Vilifying the HSUS
totally unbelievable … literally!
To the editor:
The director of the Sportsmen’s Alliance of Maine, a political organization, attacked the Humane Society of the U.S. for being a political organization, a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
He then stated accusingly that the HSUS only gave a small percentage of its contributions to local shelters. Well, there’s a very good reason for that — that was not the reason it was founded, just as Trahan stated in his own letter. As Trahan states himself it’s a “national animal rights group that specializes in animal rights litigation and using the referendum process to promote their agenda.” This is something called “the American way.” The Sportsmen’s Alliance is a political organization that specializes in hunters’ rights and uses its power to promote its agenda.
What are the real differences between these two political organizations? Well, to begin with the HSUS does give some of its money to local shelters all across the U.S. and internationally. How much of the Sportsmen’s Alliance budget goes to local shelters? The HSUS’s every thought and effort is done out of a simple love for animals and the need to afford animals basic standards of protection and decency. The Sportsmen’s Alliance is to safeguard animals that they hunt so that there’s an ample supply of them in the future for their hunting and trapping pleasure.
The HSUS would like to get referendums on the ballot to oppose hunting by hound dogs and the baiting of bears. Neither of these aforementioned methods sounds particularly “sporting” to me. You would think an organization whose very name, Sportsmen’s Alliance, incorporates this sense of “fairness” and would be opposing them also. Baiting bears, the act of feeding bears regularly and then shooting them as they eat once hunting season is on, paints the same unthinkable picture as a dog or cat owner doing the same to their pets. This distasteful act does not even require a hunter to hunt anymore. And hunting by dogs does the same thing. The dogs do the work and the “hunter” follows along to shoot the animal, many times after the dogs have inflicted substantial pain and distress.
Trahan says of the HSUS, “Their political tactics can be ruthless.” Political tactics being ruthless is just a way of saying what the HSUS does is effective. If anything is ruthless, it’s the way these animals are being hunted. Maine has had what many call a “proud tradition.” However, as long as we allow and accept any method to find and kill our animals, because we have lazy hunters who would rather use these despicable methods instead of using actual skills, Maine will no longer have anything of which to be proud.
Clare Kierstead
Presque Isle
