Dog Fighting vs Sport Hunting
Ezra the Old wonders why the media (and John Kerry) is going gaga over Vick’s alleged dogfighting as opposed to everyday, culturally accepted cruelty like sport hunting.
I, too, think dogfighting is bad, though it’s slightly unclear to me why it’s so much worse than sport hunting, aside from the fact that we like dogs and it’s somewhat more savage — though not necessarily more savage than the types of hunting wherein we sic dogs on the prey. That said, does John Kerry, United States Senator and former Democratic nominee for president, really have to get involved here? Vick’s actions were illegal and all signs point to vigorous prosecution. Why is the Senate’s involvement necessary?
First, I agree with Ezra that any Senatorial involvement is rank stupidity on par with the steroid hearings. The regular prosecution seems to be doing just fine, thank you very much. But on to the substance: as I’ve written before, the history of the animal cruelty movement is one of wealthy people (in England, at least) getting concerned with animal cruelty and making sure to ban proletariat animal cruelty like bear baiting and cockfighting while the rich’s animal cruelty remained legal. Fox hunting, for example, was only recently banned there- and only after much heeing and hawing by the titled class.
The controversy over dogfighting can be interpreted as splitting up on similar lines – its largely black people and poor Southern whites who participate in dogfighting while sport hunting is a cross-class accepted activity, among whites especially. And yes, I think that when black athletes misbehave, they get a rougher treatment from the press (see the coverage of Darrent Williams and Josh Hancock’s deaths, respectively). I still think that despite all this cultural baggage, one can easily make the case that dogfighting is much, much worse than sport hunting.
Dogfighting involves the systematic abuse and mistreatment of the animals. They are bred specially to eliminate any sense of fellowship or non-aggressive qualities, and their breeding maximizes their ability to withstand pain and abuse. Their lives are those of neglect and abuse, they are locked up in cages, kept hungry to stay aggressive, until their owner sees it fit to put them in a pit to fight. They are trained by chasing and killing other live animals, by having chains and weights draped over them for long periods of time and given all sorts of drugs and supplements to increase their endurance and strength, without any concern for their long term health. The actual fights themselves are impossibly gruesome (from the very useful “dog fighting legal overview“)
The dogs, usually pit bulls, literally bite and rip the flesh off of one another while the onlookers cheer, scream, and place bets on which dog will win the match. After the fight, both dogs are critically wounded, often with massive bleeding, ruptured lungs, broken bones, and other life threatening injuries. Generally, the loser of a match dies or is killed, unless he has any salvage value to his owner. When dogs are killed after a match, it is not done by humane euthanasia methods, rather the animals are shot, beaten, or tortured. The animals that survive generally never see a veterinarian, regardless of the gravity of injuries or the amount of suffering that the animals will have to endure. From an animal welfare standpoint, dog-fighting is one of the most serious forms of animal abuse, not only for the heinous acts of violence that the dogs endure during and after the fights, but because they literally suffer their entire lives.
As far as I know “animal on animal” hunting is illegal in the United States, so it doesn’t really need to be compared to dog fighting. Sports hunting, on the other hand, can’t really hold a handle to dogfighting in terms of cruelty. Whereas the cruelty in dogfighting is systematic and lifelong – even when dogs are rescued, they oftentimes can’t be adopted and have to euthanized due to their aggressiveness and mental scaring from their fighting - cruelty in sport hunting, for the animal at least, is sporadic and short-lived. Animals killed in (most) sport hunts live natural lives until their deaths, and are generally killed rather quickly.
Sport hunting also fufills some cultural and ecological goals that are laudable. In many areas, due to natural predators being exterminated by expanding human development, deer have reached pest like populations. It’s not good for any ecoystem to have one animal’s population to get out of hand, so hunting can have enviromentally positive effects. Additionally, hunters are oftentimes staunch conservationsists, seeing as they don’t want their activity to be eliminated due to human expansions and habitat destruction. When fewer and fewer children (and adults) regularly interact with and spend time in the wilderness, sport hunting should probably be encouraged, or at least not discouraged.
Addi tonally, there has to be some pragmatic considerations for those who are concerned with animal cruelty. Dogfighting is an activity a wide, culturally diverse swath of America finds abhorrent, so it makes sense to crack down on it in a highly public way. Sport hunting is the exact opposite – a wide, culturally diverse swath of Americans participate in it and it is deeply ingrained in many families and cultures, so fulminating against it is unlikely to be productive for anyone.
This whole thing is nothing more than a publicity stunt by The Humane Society of the United States. They have used their tremendous influence and 200 million dollar bank account to destroy Vick. All you have to do is follow the money. Apparently H$U$ has some friends in high up places in the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. The FBI allowed convicted criminal JP Goodwin (HSUS so called investigator and former ALF member) to ride shotgun on a cockfighting raid in Tennessee along with over 100 other officials. H$US is already bragging about leading this investigation, but they are also asking for donations to care (actually “oversee”) for Vicks dogs.
