CHAPTER
26
Hunting as a Morally Suspect Activity
PRISCILLA N. COHN AND ANDREW LINZEY
The purpose of our chapter is to suggest that hunting is a morally suspect activity. By 'hunting' in this context we mean sport hunting (sometimes called 'recreational hunting' or 'trophy hunting'), and we shall focus on deer hunting as practised in the USA, although our comments will obviously have relevance to a range of'sporting' activities with animals. By 'morally suspect' we refer to an activity the moral basis of which is open to question. Our concern is that hunting may be suspect in the sense of harming both the animals involved and the people engaged in it.
I
That hunting is suspect in the sense of harming animals seems beyond doubt, so we shall concentrate on this aspect first. Much has been said and written about socially and culturally condemned abuse that is illegal, especially cruelty to companion animals, but it is also necessary to remind ourselves of animal cruelty that is socially or culturally condoned, even praised. Such cruelty is widespread and often passes unnoticed precisely because it is accepted by-society; it is how things are done; it is assumed that the status quo is necessary although, of course, it is not.
What does 'socially or culturally condoned cruelty' mean? The definition of cruelty that Frank R. Ascione gives is useful if we simply drop the words 'socially unacceptable'. Cruelty is then simply the intentional 'behaviour that systematically causes unnecessary pain, suffering, or distress to and/or death of an animal'.1
Cruelty is often acceptable and approved by society when financial gain is involved.The cruelty laws in the US, for instance, do not apply to those animals classed as 'game'. But this classification is arbitrary and thus morally arbitrary. It is as if animals hunted as game refer to specific species that somehow are
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incapable of suffering or as if any suffering involved was necessary. For example, it would be considered cruel if, for your entertainment, you shot your dog with a razor-tipped arrow designed to cut through sinew and flesh, but it is deemed not cruel to do so to a deer: bow hunting is an acceptable recreation for many people. Obviously 'game' or wild animals are sentient creatures capable of experiencing pain and suffering. From a logical point of view, it makes little sense to exclude from our discussion - or laws - the pain and suffering of certain classes of animals just because some find it entertaining or amusing to chase them or shoot them.
The definition of cruelty given above refers to the notion of 'unnecessary' pain. Recreational hunting, as the name suggests, is a form of recreation or amusement. The common understanding of necessity involves something inevitable, unavoidable, or absolutely essential. The pain involved in recreational hunting is not necessary because hunting itself is not necessary. To hunt is deliberately to cause intense discomfort or death to satisfy nonessential - and indeed often frivolous - human desires. To exclude some animals from the definition of cruelty really means - to put it bluntly - that society disapproves of some instances of cruelty while it approves of others. It would appear that society believes there is good cruelty and bad cruelty.
Some may protest that hunters are not intentionally cruel, in that they do not set out (at least in all cases) to cause suffering. Some of them indeed would baulk at the very idea that they were involved in cruelty. But whatever their subjective mindset is, they intentionally kill and do so in a manner that is not normally humane (as we go on to show), so they act cruelly whether or not they think so or intend to do so.
Most people seem to think that hunting deer in particular is not cruel because the deer are shot and die instantaneously. Now we do not want to deny that in some, limited cases, that might be true. Leaving aside for the moment whether it can ever be justifiable to kill an animal simply for recreation, we accept that it is possible for an expert marksman to render an animal immediately unconscious. But that that is not automatically, evenly routinely, the cast-is shown by the accounts that hunters themselves give of their own activity. Many books on hunting give instructions on how hunters should follow a wounded deer to finish it off.
Consider the following statements provided by a guide to hunting:
• A gunshot to the rear legs cripples the animal and facilitates another shot.
• A deer that runs in a 'humped up' position and takes short strides has usually been hit.
• A wound in the rear will sometimes cause the deer to kick like a donkey in its panic.
• With a lung shot through both lungs, the deer will usually run no more than 80 yards. If only one lung was punctured, the deer can run f>0(i yards or more . . . deer wounded here leave lots of blood sign which K distinctively pink and frothy with bubbles.
