problem is that again, some 'vegans' are lulled to promoting this as a 'baby step' towards abolition, and see it as the end of animal agriculture entirely, even going so far as to claim 'i'm not against people who hunt for the meat/for survival, only those who hunt exclusively for the trophy'

these are also apologists. and hardly the image of veganism which Donald Watson intended when creating the term. veganism was never meant to be used to promote any form of animal use over another. and treating animals better or hunting them 'like lions' isn't going to make their killing ok. here's an example of the flawed logic. take this sentence, one often used by those who claim deer hunting is fair and ethical and if done for food is justifiable, and fill the blanks with 'dog,' 'cat,' or even 'human' and recite it again:

"I am not against hunting of [   ] for food, as it is more fair, ethical, and natural than factory farming. i'm only against it if done for the trophy"

"hunting [    ] prevents overpopulation of [     ] and their starving to death"

i suppose no one would use such logic to promote killing humans for meat, or killing humans for population control, would they? so why would any self-respecting vegan, who fights for an end to animal agriculture and use at all, defend any form of hunting 'for the meat' as if it were any different than for the trophy? is the murder of humans legitimized by using their flesh? if so i guess Jeffrey Dahlmer should have been released from prison as he 'only hunted his human victims for their meat' instead of 'for the hell of it' then? no....

hunting is responsible for mass extinction of the last living examples of natural life upon the Earth. it goes against survival of the fittest as many hunters cull the fit, vs the weak as a natural predator would. by no means can any vegan promote the killing of ANY animal as 'humane' or 'fair'. not without being able to include their own species or pets into the same equation. being perfectly ok with someone who hunts deer only for food or survival should have no problem with anyone doing the same when killing humans or pets. judging another being's life based on their species, or being ok with killing of certain species for food and not recreation, while being against such use of their own kind founders to speciesism, racism and discrimination based on another's species.

" In our travels, we've encountered many other creatures, perhaps even stranger looking than ourselves. "

---Star Trek: The Next Generation 'Evolution'

Hunting's real goal isn't what you think!

Time and time again i deal with public as well as animal rights advocates who fail to understand the true purpose behind hunting and as a result, it is often derided as a minority (using statistics coming straight from the propaganda machine itself,  the Fish and Wildlife Services, run by hunters for hunters) and even considered a back issue in the area of animal rights activism because it's not as threatening as the slaughter of animals on factory farms.

this is where i must correct many issues surrounding the current state of hunting in the United States as well as its true goal that i have found out over twenty years of being in the hunting culture of the South. here in Kentucky (and it's not that much different from states like Texas, Alabama, or Tennessee, with regards to participation and culture) hunting is a very popular belief, often times cited as part of the Christian faith itself, and yes, Christianity in the form of Conservative Baptist and Catholicism are predominantly heavy in this area. i cannot even travel in what is often called 'the middle of nowhere' without seeing at least a half dozen churches on my way. the two are often used together, as is the case with Christian Bowhunters, and even religion is used to promote or defend deer hunting against the new term used for animal rights advocates, the 'anti's'.

hunting is pretty much 90% of the culture in Owensboro, situated on the river in Daviess County, Kentucky, only a few miles away from Rockport, Indiana via the Ohio River bridge. twenty years ago, hunting was still a controversy among the population, and the number of active hunters was a mere 25%, of our 50,000 people, and not many were comfortable revealing themselves as hunters among the public, afraid of opposition or insults from animal lovers, who, while non-vegan themselves, saw hunting as unnecessarily cruel and obsolete practice in the 20th Century then (after all, there are plenty of animals already dying on farms for food, right?). today, however, hunting in Owensboro is as popular as video games were during the first time the Nintendo Entertainment Systed was released in 1985. kids even say it's better than playing video game shooters 'because it's real!'. while in 1998, the idea of giving a child a gun, especially given the Columbine Massacre, was taboo. today, however, it is standard practice to teach kids to handle guns, shoot benign herbivores, and then pose with their kill and the picture framed in a wooden picture frame saying on it, 'Baby's first deer!' or 'Grandpa's little deer slayer'

getting back to the issue regarding animal rights, because of figures like Ted Nugent, the recent onslaught of 'ethical' slaughter/farming, a new movement known as the 'Ethical hunters' are showing up. teaching kids, promoting hunting as sustainable, fair, more humane than factory farming, or even considered population control and therefore being responsible for the fact we even HAVE wildlife at all. hunting is oftentimes linked with environmentalism and conservation and even groups such as the World Wildlife Fund, Defenders of Wildlife support hunting, citing again, sources paid by hunting organizations, as proof that hunting 'works' and  keeps animals from starving to death. animal advocates even make claims, again, same sources, that hunting only makes up "5% of the population of the United States Population and is in sharp decline" (quote source: In Defense of Animals)

