Canned Hunting, from game ranches in Texas to private reserves in South Africa

The Travel section of the Sunday, April 9, New York Times included an article headed, "Trophies in a Barrel: Examining 'Canned Hunting.'"
(Section 5, pg 10.)

It opens:
"'Canned Hunting' -- the sport killing of animals bred in captivity and released into enclosed surroundings with no chance of escape -- seems to generate controversy wherever it is practiced, whether on game ranches in Texas or in private reserves in South Africa.

"In South Africa, the controversy came to a climax last fall when a panel of experts commissioned by the country's environmental minister recommended a total ban on the practice, which also includes the hunting of animals that are drugged, sedated or accustomed to humans. In the next two months, the South African Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism is expected to act on that recommendation by releasing for public comment the first draft of regulations on national hunting standards.

We read:
"The unsavory aspects of canned hunting in South Africa were first revealed in 'The Cooke Report,' a 1997 British documentary, which showed drugged lions being shot by foreign hunters from the backs of vehicles. The public, both in and outside South Africa, responded with outrage, but in the nine years since then, no national policy on game hunting has been put into effect to stop the practice.

You can read the whole article on line at http://travel2.nytimes.com/2006/04/09/travel/09heads.html

Canned hunting is also popular in America. And all "sport" hunting, a sport that involves unwilling and unarmed participants, involves horrible cruelty for the sake of entertainment. As Henry David Thoreau put it, "The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest."

The Travel section article gives us a nice opportunity for letters against sport hunting. The New York Times takes letters at letters [at] nytimes.com. Always include your full name, address, and daytime phone number when sending a letter to the editor. Remember that shorter letters are more likely to be published. And please be careful not to use any exact phrases from this alert or any others when sending letters to the editor. A paper will not publish letters that appear to be part of a campaign, so send a few original lines of your own.


(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. If you forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts, please do so unedited -- leave DawnWatch in the title and include this tag line.)