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• Liver shots allow deer to run 80 yards or so and take about 5 minutes to kill on average.
• Kidney shots usually send the deer 90 yards. They die within 10 to 15 minutes and leave a thin, dark blood trail.
• Gut shots mean that the deer seldom dies sooner than 75 to 16 hours after hit.
• Gut-shot deer leave green and yellow in their blood trails.2
Of course, it does not automatically follow that movement after being shot, by itself, indicates that the animal is still either sensible and/or alive. There can be a variety of involuntary reflex actions after death, some of which may be distasteful to witness, but they happen after death. But even allowing for this, it is clear from the examples above that an extended period of suffering is envisaged.
Again, some might protest that the appearance of blood can indicate a swift kill. But what these examples show is that although vital organs may be hit, the deer does not die instantly; indeed, even when such vitals are hit, death can still be protracted. The blood trails show, not instantaneous death, but rather that the deer was still moving in an attempt to escape or seeking a place to hide. Even worse, a headshot that might facilitate a quick kill is not always recommended.The same author also discusses the shots that might ruin a trophy. He notes that' [t]he spine, the neck and two main arteries located here offer a good target. A neck mount might be blemished beyond repair for a perfect taxidermy job with this shot'. He also cautions a prospective hunter to
Avoid head shots except when they are absolutely necessary. . . . Between the eyes is, of course, the brain shot, which will drop die deer quickly and also, with the wrong bullet, ruin a trophy quickly.3
Another example may suffice. In his book, Deer and deer hunting: A guide for serious hunters, Robert Wegner includes a chapter on crippling losses, that is deer that are left in the woods, some of which escape from the hunter after being critically wounded, and some of which survive. He presents more than fifty studies on this topic showing that the calculated crippling loss (as a percentage of the legal harvest left in the woods) range from a low of 2.9 to 10.9 in one study to thirty-five to one hundred and fifty per cent in another.4 He quotes scientists who suggest that, 'Few hunters have the will power to resist shooting at deer that are beyond the effective killing range of their weapon, or that are moving too fast to be hit consistently in a vital spot'.5
Included at the end of Wegner's chapter are a number of statements concerning this problem by what he calls the '"leading members" of the deer hunting fraternity'. For instance, Wegner quotes Paul Brandreth who writes that
too many hunters shoot at any part of the animal's body, instead of at a selected
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point.... Hence the bloody trails, the cripples that succumb slowly under the hardships of the following winter ... 6
Similarly, Lawrence Roller deplores the lingering death inflicted on deer:
fewer of these fine animals should be wounded to stagger off into swamps and thickets and die slowly and miserably, alone, without comfort, not knowing why; with festering wounds, tongue and throat slowly burning for water they cannot reach; with fever gradually consuming their great strength and vitality, and their blood slowly flowing to the forest floor, taking with it the final spark of vigour. These whitetail deer are warm blooded creatures, like ourselves. They must feel pain to much the same degree, perhaps even more, because of their extreme sensitivity.'
In short, while instantaneous death may be possible with either a gun or bow, it seems likely that a large proportion of deer will not die immediately and that some may suffer a lingering death.Their pain and suffering is described by the hunters themselves so it is difficult not to conclude that such a practice renders the animals liable to cruelty, as traditionally defined.
II
We now turn to whether, apart from the harm done to the animals, such activity also harms the hunters themselves. At first sight the suggestion might seem implausible. Millions of Americans hunt for sport. Recreational hunting is legal in all fifty states of the US and is, as we have already indicated, a socially condoned activity. How could such a well-entrenched activity of such longevity actually harm its practitioners?
We accept at the outset that there is no knockdown argument that justifies our suspicion. Indeed, there is a dearth of hard statistical and other evidence either way. But the question is, are there some considerations, however indirect or tangential, that make the suspicion at least reasonable?
The first consideration concerns the statistical link between illegal cruelty to, or abuse of, domestic animals and antisocial behaviour that has already been established and corroborated by a number of researchers in various fields, if that link is sound, we have to ask what rational grounds we could have for confining that link to domestic animals. How rational is it to assume that the abuser who abuses women and children will stop at family pets? In fact, we know that the cycle of violence that so often includes children, and women, also includes all family pets, both domestic and wild. There is no indication in the current literature that legality as such and in itself is an observed boundary when it comes to abusive treatment. Why then should we suppose that hunting, cruelty - rather than, say, the abuse of children - is exempt: from the patterns of abuse that we may detect elsewhere? While these logical considerations »|o not prove that hunting harms the hunter in the sense of robbing him or hei
(though it is usually 'him') of compassion and empathy, they may point to such a claim being reasonable, perhaps even likely.
We suggest that the apparent lack of hard evidence about the harm of hunting - from a human point of view - is glaringly due to the question not even being asked, and the connection hardly ever being considered. There is little, if any, data concerning hunting and extremes of antisocial behaviour -such as murder - and little data on lesser forms of violence - such as beating, hitting, shoving, and so on. Occasionally, in first person accounts, one finds that the perpetrator of cruelty is said to hunt.8 A study by the La Crosse Community Coalition Against Violence (CCAV) involved 'a small sample of male participants in the local abuser treatment programme. Of the men surveyed, over 50 per cent said they were hunters and owned guns or rifles'.9
The original question remains: is it possible, or likely, that only illegal violence is related to antisocial behaviour and that socially accepted or legal violence is not? If illegal violence is not totally unlike legal violence, then from a logical point of view it would follow that activities involving legal violence, such as hunting, would also be linked to antisocial behaviour. Of course diis position rests on an assumption concerning the similarity between legal and illegal violence, but is this not a reasonable conclusion, even a likely one?
Ill
The second consideration concerns the number of incidents in which those involved in antisocial behaviour - even murder - have themselves had a history of hunting. It is noteworthy that the fact that a particular murderer is also a hunter is revealed in the newspaper accounts of murder cited below, since reporters do not generally ask about hunting. Even more so is that this fact showed up so frequently in a random study involving only the murders that occurred or were written about in the period when the present essay was written. Consider the following examples (names and other means of identification have been removed):
13 November 2005, Pennsylvania. [An] 18 year old, pleaded guilty to two counts of first degree murder for killing both parents of his 14-year-old girlfriend. . . . The murder occurred after [his girl friend's] parents forbade him to continue to see their daughter. When [he] came to talk with [parents], either in his car or with him he had a .40 caliber Glock, a high-powered hunting rifle, and a hunting knife. The previous year he had posted 20 photographs on his blog, which he had labeled 'hunting 2004'. The blog was later removed. Some of the photographs show him posing with a deer he had shot, some of his friends with their kills, and one of him smiling as he guts a bloody deer.10
29 September 2006, Wisconsin. Many people observed [a] 16 year old, as he killed the principal of his school. A blog written during his trial by WISC-TV reporters
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said he had 'hunted frequently' and 'relished hunting and fishing with his father'. At his trial, questions were raised about whether he should be tried as a juvenile or as an adult. According to newspaper reports, the county district attorney asserted that [he] asked a detective on the day of the shooting whether a felony would be cleansed from his record when he reached 18 'because he wanted to keep hunting'.11
6 October 2006, Pennsylvania. [A] 32 year old, walked into a one-room school. After releasing a pregnant woman and the male students, he tied up the 10 remaining young girls and then shot them. Accounts vary somewhat, but three girls died immediately, two more died overnight. The other girls were seriously wounded and hospitalized. Before the police could enter, he killed himself. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, he had no previous police record and no record of violence. The same article stated that 'Guns were a cherished part of his lineage' and that 'his fall passion was deer hunting with both gun and bow'.12
14 October 2006, Iowa. [A] 22 year old, shot and killed his entire family: his father, mother and three younger sisters with a .22 caliber rifle. 'Both [of his parents] loved the outdoors, hunting and boating, and their four children shared those loves'.13
14 July 2007, Wyoming. Police found evidence that [a] 36 year old, 'an avid outdoorsman', and a trained sniper, shot his wife - from whom he was separated -in the head as she was singing in [a] restaurant. When police finally discovered where he was and approached him, he shot and killed himself. [He] was 'a big hunter' and in fact posted a photograph on the internet of himself with a deer he had killed; also posted was a photograph of his wife with the first elk she had shot apparently in 'happier times'.14
30 July 2007, Pennsylvania. [A] thirteen-year-old told authorities that she took her father's 12 gauge shotgun that he had taught her to use and shot him in the face, killing him while he was asleep. She said her father, who was 'an avid hunter', had been sexually abusing her since she was 7 years old. A neighbour said she heard the young girl screaming at night. It was also alleged that her 14-year-old brother was sexually abused by his father. Authorities reported that the house where they lived was in 'deplorable' conditions, filled with trash, fleas, and animal faeces. Four dogs, some of which were emaciated and lacking hair, four cats, some rabbits and othci animals were removed from the house by animal control officers.13
10 September 2007, Missouri. The remains of the two children of [an] estranged couple . . . were recently found and identified by dental records. The children had been missing since their father picked them up for a weekend visit [in] 2004. [lie) was convicted in 2006 of parental kidnapping with the intent to terrorize his cx-wifi* and sentenced to 38 years in prison. The bodies were found in an area near the Missouri River where [he] was known to hunt deer (or, according to an Associated Press release,'to poach'). [He] was charged with two counts of first degree niuuli-i in 2007.16
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Even more striking are those examples of where the murderer himself identifies killing a person with killing an animal, as is revealed in the confessions of two murderers. One serial killer described how he would take a prostitute to his remote hunting cabin, rape and torture her, and then release her giving her a head start before he hunted her down and killed her with a hunting knife or with a high-powered rifle. He said it was like 'going after a trophy Dall sheep or a grizzly bear'.1' And another also compared the killing of a fellow7 student with the killing of an animal. In a documentary movie of his life, he said that he felt no different shooting his fellow- student than he did shooting a bird.18 What can be concluded, if anything, from these reports that recent murderers were also 'avid hunters' or from the confessions of the murderers that connected their hunting with the killing of humans? It is, of course, notoriously difficult to isolate one factor as the cause when confronted with the complex web of abusive relations. A host of questions present themselves: was hunting only an example of the general aptitude towards violence exemplified by offenders? Did hunting magnify those pre-existing tendencies towards aggression? If so, what is the mechanism whereby hunting exacerbates propensities towards violence? Was hunting a cause or a symptom, or both? And wasn't the ready access to hunting weapons at least a clear factor in many of these events?
It may be easier to state what conclusions cannot be drawn. Clearly not every hunter murders people; indeed the vast majority of hunters do not murder people. With several million hunters in North America and many thousands of murders each year, one is bound to find that some hunters are involved in murders. We are certainly not talking about a simple relationship of cause and effect. Could we then assert that it is pure coincidence that a number of murderers were also hunters?The answer is that we do not know for sure. While it is within the realm of possibility, the ease and frequency with which we discover that rural murders involve hunters suggests that the notion of mere coincidence may be unlikely.
Reports of spousal or child abuse, as far as we are aware, do not identify the abuser as either a hunter or non-hunter. This lack of data means we have not collected evidence that might prove to be significant in establishing a link between hunting, as a socially acceptable form of animal cruelty, and human violence. A lack of information, however, does not prove that there is no relationship. The bottom line is that the question wasn't even asked, and that is the reason for the dearth of statistical evidence.
IV
The third consideration concerns the desensitization that is involved in frequent acts of killing or abuse. Is such desensitization towards animals likely to spill over into desensitization towards, or even tolerance of, human suffering? If that is true of illegal abuse, it is difficult to find the grounds for
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saying that such activities, even if commonplace and legal, should not also carry the same, or similar, adverse affects.
