when rich people attack
Make sure they know to follow that trail of Scooby Snacks to D.C.
Pussies With Guns:
For 60 years, Ralph A. Saggiomo has proudly been killing fish and game, both small and large. Name a domestic species, and he’s probably shot at it, wounded it, or killed it.
He says he was told one of his more recent kills was a Dall Sheep; more likely, it was a Texas Dall ram, a lucrative target because of its thick curly horns. The rams, a hybrid of Corsican and Mouflon sheep, are primarily bred to look like the Dall Sheep, native to the mountainous regions of Alaska and the northwest part of Canada. Dall sheep are a challenge to hunters because of their adept ability to escape into the steep mountainous slopes. Domesticated Texas Dall rams pose no such problems.
Whatever he killed -- “dispatched” and “harvested” are the terms hunters euphemistically prefer -- Saggiomo didn’t have to go more than 3,000 miles to the sub arctic mountains, he only had to go about 50 miles from his home to the Tioga Boar Hunting Preserve. Saggiomo’s day of killing, a gift from his family, was in a fenced-in area.
“It was a wonderful experience,” Saggiomo told the Pennsylvania House Game and Fisheries Committee, which was holding a hearing in equally remote Towanda, an hour’s drive east of Tioga, away from the major media and in an area not likely to bring many protestors. The Committee was in Towanda to hear testimony about a bill to ban what has become known as a “canned hunt.” For a few thousand dollars, Great White Hunters -- complete with rented guides, dogs, and guns or bows -- can go into a fenced-in area and shoot an exotic species. In most canned hunts, the animals have been bred to be killed, have little fear of humans, and are often lured to a feeding station or herded toward the hunter to allow a close-range kill. In some of the preserves -- Tioga denies it ever used these techniques -- animals are drugged or tied to stakes. Some of the “big cats,” recorded in investigative undercover videos by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Fund for Animals were declawed, placed in cages, and then released; the terrified and non-aggressive animals were then killed within a few yards of their prisons; some were killed while in their cages.
Canned hunts attract not only ethics-challenged pretend-hunters, but ethics-challenged celebrities as well. Among celebrities who have participated in canned hunts, and who mistakenly believe they are hunters and not cold-blooded killers, are Vice-President Dick Cheney, who has been on several hunts in which the kill was assured, and Troy Gentry of the country-rock duo, Montgomery Gentry.
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Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), with 10 co-sponsors, introduced a bill (S. 304) in February 2005 to ban the interstate transport of exotic animals for the purpose of them being killed on private preserves. “There is nothing sportsmanlike or skillful about shooting an animal that cannot escape,” said Lautenberg at the time he introduced the bill, and emphasized, “In an era when we are seeking to curb violence in our culture, canned hunts are certainly one form of gratuitous brutality that does not belong in our society.” That bill is buried in the Senate’s Subcommittee on the Judiciary. A companion bill (HR 1688), introduced in the House of Representatives by Sam Farr (D-Calif.), with 39 co-sponsors, is buried in the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security. Under the Republican-controlled Congress, neither bill is likely to emerge from committee.
For his part, President Bush wants to amend the Endangered Species Act to allow trophy-hunting Americans who kill endangered species in other countries to import them into the U.S. The proposal has roots in the Safari Club International; its political action committee has given about $800,000 in campaign contributions, mostly to Republican candidates, since 2000, according to an investigation by the Humane Society of the United States. The plan has the support of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, whose former deputy director was chief lobbyist for the Safari Club before his appointment by Bush. He is now with the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies.
Many of the animals on canned hunts are surplus animals bought from dealers who buy cast-off animals from zoos and circuses; the animals sold to the preserves are often aged and arthritic. Dozens of preserves have bought black bears, zebras, giraffes, lions, boars, and just about any species of animal the client could want, solely to be killed, photographed, and then skinned, stuffed, and mounted. Ralph Saggiomo’s sheep may have come from a breeder in Missouri. The proprietors at Tioga, said Saggiomo, “were gracious, humane and helpful.”
Those “humane” proprietors are the Gee family, which believes their “preserve” is really a private farm. Like ones that grow alfalfa and corn. A 1,550 acre private farm -- with a fenced-in area of about 150 acres to make that “sure shot” more probable. And, while people “from all over the world” are killing animals at Tioga, the “farm” operation provides significant “economic benefits” to the community, according to Michael Gee. There are 14 Pennsylvania farms and about 1,000 in the nation that the proprietors believe are the poster children for the Chambers of Commerce and, most certainly, the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service.
This particular “farm,” according to its website, “features high success rate hunting, youth hunts, hunts with dogs, guided hunts, trophy hunts, Sunday hunting . . . virtually any type of big game hunt you can imagine.” Whatever “you can imagine” costs $70 a day for food and lodging, plus a kill fee and supplementary costs for skinning and mounting. Pay $595 and you can kill a Texas Dall ram, rocky mountain ram, or Corsican ram. Buffalo are at least $1,250. Elk bulls come for $2,000. And, just in case you have trouble killing one of the nation’s 30 million white-tailed deer -- 1.6 million of them in Pennsylvania alone -- during the bow, crossbow, muzzleloader, rifle, or shotgun seasons, just come to Tioga. For $1,000 “and up,” you can get that elusive buck, with a 10-point rack suitable for mounting in your very own trophy room in suburban America. Tioga’s rates are at the lower end of the scale. At other preserves, prices for white-tailed deer, with trophy-sized racks, can be more than $5,000. The costs for some of the exotic “trophy”-class animals, usually found only in sub-Saharan Africa, are well over $15,000.
Tioga, like most preserves, guarantees a kill. The clients are told they “may hunt as long as you wish until you get what you wish.” No hunting licenses are required, there are no limits, Sunday hunting is permitted, and “kills are usually made from 25 to 100 yards.” This “farm” even tells prospective clients, “Wild goat and sheep with large horns are numerous. Hunting them is great sport for the hunter.” The rocky mountain ram, with “their big, sweeping, curled horns make a great trophy,” the Gee family tells prospective clients. Of course, there are some restrictions. No one under the age of 10 is allowed to shoot.
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