Sugar coating the heinous crimes hunters inflict upon their victims deserves attention.

Wild animals constantly struggle throughout their daily lives without interference from human predators. With 17 million hunters, approximately 20 million wild animals are killed or seriously injured annually. Hunters with high-powered rifles at 200-500 yards have a 100 percent shot, even if they are Elmer Fudd.

A bow hunter sprayed in deer urine at 50 yards wouldn’t get a second glance from a wild animal. The stress that hunting inflicts on animals, the noise, the fear, and the constant chase, severely restricts their ability to eat adequately and store fat they need to survive winter.

It just gets worse, and it needs to stop. Hunters and their funding programs know it’s wrong, and most people who care can’t be bothered. Silence is compliance.

Lynn Melling thinks I should be thanking hunters; that’s not what I have in mind.

James McWilliams said, “Conservation thus becomes yet another euphemism obscuring your blood lust. The vast majority of conservation-driven hunting policies are designed not to improve the quality of a partial ecosystem but to improve the quality of the hunt. As with so many activities humans pursue, you’d be so much better off letting go of the mythical associations of hunting and reflecting on what it is within you that makes you want to kill.”

Consider Meatless Mondays.