Antone's Nightclub
Not a Solution
RECEIVED Wed., Nov. 29, 2017
Dear Editor,
Veronica Meewes' piece on her first hunting trip in Central Texas ["The Wild Hunt," Food, Nov. 24] is so pro-hunting that the hunting industry in Texas must have done backflips upon reading it. But as someone who opposes hunting, I found it inaccurate and misleading. First, justifying shooting wild hogs because they are "... invasive, they're everywhere, and they're detrimental to the land" is not a solution any more than it is for doing the same for human overpopulation, or the environmental destruction they are currently causing to our planet. Nor is it a solution for human-created global warming and the global destruction it will cost to our coastal cities, the displacement of communities it will create in poor countries, and the billions upon billions of dollars of destruction it will create around the world, and the billions of dollars it will cost to mitigate. If you want to stop wild pig overpopulation in this state and stop the destruction they create then fund grants to our state's universities to develop a natural form of birth control that can be delivered via food dropped in their habitats. I suspect this isn't a serious option for our state's leaders since money can't be made by hunting them. Hunting doesn't work to control wild pig overpopulation. Logan Crable admitted that in this article by saying you can shoot 100 of them a night and not make a dent in their population. Finally, let's be honest and admit why people hunt: They like killing animals. In a society plagued by human violence and mass shootings, this is disturbing. It reveals so much about our willingness to oppose violence to humans but take joy in unleashing it upon other animals.
Veronica Meewes' piece on her first hunting trip in Central Texas ["The Wild Hunt," Food, Nov. 24] is so pro-hunting that the hunting industry in Texas must have done backflips upon reading it. But as someone who opposes hunting, I found it inaccurate and misleading. First, justifying shooting wild hogs because they are "... invasive, they're everywhere, and they're detrimental to the land" is not a solution any more than it is for doing the same for human overpopulation, or the environmental destruction they are currently causing to our planet. Nor is it a solution for human-created global warming and the global destruction it will cost to our coastal cities, the displacement of communities it will create in poor countries, and the billions upon billions of dollars of destruction it will create around the world, and the billions of dollars it will cost to mitigate. If you want to stop wild pig overpopulation in this state and stop the destruction they create then fund grants to our state's universities to develop a natural form of birth control that can be delivered via food dropped in their habitats. I suspect this isn't a serious option for our state's leaders since money can't be made by hunting them. Hunting doesn't work to control wild pig overpopulation. Logan Crable admitted that in this article by saying you can shoot 100 of them a night and not make a dent in their population. Finally, let's be honest and admit why people hunt: They like killing animals. In a society plagued by human violence and mass shootings, this is disturbing. It reveals so much about our willingness to oppose violence to humans but take joy in unleashing it upon other animals.
Ernest Samudio