Letter: How about a robin or finch hunt?

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

I find myself wondering who is pushing for the crow hunt. Surely not hunters. Hunters pursue game birds—ducks and geese, pheasants and grouse. Hunters have a strongly held ethic that says you eat what you shoot. Since crows are inedible, non-game birds, the only reason for shooting them would seem to be cheap thrill of killing something, destruction for the sake of destruction itself.

This is the ethos of the vandal, which makes the crow hunt state-sanctioned vandalism. Crows are beautiful, highly intelligent, highly social animals, the dolphins of the avian world. Why, other than profound ignorance or prejudice, would anyone advocate their wholesale slaughter? One could, using exactly the same rationale, promote a state-supported robin hunt, meadowlark hunt, or goldfinch hunt. Why would anyone do so?

Howard B. Parker

Salt Lake City