THE JOURNAL & TOPICS NEWSPAPERS | WEEK OF APRIL 20, 2008
Hunting Means Guns
By DEBBY RUBENSTEIN
Wagner Farm Rescue Fund (WFRF) and Have A Heart Farm (HAHF) President Debby Rubenstein notes:
In addition to the relocation issue of the WFRF animals, we have been involved in many issues that include joyous festival participation as well as the somber issue of protecting wildlife subjected to unfavorable proposed hunting laws. We have also mourned with an organization on the recent passing of one of their founding cattle members.
Speaking of wildlife, please make extra efforts to be watchful for and tolerant of wildlife who are in their busiest time of the year with their own home construction and repairs, as well as their birthing season.
Birds are often irritable when protecting nests, and many animal habitats are low to the ground and can often be inadvertently disturbed through human activity. And, please make extra efforts to drive slowly and carefully as the time is soon approaching when goslings will be crossing our roads.
Information received from my animal welfare contacts in Wisconsin reveals disturbing issues in regard to hunting. Past hunting issues have included the shooting of feral cats as well as doves, which ironically are the bird symbol of peace. Current issues include the hunting of captive wildlife by trained hunting dogs, including hunting on ground birds during nesting season, the extending of the bobcat hunting season due to lack of snow in certain areas which made the hunting less successful, and the proposition to create a wolf hunting season.
While hunting is often referred to as a sport, dictionary definitions of a sport refer to activities that are done in amusement and done as a pleasant pastime. In light of violence being perpetrated against society with guns, it is at best flippant to describe acts meant to commit killings as hunting does as a sport.
Pro-gun activists may state otherwise but the easy availability of guns to the general public, whatever the reason for the guns may be, is one of the primary reasons why mass murders are being committed on an increasing basis.
Whatever reasons guns are being made available to the public in general is increasing the number of times that these guns are used out of context, or being used for the expressed purpose of committing mass murder. The fact that measures are now having to be taken to legally keep gun purchases to a maximum of one gun per person per month is in itself a deplorable statement as to the state of our society and an increasing general penchant for killing. The growing violence in our society is evidenced just by the increasing number of schools, now even at the junior high level, that are being threatened with violence by students. Additionally, the level that our society has lowered itself to was recently evidenced by the number of times that Chicago print and television news published and aired footage of the bullet-riddled body of the cougar that was recently shot in Chicago.
According to one of the numerous bystanders interviewed by news crews, as many as 24 shots were fired. It has been reported that seven shots actually hit the animal, which begs the question as to where in the vicinity the remaining flying bullets lodged.
As cougar sightings have already been going on for about a month ranging from Wisconsin, to North Chicago, and to Wilmette, it also brings to question as to why there doesn't seem to have been any definitive plans of action in the Chicago area as to how to handle the cougar if it were sighted, other than to shoot and kill it where ever it happened to be, regardless as to how many people and perhaps children were present.
While the lives of the police officers and neighborhood residents were at risk and the situation had to be addressed accordingly, not only was the cougar an innocent victim of being displaced and ending up in an urban environment, but it was killed with bystanders present and the ongoing gawking of people and news footage with little mention, sadness, or respect for an innocent and displaced living being that was killed and so violently. For the sake of both human and animal lives, police and wildlife experts need to start formulating formal and humane plans as to how to deal with the increasing displacement of wildlife into urban areas that were previously not indigenous to the Midwest area at all.
Fortunately for the sake of society, there are organizations that promote ongoing peace for all living beings. WFRF and HAHF extend our condolences to the national farm animal welfare organization, Farm Sanctuary on the recent loss of one of their founding cattle residents. Opie's plight became a catalyst for the work that Farm Sanctuary does in their no-downers program in regard to the treatment endured by sick cattle in particular in stockyards and slaughterhouses. Please learn more about this issue at http://www.farmsanctuary.org/.
Opie, who was left for dead at a stockyard when he was just a few hours old because he was too sick and weak to stand, was rescued by Farm Sanctuary co-founder Gene Baur. Though Farm Sanctuary was just a newer organization and sanctuary at the time, the loving care that Opie received from the Farm Sanctuary founders and volunteers resulted in eighteen safe and happy years for Opie at Farm Sanctuary.
The situation that Opie faced and the early years of Farm Sanctuary closely resemble the situation of Glenview's Bart the Bull, and the early years of Wagner Farm Rescue Fund. Opie, like Bart, was a Holstein breed. Like Opie, Bart had originally been slated for slaughter before being rescued. Farm Sanctuary was in its early years when they rescued Opie, and Bart was the catalyst in the forming of Wagner Farm Rescue Fund. Opie lived double the life span that Bart did, and had many more good years of life at a rescue sanctuary than Bart did, but both lived out their lives knowing safety and love in rescue, and were instrumental as catalysts in the growth of organizations that are dedicated to farm animal rescue. Also, Opie and Bart were both massive in size but were as gentle as they were large, and the presence of their spirits will remain with the people and the organizations that will always love them. In different but continuing ways, both will remain the leaders of their herds and as symbols of farm animal welfare. Their lives will also continue to serve as reminders that good can and will conquer evil as long as good people never give up, and that a small number of people with even limited resources can make a positive difference greater than ever imagined just as long as their greatest resource is always their hearts.
WFRF can be found online at http://www.wagnerfarmrescuefund.org/.
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Wagner Farm Rescue Fund and Have A Heart Farm welcome support from individuals, corporations, and foundations to maintain their ongoing efforts to promote humane treatment, good living conditions and lifetime care for Wagner Farm animals and other animals in need.
If you would like to donate to the Rescue Fund or Have A Heart Farm, please do so by making checks payable to either organization and mail to:
P.O. Box 2815
Glenview, IL 60025
or online donations may be made at http://www.justgive.org/giving/donate.jsp?charityId=30109