Some of the greatest thinkers throughout the ages have condemned animal abuse and discussed the damaging effect of cruelty on one's own humanity, as well as on society and the way in which we treat other people. St Augustine, for example, relates the story of a student of his, later to become a bishop, who accompanied some friends to the gladiatorial games. Augustine described the amphitheatre as 'seething with the lust for cruelty'. His young friend closed his eyes, determined to ignore the 'atrocities' taking place. Suddenly the crowd roared, and the young man opened his eyes to see what was happening:
When he saw the blood, it was as though he had drunk a deep draught of savage poison. Instead of turning away, he fixed his eyes upon the scene and drank in all its frenzy— He revelled in the wickedness of the fighting and was drunk with the fascination of bloodshed. ... He grew hot with excitement, and when he left the arena, he carried away with him a diseased mind which would leave him no peace until he came back again ... 19
St Thomas Aquinas echoes the theme that cruelty to animals may lead to cruelty to humans. He writes that statements in Scripture against cruelty to animals are designed 'to turn the mind of man away from cruelty which might be used on other men, lest a person through practicing cruelty on brutes might go on to do the same to men'.20 And St Thomas More specifically castigates hunters who 'seek pleasure from the slaughter and mutilation of some small helpless animal'. Utopians count hunting as 'unworthy of free men' and judge that the 'enjoyment in beholding deaths, even in beasts, comes from an inherently cruel disposition or from the habitual practice of cruelty in so brutal a pleasure'.21
Thinkers as diverse as Michel de Montaigne and John Locke also concui that cruelty is a dangerous trait. 'Natures that are bloodthirsty toward animals give proof of a natural propensity toward cruelty', says Montaigne, maintaining that the slaughter of animals in Rome only whetted the gladiators' appetite for killing fellow humans.22 From observation, Locke concludes that children habituated to abuse animals are on a slippery slope to abusing humans because 'the custom of tormenting and killing of beasts will, by degrees, harden then minds even towards men; and they who delight in the suffering and destrue tion of inferior creatures, will not be apt to be very compassionate or beni}*n to those of their own kind'.23 And Immanuel Kant emphasizes the same poini when considering Hogarth's engravings entitled 'The Stages of Cruel! v' (1751). Hogarth 'shows how cruelty grows and develops. He shows the child's cruelty to animals, pinching the tail of a dog or a cat: he then depicts the grown man in his cart running over a child, and lastly the culmination of cruelty in murder. He thus brings home to us in a terrible fashion the rewards ul cruelty'.24
Even Jose Ortega y Gusset, a contemporary Spanish iliinki-i who ;>Joi tin-.
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bull fighting and wrote a book in praise of hunting, admits that the sight of blood is like a drug. Blood, for Ortega, is an essential part of the hunt. Because blood 'carries and symbolises life', when it is spilled it produces at first 'disgust and terror', but this is only a first impression. If the 'blood flows abundantly ... it intoxicates, excites, maddens both man and beast . . . [since] Blood has unequalled orgiastic power'.25 Ortega asserts that such 'intoxication aroused by the sight of blood' is one of the ingredients of a hunt without which 'the spirit of the hunt disappears'.26 In this connection, he refers to both the Spanish bullfights and the ancient Roman games. For Ortega, all of this blood, from both the animals and the humans in the ancient games, as well as the blood of the tortured bull in the bullring, acts like a 'stupefying drug'. 'Stupefying' here means 'to make stupid', that is, lacking reason, or marked by unreasoned acting, rather than being 'dulled in feeling or sensation'. Hunting, for Ortega, is a 'return to Nature' or to Paleolithic man, to the proto-human, who hunted and who was part animal and part human, so to speak. When one hunts one is moved by 'instinct' and becomes like an animal (if animals cannot reason). Hunting 'is the only normal case in which the killing of one creature constitutes the delight of another'.27 If so, then hunting certainly desensitizes, if not warps the individual involved.
Although different practices are referred to, it is striking that so many philosophers holding different, even opposing views in general, and from so many different historical periods, all maintain that cruelty to animals has a power to desensitize individuals and make them violent to other humans. The dramatic way that both Augustine and Ortega write about 'blood lust' applies equally to hunting. If the blood spurts and is 'maddening', it does not matter for our purposes if the blood is spilled in ancient or modern times, in hunting or in circuses, the point about its effect on the human onlooker remains.
