Why blast away at beauty?

Susan Rogan, Whitehorse
Yukon News, November 5, 2008, letter to the editor

I listened to a radio interview this morning on CHON FM with a local Whitehorse hunter. He spoke glowingly about his hunting experience in a pristine Yukon area. The beauty of the area and the ease of killing a gorgeous ram were the highlights of his trip.

"The ram was one of the top five in the world. We watched him for five days. They're not afraid yet, they don't take off. They've never been hunted. They're walking by 20 metres away from us, they're not afraid of us, they're not mad at us for being there. It was like National Geographic, just beautiful. Let alone getting a big ram, the beauty back there is something else."

Thanks for destroying the situation that you, the hunter, found so beautiful.

Can we possibly consider that these animals have dignity and right to live as beings integrated with their natural surroundings, free of humans with high-powered rifles? Even if they are simply a resource to be managed and exploited, can we not consider that they have more value alive, unafraid and beautiful than shot dead?

I was in Africa on the Kruger Game Preserve about five years ago. We went to a place called Sabi Sabi which used to be a hunt camp. The people working there said that almost all of the hunt camps in that area had changed over to resorts with 'Game Drives' as their main activity instead of killing trips.

As a result, they were making much, much more money; they had a whole lot more visitors with all the spinoffs for the local economy, and the staff said they vastly preferred the quality of human being that visited. They also preferred that these people visited to admire rather than to kill, boast, and take home 'trophies.'

I find the glorification of blowing away beautiful animals and ruination of their innocence of human danger to be shortsighted, bloodthirsty, perverted and disturbing, especially as the main goal of the trip seems to be 'trophy hunting,' not providing for the needs of life. There is no way that these people are hunting simply to feed themselves.

A trip into the mountains costs plenty of money. There is no need for humans to be out there hunting in these areas, or hunting at all. I suppose that hunting will continue, but is it really so glorious that we need to hear about it on the radio with our morning coffee?

Does anybody else feel the way I do?

I cannot comprehend the joy people get out of their trophies, and out of destroying that which they found beautiful. Further, I also marvel at people who consider themselves to be hippie, nature-loving types but also go out to kill an animal with their friends in the fall, presumably because they see it as a back to nature, and a Yukon thing to do.

Think it over, folks.

Susan Rogan, Whitehorse