Loving Nature with a Gun
By Sierra Club National Director Paul Watson
To what dark depths of immorality is the Sierra Club USA
prepared to go to suck up to the hook and bullet crowd?
The Sierra Club clearly embraces the slaughter of wild animals
proclaiming that 20% of the membership are "hunters or anglers."
The Club hosts a web page showing Club leaders posing with macho smiles
of triumph with their slaughtered bleeding trophy victims. We see them
proudly gazing at the cameras with pitiful corpses of elk, deer,
antelope, geese, ducks and fish. You could see the frigging bulges in
their Eddie Bauer pants from getting off on the sick perversion of
killing an animal for kicks and sexual thrills.
And just to show you that the Sierra Club is an equal opportunity
organization when it comes to slaughter - there are woman hunters
featured. Like bow hunter Jean Legge of North Dakota, who appears all
smiles over a dead deer and proudly states that "hunting is more
enjoyable when you have the right equipment." I think the men agree
Jean.
Link: http://www.sierraclub.org/huntingfishing/whoweare.asp
Even in death the animals look nobler than the smirking cruel clowns
posing with their corpses.
It was a goddamn embarrassment to discover that as a National Director
of the Sierra Club, no one told me anything about the tens of thousands
of dollars we had allocated for "hunter outreach" programs.
Not only are we posting snuff snaps, we are actually spending money to
promote the murder of wildlife and enticing more of the sadistic death
deviants into joining the Sierra Club.
The Club even has an essay contest entitled: "Why I Hunt?"
Link: http://www.sierraclub.org/huntingfishing/whyihunt/
I wonder how many Sierra Club members realize that the Club is offering
a grand prize of an all expense paid trip for two to the Alaska
Sportsman's Lodge. The value of the prize is $12,200.
Hard to believe but the Sierra Club is actually spending donated funds
to send some sadistic bastard up to Alaska to kill a Grizzly or
whatever else he stumbles upon. Yep, thatŐs the way to protect nature -
shoot it.
I notice this sick little excursion was never brought before the Board
of Directors for approval.
Trophy hunters argue that hunting is a natural instinct of man. We come
from a hunter gathering background they say, yet I don't see any acorn
or root gathering going on. In fact I don't think there is a single
gathering club in the country. So if hunting is a natural part of our
instincts then how come gathering isnŐ't?
And there are few predators in nature that would target the biggest and
the strongest animals. Humans do so, only because we have devastating
weapons of mass wildlife destruction. Targeting the biggest and the
strongest is not natural or ecologically sound.
Behind all the chit-chat of conservation and tradition is the plain
simple fact that trophy hunters like to kill living things and many
like Vice President Dick Cheney like their victims helpless therefore
they patronize canned hunts and safaris parks to snuff out defenseless
captive animals.
The Sierra Club webpage posts an essay by Rick Bass entitled, "Why I
hunt? - Stalking wild game in a rugged landscape brings one
environmentalist closer to nature." Link:
http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200107/bass.asp
Tell me Rick, how does a gun bring you closer to nature unless you
enjoy the sight of red blood splattered on green leaves?
Is a camera not enough? Is it so hard to look at an animal without
wanting to kill it or is it only the fact that you kill it that makes
you hard"
Bass has a book promotion on the Sierra Club website where it describes
how he went to Alaska to investigate the threats to the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge. An excerpt describes how: "he now pursues
game with a primal passion coupled with an environmentalist's
conscience, providing nearly all the meat his family consumes." He hoped
to kill one caribou and bring home its meat.
Link:www.sierraclub.org/books/catalog/1578051142.asp
If I understand this right, Bass went to the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge to kill a caribou in order to write about the threats to the
caribou. What part of the words "wildlife refuge" did he not
understand? The meaning of the word "refuge" is a place of shelter and
protection from danger. I guess Bass does not think that caribou need
any refuge from his rifle.
And do we really want to promote "primal passion?" I thought this was a
term for rapists and serial killers.
Aldo Leopold is considered the father of wildlife ecology. In the early
part of the 20th Century he shot a wolf and wrote the following about
his experience:
"We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green
fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since,
that there was something new to me in those eyes - something known only
to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch;
I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves
would mean hunters' paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I
sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view."
Nor do I, but as a director of the Sierra Club for the last
three years I have encountered a great deal of hostility because I
don't hunt or fish. I have disrupted hunting and as a child I sabotaged
trap lines, releasing animals and destroying the vicious leg-hold
traps. But living compassionately with nature is not considered
admirable by the Sierra Club. They don't post our essays on
vegetarianism or anti-hunting despite the fact that many Sierra Club
members are vegetarian and eighty percent of the members do not hunt.
The Sierra Club has decided that nature is best loved with
a gun and bunny huggers need not apply. Apparently there is little room
for compassion and plenty of resources to promote violence,
exploitation and cruelty in the wilderness.
Paul Watson is a National Director of the Sierra Club if the United
States.
Last modified 3/26/06
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