The Stanley Kramer film "Bless the Beasts &
Children" tells the story of a group of misfit kids at a summer
camp and their journey to free captured plains buffalo penned up so
that hunters can come and pay good money to shoot them. The buffalo
cannot run away or escape and they've been well fed so they've become
fat and lazy and dependent upon humans for survival. What's the
expression? "Like shooting fish in a barrel."
Here in the United States and even right here in the
Harlem Valley, people have set up ranches stocked with native and
exotic wildlife, some of it rare, some threatened. Zoos and animal
farms that can no longer keep their rhino's and gazelles, find a ready
market there. Here too people come and pay good money for a chance to
shoot an animal that is not going to run away and save themselves the
expense and trouble of traveling to a foreign land and hunting the way
real hunters do: by stalking their prey.
That's what canned hunting is. And it's a horrid thing.
The worst kind of murder.
Yet, Assemblyman Greg Ball supports this type of
hunting, claiming on the floor of the Assembly that if the New York bans the use of
exotic, non-native animals from canned hunts held within the state
that the next step is that the state will ban the shooting of white
-tailed deer, then the state will take away everyone's guns and finally
we'll all have chips in our backs. (see the video clip
here). He also claims he represents 'thousands of hunters in his
district' whom, one might assume, has given him their blessing to fight
for this abominable practice in their name.
He calls it "the slippery slope bill to make hunters
into outlaws." He also offers to wrestle any member of the legislature
who does not believe he loves animals. He didn't say if he would
wrestle naked in jello, but if he does, I'll buy a ticket just for the
guffaws.
Personally, the way I look at it, if you want to shoot
an ibex or a
rhinoceros, go to Africa.
JmG
Introduced by M. of A. GLICK, P. RIVERA, LAVELLE, BENEDETTO, McDONOUGH,
MILLMAN, BING, PAULIN, MAYERSOHN, GREENE -- Multi-Sponsored by -- M.
of A. COOK, DINOWITZ, GALEF, MAISEL, McENENY, PHEFFER, SWEENEY, TITUS
-- read once and referred to the Committee on Environmental Conserva-
tion
AN ACT to amend the environmental conservation law, in relation to the
prohibition on canned shoots
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, REPRESENTED IN SENATE AND ASSEM-
BLY, DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:
1 Section 1. Paragraph a of subdivision 1 of section 11-1904 of the
2 environmental conservation law, as added by chapter 208 of the laws of
3 1999, is amended to read as follows:
4 a. The taking on such premises by any person {who pays a fee to take}
5 OF a live non-native big game mammal by any of the following means:
6 (1) the shooting or spearing of a non-native big game mammal that is
7 tied or hobbled;
8 (2) the shooting or spearing of a non-native big game mammal that is
9 staked or attached to any object;
10 (3) the shooting or spearing of a non-native big game mammal that is
11 confined in a box, pen, cage or similar container {of ten or less
12 contiguous acres} OR IN A FENCED OR OTHER AREA from which there is no
13 means for such mammal to escape;
14 (4) the deliberate release of a non-native big game mammal that is
15 confined in a box, pen, cage or similar container {of ten or less
16 contiguous acres} OR IN A FENCED OR OTHER AREA FROM WHICH THERE IS NO
17 MEANS FOR SUCH MAMMAL TO ESCAPE in the presence of any person who is, or
18 will be, shooting or spearing such non-native big game mammal.
19 S 2. This act shall take effect on the first of November next succeed-
20 ing the date on which it shall have become a law.
EXPLANATION--Matter in ITALICS (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
{ } is old law to be omitted.
LBD00661-01-7
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