Now it may be claimed that the consideration of desensitization, even if valid, works both ways. Hunters may be desensitized, but they may also be able to compartmentalize their feelings so that there is no real danger to human subjects. Whether this bifurcation is ever total, however, seems unlikely. Although some devoted hunters write about the pangs of sadness they experience when they wound or kill an animal, it is only a passing phenomenon. Ted Kerasote, for example, writes:
Still I hesitate, for though I can lose myself in the hunting, I have never been able to stop thinking about its results . . . that this being before me - who sees, who smells, who knows - will no longer be among us. . . . And I don't know how to escape this incongruous pain out of which we grow, this unresolvable unfairness, other than saying that I would rather be caught in this lovely tragedy with those whom I love, than with those far away, whose death I cannot own ... 28
And James A. Swan claims that
the modern hunter is challenged not so much by fear as by overcoming guilt . . .
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There is a special fondness in our hearts for wild things, and a hunter must work through guilt feelings to be successful.29
Although Ortega claims that 'Death is essential because without it there is no authentic hunting', he also asserts that, 'Every good hunter is uneasy in the depth of his conscience when faced with the death he is about to inflict on the enchanting animal'.30
However, even when hunters write about the regret of killing a once vibrant animal, the feeling does not persist; it is not so strong that the hunter ceases to hunt or condemns hunting. Experienced hunters have learned to overcome this sadness, or to rationalize it away, so that it is typically a momentary or passing feeling. The fact that hunters can so easily extinguish what would seem to be a natural feeling of compassion is an indication of the psychological cost of hunting.
Most importantly of all, it is difficult to see how there is a significant difference between the diminished empathy of the hunter who kills animal after animal and the diminished empathy of the person who abuses his or her pets, spouse or children. It is the violence that is damaging psychologically - not whether it is legal or illegal - and it is the resultant lack of empathy that in turn is linked to domestic animal abuse and to antisocial behaviour.
V
As we said at the beginning, there is no absolute proof that hunting is linked to antisocial behaviour, but there are, we submit, considerations enough to give us pause. It is difficult to ask researchers and scholars to examine a practice that so many see as a harmless pastime or even as a valued tradition, but that is precisely what is necessary if we are really concerned with what well may be a possible well-spring of cruelty and aggression directed at both human and non-human animals. Whether our suspicions will be reinforced by empirical evidence, only time will tell. But we shall never know - with any degree of certainty - unless the question is put firmly on the academic agenda. What we know about the links between (largely domestic) animal abuse and human violence has only begun to occupy centre stage as the result of tenacious and persistent (and often costly) research, and even now we are far from having anything like complete answers to many questions, especially those concerning the precise nature of this link. We need new generations able to serve the cause of wild animals, as past researchers have served the cause of domestic ones.
Notes
1 F. R. Ascione, in F. R. Ascione and P. Arkow (eds), Child abuse, domestic violence, and animal abuse: Linking the circles of compassion for prevention and intervention (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1999). p. 51, citing his previous work, 'Children who are cruel to animals: A review of research and implications for developmental psychopathology', Anthrozoos 6 ( 1993): 22(>-4"'.
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2 Gary Lawton Hargis, Bambo: Whitetail deer hunting 101: A complete guide (Fowlerville, MI: Wilderness Adventure Books, 1990), pp. 139-42, emphases added.
3 Hargis, Bambo, p. 138.
4 Robert Wegner, Deer and deer hunting: A guide for serious hunters (Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1984), p. 239. In his second book, titled Deer and deer hunting, Book 2: Strategies and tactics for the advanced hunter, published in 1992, Wegner once again includes a chapter on crippling loss, although this time he refers to more recent studies, all of which involve bow hunting.
5 Wegner, Deer and deer hunting, p. 240.
6 Paul Brandreth, Trails of enchantment (New York: Watt, 1939), pp. 318ff; cited in Wegner, Deer and deer hunting, p. 244.
7 Lawrence Roller, Shots at zvhitetails (New York: Knopf, [1948] 1975), pp. 359ff; cited in Wegner, Deer and deer hunting, p. 240.