5 percent? that's a bit low if you ask me, given how that would hardly cover the state of Kentucky, much less the rest of the Southern United States, where hunting is pretty rampant lately. that figure may have made since in the 1970s when people seemed active against hunting in animal rights groups, and when hunting was still overall,  taboo in many areas, derided as animal cruelty and unnecessary due to 'modern' farming in the here and now. however, twenty years have passed since i started fighting hunting (and getting beaten occasionally, and even being jailed once for a day when i wouldn't shut my mouth near a hunter who walked into a store chiming in how he bagged his prize buck) and i have seen hunting getting more and more popular, and  the number of active hunters is rising dramatically. that 5% figure is no longer valid, and is taken from the fish and game services themselves, who want the average public concerned at least for animal welfare, to believe hunting isn't worth worrying about. in fact, i have also witnessed first-hand, even moving many times living in a travel trailer, to many woods, and seeing the deer population also in sharp decline, not hunters, as is popularly stated on animal groups and even stated by activists themselves.

A recent event was the culling of deer in Shawnee Park,  back when i first joined Facebook in late 2008. the park's goal was eliminating the entire herd, and amidst opposition from animal groups, it was still done, and the entire park lost the entire deer population, with only pictures of the aftermath being lines of bodies stacked side by side. if hunting was about management and keeping wildlife around, why eliminate an entire herd in a park?

another recent event, this one only a day old or so, was the elimination by helicopter of the Wedge Wolf pack, again, the entire pack was killed. not managed, or as is the popular repeated quote by those buying the hunting propaganda, force-bred to satisfy hunting blood  lust. the fact is, that hunting has but one goal, one i have learned by being in the culture, having a blue-collar lifestyle myself, to where i blend in with the people that i have learned a few of their dark secrets undercover. that goal is the total extinction of large or invasive to 'human progress' wild animals, namely animals like deer, wolves, bears, cougars, and many other species, for hopes of using the land for free-range cattle farms, subdivisions, human school and shopping districts, and so on. hunting has no plans to save wildlife, they want you and every other citizen concerned with the cruelty to believe they are the reason wildlife still exist. the fact is, the Wedge pack was extincted in their local area due to complaints from, yes, surprise, cattle farmers. the BLM is doing similar with horses, with cruel roundups and killings and using cattle land need as the reason. hunting is more a threat in my opinion than any factory farm for this one reason alone--one can always breed more cattle, pigs, sheep, horses, and the like. but when rhinos, deer, bears, and many other wonderful, innocent species are eliminated by hunters, you cannot breed more. when they're gone, they're gone. right here i witness the ever-increasing destruction of our entire whitetail deer herd,  and the ironic surprise of three more free-range cattle farms being built right where the deer once stood, and were recently hauled away by private game wardens via convoys of ATVs, golf carts, and pickup trucks. anyone who thinks hunting isn't trying to remove wildlife and make them extinct hasn't been following the trail of extinct animals due to hunters. such as the passenger pigeon and American Bison in the state of Kentucky (and they're rare anywhere else). anyone who thinks hunting isn't trying to eradicate wildlife has never had the hot breath of hunters drilling into you their hatred of 'the rats with horns' or 'overgrown goats' they call deer. anyone who thinks hunting has no plans to extinct the wildlife has never seen how the DNR and Defenders of Wildlife, even Obama himself, supported the delisting of wolves from the only protection they had, being on the Endangered Species list. and if not to plan their extinction, what else explains removing a threatened species from that list? i urge everyone to make a stand, to put hunting in more focus in attempt to ban it. and be consistant, head-strong, and continue to make your state representatives aware that hunting is not something we want in our world.