Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/68594
a movement, it professes a desire to minimize, if not end, animal suffering, yet it condones and even advocates violence against humans which, at last check, were mammals quite similar physically to other animals. Animal rights activists have carried out bombings and arson attacks on ski resorts, universities, scientists, furriers, farmers, medical researchers, hunters and others who utilize animals in ways the self-appointed animal police don't approve. The AP reported recently that a 27-year-old Ohio woman was arrested and charged for trying to hire a hit man to shoot or cut the throat of someone 12 years old or older wearing fur "outside a library near a playground in her hometown." She wanted to be on site so she could display "papers" afterward and call attention to her beliefs. Ah, those all-powerful beliefs again. The anti-hunting movement's professed dislike for animal suffering also breaks down in its adherents' insistence on the unrestrained increase in wolves. Noble creatures though they are, wolves remain what they always have been – apex predators that harass, chase, terrorize, bite and hamstring their prey over the course of hours, sometimes days before eating them alive. And this minimizes animal suffering? The anti-hunting community's attitude that "we know what is right" is shared by religious zealots of all stripes, as is their urge to force this "rightness" on everyone else. Society's willingness to kowtow to this unrelenting pressure leads to ever-decreasing personal freedom. In 1994 a New Jersey homeowner was dragged into court under animal abuse charges for killing a rat that had been eating his garden tomatoes. One shudders to contemplate the lynch mob that might coalesce around a farmer who traps and drowns a skunk in his barn. What happens if you elect to shoot Old Ruff when he comes down with cancer and you don't want to subject him or your wallet to $10,000 worth of surgery and chemotherapy? If such hypotheticals seem a stretch, recall that Bureau of Land Management range scientists across the West are forced to watch helplessly as herds of feral, domestic horses overgraze fragile desert grasslands, to the detriment of dozens of native species from reptiles and tortoises to bighorn sheep. Horse lovers with romantic notions of "wild" mustangs (thank you Hollywood) convinced Congress to pass the Wild Horse and Burro Act in 1971. It essentially makes feral horses on public land sacred icons. Alas, these icons replicate, and feeding them in perpetuity costs millions. President Obama's FY11 budget asked for $75.7 million for the WHB program, plus an additional $42.5 million to buy a wild horse "preserve" somewhere in the Midwest to warehouse excess horses until they die of old age. That's right, taxpayers spend more than $20,000 per horse each year over its 30-year lifespan. How much native wildlife habitat would that kind of money protect? Do you suppose desert bighorns, pronghorns, mule deer, elk, tortoises, sage thrashers, meadowlarks and dozens of other native species get $75 million a year at BLM? nimal rights zealots have done a distressingly effective job at proselytizing, propagandizing and brainwashing society toward their version of "the one true way." Under the guise of "kindness," they have engineered a paradigm shift such that journalists now seek out animal rights groups as authority figures on wildlife, conservation and the environment. In many, if not most cases, these "experts" are merely emotionally charged enthusiasts and self-anointed guardians of "helpless creatures with no voice." There is precious little science, biology or reason behind their pronouncements. But what urban/ suburban soccer mom or dad wants to argue against anyone who loves animals and wants to "save" them? Ultimately, education is the solution, but in the meantime it might be wise to stand up against the insidious, perfidious propaganda and pseudo- environmentalism of the self-appointed animal rights thought-police. Either that or we surrender more and more of our autonomy and freedom. A SPOR TIN G CL ASSICS 60