There is VERY important issue that has been ignored here. The laws that Vick is alleged to have broken were MISDEMENERS until May 30 of THIS year 2007. There can be no COSPERICY on a misdemeanor. The maximum fine is $15,000 dollars not $300.00.
H$U$ is using the issue to fatten their bank account, just like they did with the abandoned animal issue after Katrina. By the way that increased their net worth by $30,000,000. Just follow the money trail
Bill
July 21, 2007 at 3:23 am
Watch Senator Robert Byrd’s rant on dogfighting for a laugh (“BARBARIC….”). The guy is obviously not playing with a full deck of cards, yet somehow keeps getting re-elected by the good people of West Virginia. But yeah, I wouldn’t place any bets on the Falcons for the playoffs next year.
Stephen C
August 5, 2007 at 10:26 pm
[...] racist head checked. Hunting vs dogfighting is really well explained by another blogger here: Great explanation. It is hard to imagine the grotesque pleasure one must get watching two de-domesticated kill each [...]
Michael Vick, too easy to ridicule « Misdirected Misinformed Missing the Point
August 22, 2007 at 10:46 am
Bill: Any smart organization would use this for publicity if it could help their cause. I would be careful to call it a “stunt,” however, since it was not orchestrated by HSUS, but simply taken advantage of. Anything that brings this kind of global attention to a problem (I read about it on the front page of a Polish news portal yesterday)should be exploited by anyone serious about solving it.
Simon
August 22, 2007 at 4:13 pm
In response to the well thought out explaination why sport hunting is “better” than dogfighting. It is still killing of an animal out of human entertainment because will the average sportsman starve if he does not kill a helpless deer? Is it because a dog is more human a family member a domestic. In some cultures dogs are used for food. So the real underlyng issues are that an African American sports celebrity is a target to mainstream America because of the money he makes period.
kelly g
September 2, 2007 at 7:35 am
OH PLEASE! Another accusation of discrimination when there is a legitimate response to BLATENT ILLEGALITY? Jesus! SHUT UP!
This is not a racist issue, people! If the perpitrator of the crime was a FAMOUS CAUCASION, their neck would go in the noose just a quickly! The fact that a sports hero is low enough to
participate will certaily be capitalized upon by Animal Activists in order to make headway with awareness and animal protection laws – as WELL IT SHOULD!
Stop pretending that blacks are still innocently persecuted in America! Open your eyes and look around! Our society has entirely changed in the last 40 years – Dr. King would be proud! That doesn’t mean there isn’t room to grow, things to fix, mids to change, but the bottom line is that black and white children DO play together – EVERY DAMN DAY! I saw a black family at IHOP over the weekend, eating in a restaurant at a table right next to me, a white woman, and the teenaged son openly, but respectifully commennted that his waitress, a white woman, was not very good at her job – AND SHE WASN’T. Not only could this scenerio NEVER HAVE HAPPENED at the start of my life, but the entire family would have been lynched for behaving that way toward a white woman. THINGS HAVE CHANGED, so stop with the sense of entitlement and open your eyes – VICK is a hood that made good, but not good enough to behave legally, and THAT is what is being address, not his African American Heritage.
You wanna go the prejudicial route, you better pick a better hero! This dog won’t hunt!
JustAnotherRacistRemark?
February 8, 2008 at 10:20 am
[...] Still you will find both emotional and some sensible responses on Matt Zeitlin’s blog, July 20, 2007 entry. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)South Africa: On Big Game Hunting in Private [...]
sports hunting vs dogfighting, and xy vs yz… « The Safari Hunt
May 13, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Good day!,
name
September 1, 2008 at 12:22 am
YA’LL ARE WRONG. sPORT HUNTING IS INHUMAINE BECAUSE MANINLY NO ONE EATS WHAT THEY KILL. THEY ARE ALL STAGED HUNTS, USUALLY GUIDED BY HUNTING GUIDE, SOMETIMES EVEN ON A CLOSED RESERVE. IT IS PLAIN AND SIMPLE KILLING. lOOK AT AFRICA, I NEVER HEAR PEOPLE DISCUSSING ABOUT HOW TASTY RHINOS, AND LIONS ARE. dOGFIGHTING DATES BACK TO ROMAN TIMES,SO IT HAS BEEN AROUND. i DO AGREE HOWEVER IT IS HYPOCRITCAL TO MAKE MICAEL VICK OUT TO BE THE POSTER CHILD FOR ANIMAL ABUSE, WHEN THERE IS A DOCTOR IN MY CITY WHO GOES SPORT HUNTING EVERY YEAR TO CENTRAL AMEICA JUST MURDER SOME ANIMAL LIKE A JAGUAR. hE IN MY OPINON IS WORSE OR JUST AS WORSE AS VICK. bUT YOU DON’T HEAR ABOUT THOSE PEOPLE. ALL MEN AER KILLERS AND THEY WILL KILL EITHER PEOPLE OR ANIMALS. aNIMALS JUST DON’T HAVE A VOICE OR A LEGISLATIVE BODY.
ZACH
September 22, 2008 at 4:18 pm