The first time my naïve little brain encountered the notion of canned hunts occurred years ago when a friend in law enforcement sent me a video of a sting operation involving such an establishment. Much as I strived to perceive the issue from all sides, there was no way my mind could connect sportsmanship with hunting animals confined to small, often unnatural habitats and even cages in some instances.
I still can’t make that link but this article raises another facet of this mindset that reared its ugly head when the Atlantic strain of rabies arrived in New England: laziness. Whereas the article and podcast explore the cost of exotic species escaping their kill-friendly confines and eating crops, spreading disease, destroying property, and attacking a person every so often, the raccoons that hunters brought from the south to the mid-Atlantic for their convenience carried a rabies virus. But not just any rabies virus. One to which raccoons further north had no natural immunity. The unintended and ongoing consequences of this selfish act includes costs in the millions and loss of wild and domestic animal life. But at least in that case, so far at least no one has stepped forward to say that the benefits to the pseudo-sportsmen of importing such animals outweighed the cost.
So maybe that’s what it takes—i.e. a fatal disease—before a selfish few will consider the consequences of their behavior and put such consequences above their convenience.
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