Cheney faces heat for 'canned hunt'

[Harry Tuttle]

Cheney faces heat for 'canned hunt'

Vice President Dick Cheney's hunting trip to Pennsylvania has drawn fire from the Humane Society.
By Jeannette Walls with Ashley Pearson
MSNBC
Updated: 2:30a.m._ET Dec. 18, 2003
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/Default.aspx?id=3675813&p1=0

Dick Cheney is under fire for shooting birds. The Vice President has come under attack from an animal rights group for participating in a “canned hunt†in which he reportedly killed pheasants that were released for the purpose of being shot by hunters.


The increasingly low-profile V.P. was taken to Pittsburgh by Air Force Two earlier this week where his “security detail loaded him and his favorite shotgun into a Humvee,†and went to Rolling Rock Club in Ligonier Township, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. There, he and nine other hunting buddies shot at 500 ringneck pheasants, killing 417 of them. The V.P. was credited with offing 70 of the birds, as well as an unknown number of mallard ducks.

The shooting spree prompted an outraged letter from the Humane Society. “This wasn't a hunting ground. It was an open-air abattoir, and the vice president should be ashamed to have patronized this operation and then slaughtered so many animals," Wayne Pacelle, a senior vice president of The Humane Society of the United States, wrote in a letter of protest, according to ThePittsburghChannel.com. “If the Vice President and his friends wanted to sharpen their shooting skills, they could have shot skeet or clay, not resorted to the slaughter of more than 400 creatures planted right in front of them as animated targets.â€

 

[Frohickey]

Live pigeon matches used to be held in this country.

 

[JamisJockey]

Canned hunts give hunting a bad name. Canned hunts are for the weak.

 

[Standing Wolf]

...he reportedly killed pheasants that were released for the purpose of being shot by hunters...

That was the whole point. What are the leftist extremists going to complain about next: Cheney rode in a car that was designed to be driven on roads? Ate a sandwich that was made for the purpose of being eaten? Tied his shoes with laces that were meant to be tied?

Are leftist born stupid, or do they go to school for it?

 

[Texasbagman]

They are born stupid, school just makes it worse.

 

[Jeff White]

Canned hunts give hunting a bad name. Canned hunts are for the weak.

Someone should explain that to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. They raise phesants in the North/Central part of the state and have canned hunts on DNR land here in Southern Illinois. There is a flea or mite native to this part of the state that is harmful to phesants and they don't live in the wild down here. You'd upset quite a few hunters here by calling them weak...

Jeff

 

[Mike Irwin]

"that were released for the purpose of being shot by hunters."

BFD.

The Pennsylvania Game Commission stocked pheasants every year for almost 50 years.

All you had to do was figure out where they were stocking, and hunt there. The pheasants never strayed far.

 

[gunsmith]

Cheney

Is pretty good with a shotgun,anyone know what kind of
shotgun and what guage he was using?

As far as canned,I allways prefer bottled

 

[Dave R]

Millions and millions of chickens are raised to be killed for food. If you're going to eat bird for dinner, the Cheney way is more fun.

I don't think the birds care which way they go.

 

[wasrjoe]

I'm not a fan of canned shoots just because it seems... boring. But as Dave pointed out, they're nothing more than chickens being released for ~2 seconds.

 

[bigjim]

yes they Do! Birds all want to die in a meaningful way!

 

[gunsmith]

bigjim

yes they Do! Birds all want to die in a meaningful way!

only the bird brains wan't a meaningfull death

 

[Billmanweh]

I've never heard of anything like this. Are the birds released one at a time, like shooting skeet?

 

[artherd]

I do have to say, that's pretty weak in my professional opinion.

But only about as weak as buying meat at safeway.

Probally cleaner too (were they using lead-free shot?



Yeah, what kind of gun?

 

[GlockHobbit]

83 birds released into the wild

It says only 417 out of 500 were killed. Does this mean 83 birds were released into the wild that survived? Seems like the tree huggers would be happy.

 

[cracked butt]

Yawn

If he had hunted wild pheasants he might have been accused of tromping on some pristine public land that in the eyes of envirowhackos should be off limits to all humans, because it might harbor a rare three lined purple salamander or snail darter nests. Canned hunt or not, someone from the left would have been screaming about it.

 

[PeteyPete]

Next time Cheney should hunt liberals.

 

[Jeff Thomas]

You're right on that score, cb. PETA and like groups are so out of touch these days, they've lost all credibility. Too bad the Humane Society is down the same path.

An abattoir, eh? Oh my ...

Regards from TX

 

[HarryB]

This just in...

Arizona Fish and Game stock local lakes with trout for the purpose of being caught!


