Blog - Joyful Curmudgeon - Blog
A Mary T. Hoffman Commentary from All-Creatures.org

 

"Joyful Curmudgeon" An oxymoron?
No! I see all the beauty of God's creation and I'm joyful.  At the same time, I see all the suffering and corruption going on in the world, and feel called to help expose and end it so that we may have true peace and compassion.

 

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Wildlife – 9 January 2009
By Mary T. Hoffman

“The federal government’s wildlife killing program exists mostly for the benefit of cattle and sheep ranchers. The Animal Damage Control Bureau kills a wide range of wildlife, including birds, all at taxpayer expense. In 1994 the program called 1988’s numbers, the most recent available, a ‘snapshot year’ typical of the bureau’s activities.”

“No record is kept of wild animals poisoned, shot, or trapped by ranchers. ….ranchers undoubtedly kill far more than the government. Wildlife control is the main reason ranchers often carry guns on ‘their’ public land. Richard Lessner, deputy editor of the Arizona Republic, sums it up:

“ ‘Although they love to dress up like Gabby Hayes, ranchers are businessmen, and like all businessmen, they want to maximize profits. If bears or lions take a few calves, that is an economic loss, one which is most easily avoided by killing the predator. But those are my lions and bears. They belong to the public just as surely as the land. I object to the wholesale slaughter of the public’s wildlife so that a few dozen ranchers can sustain an uneconomical ‘lifestyle’ that became an anachronism 50 years ago.’ ”
– From Vegan: The New Ethics of Eating by Erik Marcus

I like the way Richard Lessner, in the above quotation, brings out the fact that the animals that our government and the ranchers kill belong to the public – the taxpayers!

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