John MacDonald: Animal rights or clutching at straws?
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I think the animal welfare people are clutching at straws with this last-minute legal action they’re taking to try and stop this weekend’s feral cat hunt.
You’ll know the event. It’s all part of the North Canterbury Hunting Competition. Which raises funds for Rotherham School.
It hit the headlines a few years back when people got all excited that wild cats were going to be included.
As they should be. Because they’re a pain in the backside. Wildcats are pests.
But we had people jumping to all sorts of conclusions. Saying it was going to be impossible to tell whether a cat was wild or domestic. And pet cats could end up being killed. A lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Well, the wailing and gnashing is happening all over again. Except, this time, the animal rights people are going next level and taking legal action to try and stop it.
And wait ‘til you hear some of the claims they’re making.
They being former regional councillor Kathy White, NZ Cat Foundation founder Anne Batley-Burton and a bunch of animal and child protection advocates.
Let’s start with the animal side of it. Because that’s pretty much more of the same.
With Kathy White saying today that “bounty-based slaughter will incentivise the catching of any cat, including pets.”
She says: “We know from watching videos of previous hunts that people pay little attention to checking the cat for a microchip.”
Going on to say: “One video of a dog about to catch a cat cuts out just as the dog is about to tear the cat apart. Not only do they have no idea if the cat is a pet, but there are serious Animal Welfare Act breaches, and we want it stopped.”
The hunt organisers are poo-pooing that. Saying any cat has to be 10 kilometres away from any residential or lifestyle block before it’s taken out. Box traps need to be checked daily, and kids need to be hunting with adults who have a firearms licence.
That’s good enough for me.
But here’s where things get really weird.
The anti-cat-hunt people are now also claiming that the United Nations might also be unhappy about this wildcat hunt. Because they’re saying today that it may contravene the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Saying kids shouldn’t be exposed to violence against animals.
They’ve got a letter from an international law firm, apparently, which has been signed by several animal and child protection organisations and says kids being involved in the wild cat hunt isn’t consistent with New Zealand’s international child rights obligations.
But let’s remember where this hunt is happening and the kids who are going to be involved.
It’s rural and these are farming kids who hunt, anyway. They’ve been brought up with it. Which is exactly what competition organiser Mat Bailey is saying.
He says: “They’ve seen Dad kill a sheep every month. It’s farming. It’s rural New Zealand, and that’s the thing that these people don’t get because they live in their little Auckland world thinking everything’s lovey-dovey. Well, sorry, it’s not how it works.”
Amen to that. Which is why these people need to give it a rest and tell the lawyers to stand down.
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