8 Ascione and Arkow, Child abuse, domestic violence, and animal abuse, p. 137.
9 Ibid., p. 171.
10 The individual's blog was removed, but before this happened the Committee to Abolish Sport Hunting (C.A.S.H.) published the photographs in Anne Muller's article, 'DEC's Solution to world's ills: Lower the hunting age', CASH Courier Newsletter, Winter 2005. The photographs can be seen at http://www.all-crea-tures.org/cash/cc2005-w-dec.html.
11 See http//editorialmatters.lee.net/articles/2007//12/l l/stories/top-tories/9vnews. 18211;' [The individual] sentenced to life in prison', Bamboo Nezes Republic, 7 Mav 2008.
12 Philadelphia Inquirer, 16 October 2006.
13 The Gazette (Cedar Rapids-Iowa City, IA), 18 October 2006; see also The Gazette, 16 October 2006.
14 See http://wwvv.postchromcle.com/news/ original/article21292539.shtml.
15 See http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07213/805918-55.stm.
16 'Bones found in shallow grave may be children kidnapped in 2004', Associated Press, 10 September 2007, and also 'Bones confirmed as missing MO kids', AP Press Release, 20 November 2007. Our thanks to Anne Muller for bringing some of tire most recent hunter/murderer examples to our attention.
17 See http://\\-ww.crimelibrary.com/seriaI_killers/weird/robert_hansen/6.html.
18 From 'The killer within' directed by Macky Alston. The producer is Sandra M. Itkof, and the world premier was 13 September 2006; Philadelphia Film Festival, April 5-18 2007; see http://dsc.discovery.com/promo/killerwithin/; http://www. mdb.com/title/tt0497398/, and http://phillyfests.bside.com/2007/ ?mediaTab= filmDetails&_view=_filmdetails&filmId= 15659537.
19 Augustine, Confessions,Vl,8.
20 Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, III, 2, 112-13.
21 Thomas More, Utopia, trans, and ed. H. V. S. Ogden (NewYork: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1949), p. 51.
22 Michel de Montaigne, 'Of cruelty' [1578-1580] in vol. 2 of The complete essays of Montaigne, trans. Donald M. Frame (New York: Garden City, 1960), p. 109.
23 Locke, 'Cruelty' in 'Some thoughts concerning education' [1693], in the Works of John Locke in ten volumes, 10th edn (London: 1801), p. 112; extract in Andrew Linzey and Paul A. B. Clarke (eds). Animal rights: A historical anthology (NewYork: Columbia University Press, 2004), p. 1 19.
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24 Kant, 'Duties towards animals and spirits'., in Lectures on ethics, 1775-1780, trans. Louis Infield (Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1963), p. 240.
25 Jose Ortega y Gasset, Meditations on hunting, trans. Howard B. Wescot (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1972), p. 91.
26 Ibid., p. 95.
27 Ibid., p. 92.
28 Kerasote also narrates how he follows an elk he had wounded: 'I climb over several fallen trees and find her lying not thirty feet away, her head turned over her left shoulder, great brown eyes utterly calm. My heart tears apart. I shoot and she drops her head. As she kicks her final shudders I go to her, sitting with my hip against her spine, my hand on her flank, feeling her warmth, her pulse, her life, changing states. She is enormous, and beautiful, and my throat constricts'. And then describes how-he 'slit the hide on her belly ... I open her peritoneum and go inside her up to my elbows. As I puncture her diaphragm, steam emerges around my shoulders with a gasp. Cutting away her heart, I feel hot blood bathe my arms ... I discover a piece of meat on my finger. I put it in my mouth, chew it and swallow it. She tastes like warm, raw elk ... I smile because I can feel saliva lubricating my mouth', all from Bloodties: Nature, culture and the hunt (New York: Kodansha International, 1993) pp. 245-247. If there is sympathy for the animal here, it appears to be quickly overcome by the taste of flesh.
29 James A. Swan, In defense of hunting (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1995), p. 290.
30 Ortega y Gasset, Meditations on hunting, pp. 96, 88.