And it's not like I haven't done my share of animal killing. But never just for thrill, or bloodsport. Humans after all, are the Apex Predator of the planet. But I was raised to value life, and weigh reasons for killing vs. that value. When we would hunt, it was for eating the prey. When we would kill otherwise, it was out of mercy. Except for one incident which I will detail here by way of comparison, making a long story as short as possible.
It's the mid 70s and I'm ten, maybe 12. We live on a small farm in a rural area where I was just a plowboy, stock tender and overall farm hand. We raised cattle, horses, hogs and poultry - chickens and turkeys. We tended and maintained a very large vegetable garden. Most everything we raised was for our own consumption, freezer, or cannery. Except for the hogs and cattle, of which we would select a certain amount of them for slaughter and processing in town, for sale to the public after processing.
Anyhow, the poultry. We had something like 20 turkeys, and 50 or so chickens at any given time. Late one night a large pack of feral dogs attacked the pens, got in and killed nearly all the birds. They didn't eat anything at all, just killed them for bloodsport. Tore them open and eviscerated them. Tossed them around and played with them. But ate, very little to nothing. My step dad calculated from the amount of tracks there must have been 20 or so of them in the pack. This is a pack of wild dogs going around killing and destroying just for the thrill of it. Clearly, they must be stopped.
He made us dig foxholes which he parked our vehicles over. We strung up alot of the dead birds along the outside of the cage which once penned them. We armed up with every rifle, shotgun, pistol and ammunition we had. At dark, we kids, my mom, the step dad, two off duty Sheriff's deputies and a couple of neighbors all got in the foxholes, and waited.
After what seemed like forever, sure enough the pack returned. And we opened fire on signal, shooting these crazed animals as quickly as we could. Some ran away immediately when the shooting started. Some tried to attack us, in our foxholes. We literally had to blast those at point blank range. Some just got shot while trying to further rip up the dead birds. The whole thing was quite terrifying and traumatic, even for the adults. We stayed in the foxholes until dawn, then we finally came out and made the tally - in all 36 dogs, dead.
Using a backhoe we dug a 8 foot deep trench, tossed the dead dogs and livestock in, covered them with powdered lime and buried them. The entire time of this incident from beginning to end, I was questioning to myself whether there wasn't another way. Did we have to kill these dogs? I still question it. But it's done and what's done is done, but I made up my mind that if ever I found myself with similar circumstances I would try to find a way to solve the problem, without killing.
Nine years ago that time came, as I detailed earlier. I bought a small spread in a area that had a severe feral cat community problem. If course feral cats don't run in packs and destroy livestock or property, they just make still more cats. And yes they can be a noise nuisance, and they spray, marking their territory. And the disease and suffering is terrible for them. Feral Toms will eat kittens they detect came from a competitor. And so on. So, killing them all seems like a act of mercy. It's not the same as a pack of wild destructive dogs, but it is a problem for rabies and a host of other diseases to spread. It needs to be dealt with, and I did so without killing any of them save ones which were found to be infected with FiV, FiP, rabies, and etc. Those were euthanized by the county vet I had partnered with to clean this mess up.
The point is I very much understand the killing of animals, but I understand when it is justified or necessary. And I object in most strenuous terms when I see it happen where it is not justified, or necessary. People who kill animals simply for bloodsport and for no other reason aren't any better in my mind than those wild dogs in that pack, and have about the same amount of empathy and conscience they had. Which is zero. So excuse the fuck out of me if I don't want such a person licensed to practice veterinary medicine or any other kind of medicine. Otherwise why even have standards, or licensing in the first place?
This isn't kneejerk "moral outrage." It's objection to the senseless bloodsport killing of a otherwise innocent animal, by a person who ostensibly dedicated her career to helping them. The cat wasn't even on her property, for fuck's sake.
