PETA - The Press Release Factory

Said it before and I'm sure I'll be saying it again:




You're upset at what you've seen: Me too
You think there must be a fairer way: Me too
With respect, do your own thinking, Ingrid just aint smart enough to do it for you.

1. The smallest form of life, even an ant or a clam, is equal to a human being.
-Ingrid Newkirk, PETA

2. We feel animals have the same rights as a retarded human child.
-Alex Pacheco (PETA)

3. Six million Jews died in concentration camps, but six billion broiler chickens will die this year in slaughter houses.
-Ingrid Newkirk (PETA)

4. Pet ownership is an “absolutely abysmal situation brought about by human manipulation.”
-Ingrid Newkirk, PETA

5. Arson, property destruction, burglary and theft are “acceptable crimes” when used for the animals’ cause.
-Alex Pacheco (PETA)

6. Even if animal tests produced a cure for AIDS, “We’d be against it.”
-Ingrid Newkirk, PETA

7. “Animal liberationists do not separate out the human animal, so there is no rational basis for saying that a human being has special rights. A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. They’re all mammals.”
Ingrid Newkirk – Founder, PETA

8. “Humans have grown like cancer. We’re the biggest blight on the face of the planet.”
Ingrid Newkirk – Founder, PETA

9. “…Eventually companion animals would be phased out, and we would return to a more symbiotic relationship, enjoyment at a distance.”
Ingrid Newkirk – Founder, PETA

10. “We have a lazy, sick society. People bring diseases on themselves. [People should] avoid getting the disease in the first place.”
Dan Mathews – PETA spokesperson

11. “Homelessness drives me crazy! I take responsibility for everything that happens to me. Everyone can pull themselves up. I have more sympathy for animals because they don’t deserve anything that happens to them. They’re innocent.”
PETA member – “What Becomes a Zealot Most?”, GQ Magazine November 1993

12. “In a perfect world, all other than human animals would be free of human interference, dogs and cats would part of the ecological scheme.”
PETA’s Statement on Companion Animals

13. “Probably everything we do is a publicity stunt…We are not here to gather members, to please, to placate, to make friends. We’re here to hold
the radical line.”
Ingrid Newkirk – Founder, PETA

As I said; Ingrid just aint smart enough.

SBW

Deer Hunting In The UK Pt2

The second day at Chez Bambi started well before dawn with us stumbling out of the house, trying not to wake the dogs. We drove through the sleeping countryside, for once I wasn't the chirpy one in the works van, the Bambi Basher's excitement was infectious. He's hunted everything huntable in the area and kept up a hilarious community on the farms we passed, the locals, and their foibles.  It was nearing light as we left the road and passed into the woods. We were to meet up with a couple of his pals from work who had previously done their Deer Management Training with him. The chaps showed up shortly after our arrival and taking a side of the woods each we set off in search of Capreolus Capreolus.

Here in old blighty, Roe Deer are found on heathland, grassland and in of course in woodlands. Roe Deer are often quite solitary creatures, although single Roe Deer does and youngsters of the previous year are often seen together. As we were in time for their mid-summer rut the bucks and does are seen together, this rule is sometimes confounded as groups of Roe Deer may feed in close proximity at other times of the year, attracted by the availability of foodstuffs, rather than the prospect of Chika-Chicka-Wah-Wah. Roe are the Kate Moss’ of the European woods: petit (65-73 centimetres / 26-29 inches at the shoulder), agile, ghostly creatures, with a passion for messy rock star boyfriends. (OK I made that bit up – write your own blog). The Roe Deer’s summer coat is a bright reddish brown; with a pale, powder-puff rump patch, which is fluffed out when alarmed. They are tailless, although in winter the females have a short tuft of white hair that looks like a tail. Colloquially known as‘ the shaving brush’ The Roe’s antlers are quite short, fairly straight, usually with three points on each side.   

We crept into the woods and were rewarded with a sighting almost strait away, cunningly the deer had silhouetted themselves against someone's farmhouse. No safe backstop - no shot. We stalked on, creeping down the pathways between the trees, after a long slow walk
BB - "think of it as armed rambling" we had worked our way around our half of the wood and met up with the others - they'd seen a highly shootable buck, but it had given them the slip. We split up again and with the chaps walking up into the part of the woods we'd just left.

Then We Were Bushwhacked!

We were standing on a bit of high ground, the top of a natural drainage ditch when out of nowhere bounded a very handsome looking Roe Buck! He was defiantly at the higher end of the size range, Bambi Basher hissed "rifle" and pointed in the direction the deer would go, I dropped to one knee, shouldered the rifle, put my finger on the safety.............. WTF! A massive weimaraner bounded past, chasing the buck! The Roebuck was gone the the dog gave up and came back our way. With steam coming out of his ears Bambi Basher set off a ferocious pace in search of the dogs owner.  When we found her she was apologetic to say the least, claiming the dog has escaped from the garden where he was usually safely locked up. 


WTF! You should have seen the one that got away!


Your pal
The Bushwacked.


Picture credit goes to Free-extras.com

Trained Ferrets?

