Ted Nugent and cruelty to black bears
By Frank Moraes
I was over on No More Mister Nice Blog the other day, and I learned, Some of Ted Nugent’s Best Friends Are Illegal Bear-Penis Traffickers, Allegedly. It’s all about that strange little man and his hunting activities. The main thing involving Nugent dates back to 2009 when he was hunting black bears with a bow up in Alaska. But he apparently isn’t that good. He hit one, but it only wounded the bear, who ran away. Undeterred, Nugent found another bear four days later, which he shot and killed. This was illegal because once he wounded the first bear, his license was for that bear alone. He had no license to kill the second bear.
I’m not a vegetarian, so I certainly understand that animals die for the sake of my life. Still, I’ve always found “pleasure” hunting to be awful. Killing another animal shouldn’t be something one takes pleasure in. But it isn’t part of my culture and I don’t dismiss the practice altogether. I do, however, think that whatever thrill or joy one gets out of it should go along with a great deal of seriousness. To give you some idea of where I’m coming from, I will not swat a fly if I can’t get a clean hit. I don’t wish to be cruel to a house fly and I would hope that hunters would feel the same way about their quarry.
What Nugent seems to have done strikes me as especially vile. If you wound a black bear, you should move heaven and earth to track it down and end its suffering. I often wonder if house flies have the same connection to pain that I do. But there is no doubt that a black bear does. Now according to Nugent’s lawyer, Wayne Anthony Ross, the arrow just grazed the bear. He said, “They’ve got apparently some crazy law in Southeast that says if you even touch an animal with an arrow, it becomes your animal… [Nugent] looked to see if he had hit it and didn’t believe that he’d hit it fatally.”
So Nugent’s arrow just “grazed” the bear. They’ve got a law that if you “touch an animal” it’s yours. The lawyer goes on and on to indicate that it was nothing big. But there are problems. There was blood at the site. I assume the arrow was stillin the bear because no mention was made of finding it, which would have been exculpatory. But there was no trail of blood, which might be a sign that the the bear was moving fast — you know, adrenaline and all. And Nugent and his “buddies” looked for the bear but didn’t find it. Ross’ conclusion: “The bear didn’t die.” My conclusion: Nugent and his “buddies” aren’t good trackers and they didn’t care enough to track the bear anyway.
The form of hunting that Ted “real man” Nugent takes part in is pathetic anyway. They set up a “bait station” and wait for the bears to come by and then kill them. Now I see this as totally reasonable for those people who are hunting out of need. But for the sport hunter, it doesn’t seem very sporting. It sounds to me like a bunch of guys just sitting around drinking beer waiting for animals to be prone and then blowing them away. It’s about as sporting as the buffalo shoot in Bless the Beasts and Children.
For Nugent, apparently, the whole incident is about the law. His lawyer claimed, “He only took one bear.” But it really should be about his incompetence causing a fellow mammal to suffer. All in the name of Ted Nugent feeling like a real man to make up for the fact that he refused to go to war when he had the chance. It’s just pathetic and horrible.
I was over on No More Mister Nice Blog the other day, and I learned, Some of Ted Nugent’s Best Friends Are Illegal Bear-Penis Traffickers, Allegedly. It’s all about that strange little man and his hunting activities. The main thing involving Nugent dates back to 2009 when he was hunting black bears with a bow up in Alaska. But he apparently isn’t that good. He hit one, but it only wounded the bear, who ran away. Undeterred, Nugent found another bear four days later, which he shot and killed. This was illegal because once he wounded the first bear, his license was for that bear alone. He had no license to kill the second bear.
I’m not a vegetarian, so I certainly understand that animals die for the sake of my life. Still, I’ve always found “pleasure” hunting to be awful. Killing another animal shouldn’t be something one takes pleasure in. But it isn’t part of my culture and I don’t dismiss the practice altogether. I do, however, think that whatever thrill or joy one gets out of it should go along with a great deal of seriousness. To give you some idea of where I’m coming from, I will not swat a fly if I can’t get a clean hit. I don’t wish to be cruel to a house fly and I would hope that hunters would feel the same way about their quarry.
What Nugent seems to have done strikes me as especially vile. If you wound a black bear, you should move heaven and earth to track it down and end its suffering. I often wonder if house flies have the same connection to pain that I do. But there is no doubt that a black bear does. Now according to Nugent’s lawyer, Wayne Anthony Ross, the arrow just grazed the bear. He said, “They’ve got apparently some crazy law in Southeast that says if you even touch an animal with an arrow, it becomes your animal… [Nugent] looked to see if he had hit it and didn’t believe that he’d hit it fatally.”
So Nugent’s arrow just “grazed” the bear. They’ve got a law that if you “touch an animal” it’s yours. The lawyer goes on and on to indicate that it was nothing big. But there are problems. There was blood at the site. I assume the arrow was stillin the bear because no mention was made of finding it, which would have been exculpatory. But there was no trail of blood, which might be a sign that the the bear was moving fast — you know, adrenaline and all. And Nugent and his “buddies” looked for the bear but didn’t find it. Ross’ conclusion: “The bear didn’t die.” My conclusion: Nugent and his “buddies” aren’t good trackers and they didn’t care enough to track the bear anyway.
The form of hunting that Ted “real man” Nugent takes part in is pathetic anyway. They set up a “bait station” and wait for the bears to come by and then kill them. Now I see this as totally reasonable for those people who are hunting out of need. But for the sport hunter, it doesn’t seem very sporting. It sounds to me like a bunch of guys just sitting around drinking beer waiting for animals to be prone and then blowing them away. It’s about as sporting as the buffalo shoot in Bless the Beasts and Children.
For Nugent, apparently, the whole incident is about the law. His lawyer claimed, “He only took one bear.” But it really should be about his incompetence causing a fellow mammal to suffer. All in the name of Ted Nugent feeling like a real man to make up for the fact that he refused to go to war when he had the chance. It’s just pathetic and horrible.
(Cross-posted at Frankly Curious.)
posted by Richard K. Barry at
7:57 PM
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