Bow hunting is without a doubt, the cruelest form of hunting in America.  Hunting with a bow and arrow is not only a retrogression to the use of weapons given up hundreds of years ago because of their inefficiency, but a retrogression to utter barbarism.

As a student of wildlife ecology, I oppose any type of hunting because it violates every sound principle of ecology and is unimaginably cruel.  In the case of bow hunting where deer and other animals die a slow death by hemorrhaging, the wounding rate exceeds 50 percent.  It is therefore hardly “sport” and there is no rational reason to impose or support such cruelty to any living being.

Bow hunting is beyond immoral.  It is the ultimate act of despicable cruelty by hunters fueled with a thirst for killing by the most hideous of means.  It is pure evil to commit any living being to such a horrible mix of agony, pain, and death.

The person I choose to use as the chief witness in the case against bow hunting is a man named Clare Conley, a champion archer and big game hunter.  Mr. Conley describes the hunt that changed his attitude toward bow hunting forever.

“I was afield with three hunters when we jumped a Doe that ran in front of us.  One of the men drew his bow and shot.  The arrow went through the Doe’s neck.  We all saw the arrow sticking out of both sides of the Doe’s neck as she bounded away.”

“The blood trail was easy to find, but we waited the usual hour for her to lie down, stiffen up and eventually die.  We followed the scarlet trail for more than an hour expecting to find her dead.  We came to several pools of blood with prints of her knees beside them, where she had gone down to hang her head, and bleed in the bright sun.  We saw spots where she had stumbled, but still her life blood ran, and still she went on.”

“At last we found her.  She was dying.  She was on her knees and hocks.  Her ears, no longer the wonderful, alert warning system to detect any danger, were sagging.  Her head was down.  Her nose was in her blood. We could hear her breath bubbling in the warm blood.”

“Somehow the Doe lurched up.  Stumbling, bounding, blindly into the brush, she managed to reach the rim of a plateau and disappear.  She was nowhere in sight.  We fanned out and combed the hillside where we lost her tracks among a maze of other deer tracks.  We failed to retrieve her.”

“We lost four wounded deer on that one hunting trip, but the Doe I saw dying stayed with me.  Her heartbroken, dulling eyes haunted me.  At odd moments I’d see her, wild and free, then dying in the sun, her breath choking in a pool of blood.”

“I resolved never again to shoot any living creature with a bow.” I rest my case.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 7th, 2008 at 5:48 am.