To the editor:

I’m apprehensive when opening my copy of the Journal-World because I anticipate seeing still one more picture of a child proudly posing with a large animal he has killed.

It’s not just that children killing animals for sport or trophy purposes is revolting. In addition, we know for certain that hunting for the largest or best animals removes their genes from the gene pool. As a result, the weaker or smaller animals reproduce, and their descendants gradually become weaker and smaller. (The same is true of game fish, which have been shrinking not only in numbers but in size, because of trophy fishing.)

Yes, I know that the deer population has grown in Kansas (mainly because we killed the predators), and that hunting actually has some beneficial effects on the health of herds. I also know that the trophy-hunting/fishing culture, in which people put the heads and bodies of fellow creatures on their walls, is strong in this area of the country. But that is no excuse for glorifying hunting, as the J-W is doing. Don’t print the picture, I say, any more than you would the body of a victim of a shooting.

Haskell Springer,
Lawrence