Remember all that time ago when I looked into the world of Ferret legging, and then hunted Rabbits with James using Ferrets? Well this afternoon on my way to pick the Littlest Bushwacker and Bushwacker Jnr up from school there was a chap on the train with his Business, just a nappin' away happy as larry. I thought of you dear reader and took a picture.
have a good weekend
SBW

Mini Cannon!

Gotta love-a Mini Cannon!
SBW
Found by Chad

Deer Hunting In The UK Pt1

With a squeal of tires a big man swung a small blue suzuki jeep (for readers in the US - golf cart sized) into the station car park sending a shower of gravel into the air. He bounds out of the car, shakes me warmly by the hand and before I can issue the traditional blogger-meets-blogger salutation 'Ah Dr Bambi Basher I presume' he's slinging my bag in the back and we're off.

The car is clearly the hack of a countryman - smells of dog, covered in mud and pro hunting stickers. He drives it like he stole it. In juxtaposition the radio is set to the genteel sound of BBC Radio 4, who are just commencing the third part of a series on the history of the duffle coat, read by a woman who sounds posher than the queen.

We rock up at at chez bambi basher and all hell breaks lose. Two cats, six chickens, TEN dogs, and a pair of teenagers, its the pandemonium of family life, with Bambi Basher and The Tea Lady using semaphore to communicate with each other, they pour me a glass of rum that would floor a sailor and it's a home from home. I fall into a fitful sleep on the couch.

The morning is announced by dogs licking my face, The Tea Lady serves a breakfast fit for a king, well several hungry kings, and we're off into the day. Bambi Basher has about 35,000 acres of woodland to stalk  but it's all parceled up into a bit here and a bit there. One heavily coppiced section is where he holds his pheasant shoot and its also the rifle range. We set up the range table and the lesson begins with a shooting test. I was using a 6.5 x 55 CZ 550 FS.

Defiantly not a group, probably not even an assembly, maybe a coalition?

I've been practicing off-hand with my Air Arms and was keen to see if it had done me any good. I forgot that during the week I'm not your pal the bushwacker, I'm london's gentleman plumber and having run out of laborers had carried many sheets of plasterboard (AKA dry lining) up many many stairs the day before. My left shoulder had taken umbrage at being asked to engage in manual labour with insufficient notice and put a hurting on me in retaliation. I breathed, I focussed but it was all i could do to keep the first six on the board. Opps! The look on the Bambi Bashers face told me things were not going according to plan.

Luckily you can take your shooting test from the bench and the next three were all within a 'Minute Of Deer-Rib' and the last three made a comforting line across the target. Phew!

Bambi Basher cheered up right away and let me have a go with his .275 Rigby. Which was nice.

The next part of the training is the simulated stalk where we walk though the woods, seeking out deer targets and assessing their suitability for a safe and humane shot. Nothing through the bushes, nothing without a known backstop to catch the bullet.
A close shot served as a good reminder of just how much you need to adjust for range even with a flat shooting round like the 6.5x55. Bambi Basher told me how a client had managed to shoot right under a trophy Roe doing the same thing. Woodland stalking is sometimes at such close ranges that both-eyes-open and under-the-scope also need to be practiced until they're second nature. A massive learning curve awaits me. Excellent.

We drove to another wood to stalk for Roe and Fallow deer, lots were seen, none were legal. Sadly I'd not set my camera up to work silently so no photos.

More of this one to come - bit distracted from blogging at the moment - work and stuff - good stuff - distracting stuff.
your pal
SBW

Bambi Bashers side of the story

A Suburban Bushwackers Bucket List

1. Visit Martha's Vineyard  ;-)
2. Bowhunt a suitably HOOJ Elk 
3. Hike into in the last wilderness of these islands, high in the Scottish highlands for Ptarmigan
4. Bushwhack a ghostly Roe in the southern woodlands of the UK - rather than the other way around.
5. Hunt a white Fallow buck 
6. Hunt a very big female bear in Canada, keep her skull on my desk, spread her pelt across the bed and make 'observances'.
7. Hunt the fanged cuties known as Chinese Water Deer
8. Participate in the Battue (without getting shot - important that bit)
9. Fly fish and campfire cook a trout as long as my arm in NZ
10. Successfully hunt Thar, Red Stag, and bad ass hog in NZ - its a long trip might as well make it the Kiwi Grand Slam
11. Find and obtain permission for a good rabit ground less than one hour from the house. 
12. Buy a stunning handmade recurve bow and get competant enough with it to hunt.
13. Hunt Marco Polo sheep in Kazakhstan -
14. Finish the Mongolian rally and Plumb-out a school in Mongolia - think of the bragging rights to this one!
15. Catch a double figures Sea Bass off Hastings - with Johna there to watch
16. DIY pheasant hunting in South Dakota 
17. Visit all the coolest, wittiest bloggers I'm yet to meet in real life - you know who you are
18. Be friends again with the Ex Mrs SBW - the kids like her, if I'm going to know her for the rest of my life we may as well get along.
19. Actually finish some film scripts/novels/patent applications
20. Prove to everyone, once and for all, that your dreams can come true.

Only one and twenty are in order.
Your pal
The Bushwacker

I Could Definitely Kill One Of Those

If you've ever had a thought about the ethics of the food chain and your place in it.

Read this post by Tovar.

Nuf Sed

SBW