Giving guns to children. Encouraging children to kill
October 14th, 2009 by admin
Tuesday’s St. Petersburg Times reported on a new youth hunt that will take place this month on land in Manatee County managed by the Southwest Florida Water Management District (Swiftmud). 20 children, ages 8 to 16, will hide inside camoflaged blinds and use rifles to kill pigs who have the misfortune to walk by.
Youth hunts are not new. Each year, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) sponsors special hunts during which children kill deer, ducks, doves, quail, turkeys, wild pigs and “small game.” The goal of the youth hunts is obvious. Kenny Barker, who coordinates youth hunts for the FWC, told the paper, “This is an effort to recruit and retain some new hunters….”
9-year-old Cecilia Plummer, a fourth-grader from St. Petersburg who will participate in the hunt, was interviewed for the article. She told the paper she had no problem with killing wild pigs. “They’re creepy,” she said. It’s too bad that Cecilia couldn’t observe the wild animals from the blind, with binoculars or a camera instead of a rifle, and learn about these fascinating animals. Maybe she’d be hesitant to kill a wild pig if she learned about their intelligence or their excellent sense of smell, or that wild pigs are a very important source of food for the endangered Florida panther, or that wild pigs were in Florida three hundred years before Florida became a state. The article also featured a quote from an ARFF representative, “We don’t think having a young child shoot an animal and watch that animal die before his or her eyes is a positive thing in any way.”
You Can Help
This is the first year that children were encouraged to participate in the killing of pigs on Swiftmud lands. Please contact the Southwest Florida Water Management District and urge them not to host youth hunts in the future. Children in Florida grow up in a society that has enough violence. It is inappropriate for a government agency to encourage children to inflict pain and suffering upon animals.Contact:
Todd Pressman, Chair, Governing Board
Southwest Florida Water Management District
E-mail: info@watermatters.org and recreation@watermatters.org
(include in the subject line, “Comments to the Governing Board Chair”)
Phone: (800) 423-1476