3/2/04
Dear Post-Standard:
Raise your hands if you would accept the results of a
study about public attitudes toward child abuse, conducted by pederasts.
No hands? How about a study about public attitudes toward hunting,
conducted by
hunters? The latter is what we have with the study lauded in Michael
Kelly's 2/22 outdoors column, Study finds youths in hunt."
The study, "Factors Related to Hunting and Fishing
Participation Among the Nation's Youth," conducted by the business,
Responsive Management, does not "find" what it purports to
find; it manipulates or invents it.
Responsive Management, which is responsive only to
consumptive users of animals, is an opinion MANAGEMENT business, not an
opinion RESEARCH business. They are hired by such organizations as the
National Shooting
Sports Foundation, Safari Club International, and various
hunting oriented state game agencies (whose salaries are dependent upon
the sale of hunting licenses). It proudly states, on its web site, that
its
clients include most sportsmen's organizations. Their self-description, "The
premiere survey research firm on natural resource and outdoor recreation
issues," is superimposed over a photo of a hunter.
What do they do for these pro-hunting/trapping/fishing
agencies and organizations? They provide marketing and business plans,
policy analyses, and public relations plans, aimed at changing public
attitude toward these forms of animal killing - or they just skew the
polling questions in such a way that it appears that the public accepts the
killing.
Executive director, Mark Damian Duda, writes "outdoor" (i.e.
hunting) columns and has received numerous awards from pro-hunting
organizations and agencies. Other staff members are likewise participants
in
animal killing.
Responsive Management's appeal to clients notes that, ".outdoor
recreational opportunities ultimately depend upon the positive opinions
and attitudes
of Americans. They key to
instilling this commitment is through effectively designed public relations
campaigns. Public relations is the most effective
way to form a favorable opinion. It is clear
that public relations efforts must target specific groups with specific
messages." They advise on "the types of messages that will
and will not resonate with the public."
RM will "focus an organization on where it wants to be and
what communication strategies can help get it there." Its policy analysis
first step, "initiation," begins when a potential problem is identified. It
is clear what this "problem" is - a decline in hunting in the
past 2 decades.
It acknowledges that rarely does someone become a hunter
without "hunting initiation," before the age of 20, by a father
or father figure, or by exposure to hunting. The solution is to indoctrinate
children
into hunting.
RM would have us believe that "Ninety-one percent of
American youths think it is OK for boys to hunt" and that "34 percent had
shot a gun within the past year," when their web site's inflated hunting
figures state that only 7% of Americans hunt each year. Whom did RM poll,
the children of the mutants from "Deliverance."?
RM's agenda is most evident in their comments on public
opinion on trapping. They blame the public revulsion at this depraved
activity, not on its inherent cruelty, but on lack of public understanding.
RM is clearly not neutral on the topic: "Regulated trapping is
an important way for biologists to collect information about wildlife.
Research shows that even endangered species can benefit from
trapping." They warn trappers that trappers must recognize that the public
cares deeply about wildlife and does not take lightly the killing of
wildlife, but that these unfortunate ethical quirks on the part of the
sentimental public are explainable because "the public is highly
uninformed about trapping."
RM's focus is "allaying the fears of Americans toward the
perceived harm caused by trapping." RM, at no point, acknowledges the real,
not "perceived," harm caused to animals caught in these sadistic
devices. RM
assures their clients that trapping, itself, is not the problem; the words
used to describe it to the public are what counts. The proof that the public
is so uninformed is that photos of actual animals, writhing in pain, in
traps, actually upsets them!
Causing suffering is not the issue; activists exposing the
suffering and the public reacting to it in an emotionally appropriate
way, are. Trappers cannot deny the reality - the cruelty - so they are
advised
to
pretend that they have "scientific methods" and "credibility through reason" on
their side, to bamboozle the public into accepting it.
The obfuscation of those who derive perverse pleasure and
profit from killing animals is transparent to those of us who view animals,
themselves, as nature's ends, not means to rapacious human ends.
Go to
www.all-creatures.org/cash to learn why the
vast majority of Americans of all ages oppose hunting.
Susan Gordon, Representative
The Committee to Abolish Sport Hunting
Box 562
New Paltz, NY 12561
