Over the years many hunting-related articles have been published on news sites and various other online publications. Those that allow reader comments will no doubt provide many examples where animal rights extremists attack anyone who dares not to live in their world. A fantasy world where animals have equal if not higher status than humans; a fantasy world where animals are in no way harmed or killed or utilised.
It’s not too often that you find a mainstream newspaper article calling out the rants of animal rights extremists. It was a pleasant surprise to read an article titled ‘When animal rights extremism exposes the worst of humanity’ by Garry Linnell in The Sydney Morning Herald. This piece was written in reply to the online abuse by animal rights extremists towards hunters following a recent event where a hunting guide was crushed to death by an elephant in South Africa.
One of Linnell’s first points in his article was how animal rights extremists’ religious-like zeal to place animals on equal footing with people actually exposes the worst in human traits. His words focused on the morbid celebrations of the animal rights community to the news of the death of hunter and guide Theunis Botha.
Botha was a renowned big-game hunter and guide, who had been running hunting safaris for more than three decades. These hunting safaris were legal and part of sustainable use conservation programs. His death occurred after his hunting party accidently came across a group of elephants. The elephants attacked and one grabbed and hoisted him with its trunk before it was shot. Unfortunately, Botha was crushed by the falling elephant.
As news spread of the death of Botha, animal rights activists from all around the world went into a frenzy of celebration to rejoice about an elephant killing a hunter. This led to a flurry of abusive social media postings on Botha’s personal Facebook site so his grieving family and friends could see.
In his article Linnell discussed how abusive social media posts moved from the delight of a hunter dying, to hate and then to just plain bile towards anyone associated with Botha or hunting. Linnell described these types of actions as the moral flaw at the heart of the beliefs of extreme animal liberators. He said that their misguided value system is also on display whenever someone is killed by a shark in our coastal waters. We are usually subjected to lectures about how humans are invading their territory and should stay well away. But common sense should dictate that Great White shark numbers in particular should be controlled or managed in some way to mitigate risk.
Digging deeper into the animal rights value system, Linnell suggests that their moral compass is beginning to tip wildly out of kilter. He finds their apparent disdain for human life hard enough to comprehend let alone hearing that some within the animal rights ranks think the extermination of the human race would be a positive outcome for the animals of this world. In reflection he ponders some relevant questions such as what other animal species on the planet places another member of the animal kingdom on an equal or higher footing? And what other species boasts members that apologise for its advances and triumphs? These appear to be very good questions to me.
It was refreshing to read an article from someone outside the hunting community that highlighted the impractical and outrageous values of the animal rights movement. It is relatively easy to find examples exposing a lack of human empathy within the animal rights community; therefore one can only agree with Linnell’s summary that animal rights extremists are an embarrassment to their own species.