Time to end hunting

Most wildlife dies young, victim of numerous dangers, the greatest being a hunter armed with a gun. Traps also take a share of fur-bearing animals, including domestic dogs running free near trails.   

We often hear of dogs lost during a walk with their human. How many trappers would contact the owner of a dog killed in one of their traps? It would be bad for business.  

Animals in the wild spend all their time foraging or hunting to survive. Killers with guns have too much leisure time, so they kill time and wild animals.

A perennial excuse for taking the lives of wild creatures is that they kill ungulates such as deer or moose, which are also prey animals for humans. 

Killers always find excuses to rationalize their addiction to destroying life. Killing gives them satisfaction nothing else can match.  

In springtime, wild animals are more vulnerable, having lost weight through the hardship of winter and some have young to nurse. However, three hunting clubs in B.C., lacking any sense of fairness or morality, are offering prizes to encourage hunters to "whack" wolves, bears, coyotes and even raccoons. 

Killing wildlife for fun is ugly, and if ever there was a barbaric cultural practice, whacking, or shooting down wildlife during nature's rebirth has to take the prize. 

There is an article online called "5 Ways to Stop the Killing." Written by Hope Ferdowsian and posted in October 2015, the five steps make sense if you are appealing to a compassionate person with an ability to empathize with non-human animals. The five steps will not work to reform a person who is devoid of empathy, and imagination.
Only laws can help stop such a person (poaching ignores the law).

While students in Kelowna demonstrated their concern over climate change, hunters remain in a Stone-Age time warp, terrifying and killing animals with 21st century weapons. Unlike other animals, hunters are not an endangered life form. Guns protect them.

What most people don't realize is that wolves practise birth control when food is hard to find. Humans are not as smart as wolves in that respect. We continue to reproduce in the face of famine and we love to tinker with nature to bend it to our wants – gloating over the corpse of a trophy animal is one such want. 

Governments have the power to end hunting. It would be the responsible thing to do, given that links between violence against people and animals is clear.

Helen Schiele, Kelowna