Wildlife Callers

We were recently interviewed by two Arizona news papers – The AZ East Valley Tribune and the Arizona Republic.  One story generated mostly positive calls and emails, while the other generated several death threats.   Yep, death threats.  The contrast is worth examining.

  

Miscellaneous Moonbat

 

What’s noteworthy here is not that the news stories are different – there will always be differences from reporter to reporter & editor to editor, and we realize “news” is written for the benefit of the paper and for profitable ad revenues.  What’s most interesting, and somewhat fascinating, is the way some people can be so easily manipulated to homicidal hostility by an article that’s had no independent review. 

When a reader takes the time to send me an email that reads: 

Comment: “I’d F$#&ing shoot you in the head if I saw you in person. You filthy scumbag murderer of non-human life.” 

It’s a safe bet this person has been, and is completely unaware they have been, manipulated.  Remember, this person, armed with nothing more than an unverified story from a newspaper, has just suggested that he/she would commit murder to avenge the death of an animal that was legally hunted, humanely killed, and then consumed as food and preserved as a trophy.  

There were several others emails & postcards like this.  Not one of these windbags had the courage to identify themselves.  These are the morons with “Keep Abortion Legal” and “Meat is Murder” bumper stickers juxtaposed on the back of their Honda hybrids.  

You wonder, are people manipulated by the media?  I’d say alarmingly so, but I’ve put the stories below for your review.  You be the judge. We want to know what you think, please take a moment to comment after you read this! 

The story by the East Valley Tribune has been on our blog for more than a week.  You can see the blog post here:  East Valley Trib/Wildlife Callers Blog.  And you can see the full Tribune Article here:  EV Trib Article.  

The Tribune article had just a couple of small errors, and was written in a balanced manner.  The reporter and the editor didn’t go out of their way to make it an inflammatory, anger inciting piece.  We even asked our readers to thank the reporter Ed Taylor for his objective coverage of our story and the sport of predator hunting.  

From that article we received one – that’s right, just one lonely piece of hate mail.  That letter, albeit anti-hunting, contained no profanity.  The writer was most concerned that we were killing endangered animals and thought we should be ashamed of ourselves.   For the record, mountain lions are NOT endangered and with appropriate licenses are legal to hunt.  Furthermore, we are not not ashamed of ourselves.  

But then… 

The Arizona Republic released their version of the story.  I gave my interview to both reporters within a seven day time frame.  Nothing changed and I gave both reporters the same information.  Here is Republic reporter Astrid Galvan’s version:  Arizona Republic Article. 

Wow!  What a difference in content, and what a difference Astrid’s wording (and most likely the editor too) had over the readers.  We’ve enjoyed a slew of hate mail…er…uh…I mean Liberal Love Letters this week.  The inaccuracies in her article are many, but I’ll just point out three major errors.  

First:  

The Republic originally reported that I “invented” the Mighty Atom caller.  Someone must have called them out on that headline because that wording disappeared in a couple of days.  The Mighty Atom was invented by and is produced by Wildlife Technologies in Manchester, New Hampshire.  I NEVER said I invented the Mighty Atom – that headline was simply not true.  

Second:  

Galvan quotes me as saying,  “Mountain lions were just a new challenge,” Healy said. “They’re just trophies. The last lion I shot is now a mountain lion rug in my house.” 

Several of my thoughts and statements from the interview have been condensed to 24 total words and the word “just” is added twice, resulting in a sensational, callous statement.  I’d call this a mild case of Yellow Journalism.  Was it effective?  Yes!  The homicidal Liberal Love Letters poured in.  

If you’d care to read a more accurate depiction of what I said, read the Tribune article.   

Our company and hunters worldwide value and respect the animals we hunt, nature, the outdoors, and biodiversity that is managed for long term sustainability.  Modern game managers have learned from the excesses of the past (e.g. the American Bison slaughter) and hunters value harvest limits based on scientific research & data.  We at Wildlife Callers hunt ethically and within the game management harvest/kill objectives and laws of the areas we’re hunting.  

Third: 

Galvan states that I have called in 16 lions in a single year.  If only it were so easy!  

Let me be very clear:  In a period of 4.5 hunting seasons we have called in 16 lions that we’ve seen.  We do not count the lions that vocalize back at us and don’t come in, just the lions we actually see are counted.  Because of a combination of bad shooting (yeah…it happens) and lions being as elusive as they are, a mere 3 of them have been shot and killed.  It’s no shooting gallery out there.  

Of course, this misprint makes it seem very easy to call and kill lions and the easily swayed suckers, Che Guevara T-shirt crowd, and low-hanging mental fruit jumped all over it.  

A Final Note: 

To Galvan’s credit she did convey that the Mighty Atom callers will call a variety of animals, and that they specifically will call mountian lions.  She also conveyed that the ISE was hosting a predator calling panel at their Phoenix show.  That ISE show and panel were huge successes, and we thank her for that coverage.  

My knee-jerk reaction to this was to seek a retraction from the editor.  Then I realized, the editor has a job that goes beyond the story.  He must sell papers & drive web hits, or be without a job.  Traditional media is now competing with the new online world, The New York Times print edition hovers near extinction, and humans the world over  have been empowered by the blogosphere and social media.  Some clever wording creates strong emotion, emotion creates controversy, and controversy creates web hits.  As the beneficiary of some of these hits, I didn’t seek a retraction.  Wildlife Callers remains very busy and the mouth-breathing letter writers have most likely forgotten about us.  

As far as the Love Letter writers – we don’t respond to idiots and didn’t engage them.  These are the kind of self-proclaimed enlightened people that have a “humane bug release jar” in their house for safe kitchen cockroach removal and the carnage of ten million bugs on the grille & windshield of their sticker-covered Subaru.  We’d never have a sensible conversation with them. 

Anyone who would threaten my life over my passion for hunting, should become familiar with the work of Randall Eaton Ph.D.   True “diversity” requires education and knowledge beyond your own emotional opinions.  

Major Point!! 

There is a lesson here.  There are people who claim the mantles of diversity and freedom, who’d take away your right to hunt and fish tomorrow if they could.  And, they’d do it all on naked emotion.  We need to support groups like SCI, the NRA, and other organizations that keep these people at bay.  

Thank you again for reading our blog and supporting ethical hunting.  We would love to hear what you think on this,  go ahead and sound off in our comments section!

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Good calling & hunting, 

Mark Healy 

mark@wildlifecallers.com