AND EATEN!!!

 

[Harry Tuttle]

word of the day

4 entries found for abattoir.
ab·at·toir __ (_P_)__Pronunciation Key__(b-twär)
n.

1. A slaughterhouse.
2. Something likened to a slaughterhouse: “The hand of God and mankind's self-inflicted blows seem equally heavy... giving a strong cumulative impression of the world as an abattoir†(Manchester Guardian Weekly).

plenty of tempest in this teapot:
http://www.google.com/search?q="rolling+rock"+pheasant+hunt&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&start=0&sa=N

Details of the exact nature of the hunt were also hard to come by. Officers at the private Rolling Rock Club, which meanders over 10,000 acres in Ligonier Township about a 90-minute drive from Pittsburgh, did not return numerous calls seeking comment. Employees reached in the club's dog kennels said they had been ordered not to speak to the news media. The employees added that they did not know what had become of Scott Wakefield, a dog handler at the club who was quoted by The Post-Gazette as saying that 500 birds had been released from nets for the hunt.
If nets were used, bird-hunting experts said, Mr. Cheney and his party were probably prepositioned with shotguns on the ground or in blinds in trees. Another possibility was that the birds were released from a tower, with Mr. Cheney and the others ready for them on the ground. A final possibility was that the pheasants were released early in the day or the night before, and Mr. Cheney and his companions then went after them on foot.
Whatever the case, hunters generally do not embrace any form of the practice as a substitute for the real thing.
"I don't see anything terribly wrong with it, but I don't think it should be confused with hunting," said Sid Evans, editor in chief of the outdoor magazine Field & Stream. Shooting pen-raised birds, he said, "is a great way to train dogs, and it's a great way to educate young hunters."
Mr. Cheney often hunts in the wild, and his office would not discuss how frequently he shoots pen-raised birds at private clubs. The Post-Gazette reported, however, that Monday's trip was the second time Mr. Cheney had visited Rolling Rock. The newspaper also said Mr. Cheney had spent Monday afternoon at the club shooting an undetermined number of mallard ducks.
In October, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, a Democratic presidential candidate, blew two pheasants out of the Iowa sky in two shots of his 12-gauge shotgun, a display meant to show his prowess as well as his support for the rights of hunters and an assault-weapons ban. Mr. Kerry downed the birds in a cornfield, not at a private club.
"Something here doesn't add up," said David Wade, Mr. Kerry's spokesman. "The Bush administration says the economy is improving, but their millionaire vice president has to hunt for his own food."
------------------------------------------------------------
Now why did I post this-- the right-wingers will say it's a knee-jerk anti-gun reaction. If they think that's it I'd like to point out that I occasionally shoot guns myself. However, unlike Dick Cheney, I was raised with a few normal American values. When you hunt, it's generally agreed in America that you actually only kill what you eat yourself. It's also not considered sporting to hunt
farm animals.
This practice described above, "shooting", is a decadent artifact of Victorian England. The landed rich, of course, hunted with dogs, a practice which requires a great deal of skill. As capitalists became wealthy, they couldn't really do that because a rich person who isn't a feudal lord doesn't have time to practice. There was then a craze for this "shooting" stuff, which basically involves just going out in funny clothes to somelace in the countryside where they let loose vast clouds of birds anyone who has a trigger finger
can hit.
Another interesting question- how much does it cost to fly in from Washington, go "shooting", and come back, all in your private plane? Given what we know about farm-raised birds, aren't they at least a few bucks each? I'm sure Dick can cover the costs himself, but how can anyone like this ever possibly relate to normal Americans?
It's hard to believe "shooting" could survive into the twenty-first century, but here it is. Bizarre.

http://staughton.indypgh.org/news/2003/12/11426.php

 

[Sean Smith]

Slow news day...?

 

[El Tejon]

While I've killed a few rail cars full of critters/pests, I can count the number of times I've gone hunting on both hands. How is what they do over in Penn's Woods different than what organizations like Quail Unlimited do???

 

[Bigjake]

“This wasn't a hunting ground. It was an open-air abattoir

LMAO. not only absurd, but complete with a bit of french for good measure

 

[BenW]

Even the State of liberal-nutzo California does pheasant releases. I think the Humane Society and general public who are worked up over Chenney's hunt would be surprised at just how common a practice this is. Also, the birds that survive become "wild" and hard to hunt pretty quickly.

Edited to add: I personally don't agree with shooting more than you or your friends and family can eat.

 

[anapex]

While I don't necessarily agree with the number killed, I do remember at least a couple years ago the PA State game comimssion releasing some on some farmland my parents own. I believe "deer in headlights" is the appropriate phrase for those pheasants.