TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Why So Slow To Pick Off Cyber Safaris?

ADVERTISEMENT

By DANIEL RUTH | The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 12, 2008

Look, I'll be the first to admit that I would rather shove shards of broken glass up my nose than go hunting, which has to be one of the most stultifying activities known to man, with the possible exception of watching the Home Shopping Network hawking spatulas.

What way big fun!

What could be more dreary than schlepping about some woebegone patch of shrubbery for days on end smelling like Yasser Arafat's socks in search of animals to kill?

Isn't this why God created room service?

Still, if it's your idea of a grand time to stalk unsuspecting critters so that you can blow their brains out with some high-performance gun, shouldn't you have a scintilla of common decency to at least show up in person to perpetuate all the mayhem?

This is too much to ask?

Apparently so, which explains a trend over the past several years among some cyber woodsmen to allow unbelievably slovenly people to hunt from the comfort of their double-wides.

Dining And Dancing

Internet hunting, which originated in Texas several years ago, allows yahoos using their computer mouse to track down animals in captivity and with a click of a finger fire off a round from thousands of miles away to bump off their prey.

The carcass is then sent to the "customer," for their dining and dancing pleasure.

For all manner of reasons - fairness and common sense, for starters - on Wednesday the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission voted unanimously to outlaw the practice of Internet hunting, effective July 1, which begs two questions.

First, what took the commission so long to ban something that is so patently wrong? Thirty-four other states, including Texas for crying out loud, figured out offing animals over the Internet was really cheesy before Florida also concluded - insert Duh! - this was more déclassé than Amy Winehouse dining alone.

And second, why wait until July 1 to end this practice, which might more properly be called Huge Losers Pretending Very Badly To Be Webcam Ernest Hemingways?

This isn't about hunting. This isn't remotely about sport, to whatever extent shooting a defenseless animal is a sport to begin with.

This is simply all about killing. It's about antiseptic killing from a considerable distance. This is literally about killing without getting one's hands dirty - or bloody.

Sloths Of Slaughter

Where is the challenge in shooting an animal being held in captivity in an enclosed area and then lured into the cross hairs to meet its fate? And controlling a gun with a computer mouse?

Sheesh, Michael Vick's dogs had better odds at survival.

What would you call this epitome of laziness? The Maynard G. Krebs School of Hunting?

There's another, more personal reason it's a good idea to ban cyber safaris.

With my luck, as the poster child for the accident-prone, if I were to attempt to knock off a moose on the Internet, I would still figure out a way to shoot myself.

Keyword: Book of Ruth, to read and comment on Daniel Ruth's blog.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT