Hunting is Murder on Animals |
Part XI -- Hunting and Children: Instilling the Wrong Values |
What values are we instilling in a child when we take him or her hunting or fishing?
Are we sending a message to our children that it is a perfectly wholesome and fun way
to spend a day shooting animals...
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...or tricking animals into swallowing hooks?
These are not the values we should be handing down to the next generation if we ever hope for a non-violent world.
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While many state wildlife departments place a high priority on the introduction of children to
hunting, fishing, and trapping, studies by psychologists, sociologists, and educators have shown a link
between childhood cruelty to animals and violent crimes committed as adults.
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The American Journal of Psychology stated that:
Violent crimes occur with twice the frequency with individuals that have had a history
of cruelty to animals as compared to those who do not have cruelty to animals in their backgrounds.
And anthropologist Margaret Mead said:
Children who display in cruelty to animals are likely to embark on a long career of
episodic violence and murder.
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Wouldn't it be better to teach our children respect for all life?
Isn't peace better than war? Isn't love better than hate?
I know many hunters claim that they do love their victims, but such schizophrenic love the world can do without.
Wouldn't it be better to inculcate in ourselves -- and our children -- a peacful attitude towards animals,
and at the very least a philosophy of 'live and let live,' rather than a delight in torturing and killing them?
There's no reason to be waging our war on wildlife: that need ended with the dawn of civilization.
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