12-23-2003, 11:55 PM
what do you all think?
Outdoors with Oz
by Rick Asmus
Anti's Team with Disney to Attack Fishing
I couldn't decide whether to chuckle or get
when I read "Fish Are Friends-Not Food."
You know the emotion that rises when someone bases an argument that is short on fact and long on personal feelings. When someone's story has an air of credibility but is about as well grounded in truth as an umbrella in a hurricane.
Well PETA is at it again. This time with aid, directly or indirectly, from the Walt Disney Company.
Recently Disney released a cute but highly imaginative (read far-fetched) animated film called "Finding Nemo." Disney seems to have a penchant for this; remember the cartoon film "Bambi?" Anyway, "Finding Nemo" features a shark who attends a support group for vegetarians.
PETA has won permission from Disney to use Nemo and friends in an ad campaign. The idea is to promote vegetarianism and make people feel guilty about fishing and eating fish. Their course of action is to use untruths and psuedo-science about fish and fishing and wrap it into a guilt trip to lay on children. To this end they have developed a web site (www.peta.org/feat/nemo) that offers a colorful hand-out for kids that attacks both commercial and sportfishing.
PETA is the group that believes we should look at animals as individuals. Several years ago they ran an effective campaign in Michigan to help deny passage of a dove-hunting season. However, a new dove-hunting bill has been introduced that will be voted upon in the near future. More on that issue at another time.
This time the attack is on fishing, not hunting. Here's an idea of what's in the handout for children entitled, Fish are Friends not Food.
"Fish are a lot like us. They make friends with other fish and talk to one another through gurgles and squeaks, squeals and other underwater sounds," says the brochure.
Yeah, right. Can't you just picture two pair of walleye setting a dinner-date?
"Heh, Bob, how about we take the wives and get together for dinner at the AuSable this evening; I heard theirs a new school of minnows in town."
And then there's,"Being hooked hurts." This statement is a dandy and has been bandied about for years by the anti's. However, in a recently published research study Jim Rose, a scientist for the University of Wyoming, concluded that we know enough about a fish's consciousness to understand they don't have the hardware to feel pain. Fish do not have a neocortex, which is the organ that produces an awareness of pain. Oh well, so much for scientific research when you're trying to make a point.
Or how about this statement that PETA would have children read, "I would never eat anyone I know personally. I wouldn't deliberately eat a grouper any more than I would eat a cocker spaniel."
Aw, come on now. I don't know anyone that would grill the family pooch. But a platter of perch or whitefish fillets is a different matter.
Statements like these would be laughable if it weren't for the minds they are intended to persuade. Statements such as these, to a reasonable adult, are just so much more noise -- nonsense we hear on a daily basis in this media-spin world. But to a young and forming mind, this information could seem believable and real, something that might form a basis for future decisions.
What gets me is not the idea that there are a few people out there that have ideas like those held by PETA. But the fact that a company like Disney, one I have always viewed as encouraging family values, would lend credence to a group that is so anti-hunting and anti-fishing, bothers me.
Hunting and fishing are about family and friends. About people sharing unique outdoor experiences that are found in no other setting. Outdoor experiences that include self-reliance, sharing, goal-setting and morality, among others. Annually, sportsmen contribute 1.5 billion dollars to conservation, with fishermen anteing up about half of it. Caring sportsmen along with the money they provide are the primary reason that so many species have survived and flourished in a modern age where increased demands from a growing nation have stressed the land and her creatures.
Perhaps the people at Disney need to hear from sportsmen that they have stepped over the line by associating with an anti-fishing/hunting fringe group. That fishing is a pursuit enjoyed by millions upon millions of Americans that would much rather spend some time on the water with a rod in hand than take their families to see movies or attend theme parks that are owned by folks that associate with a radical group such as PETA.
The address at Disney is 500 S. Buena Vista St., Burbank California 91521, the telephone number is 818-560-1000 and the fax number is 818-560-1930. Hey, don't let anyone kid you, fish are food, food for the body to grow strong and healthy. And fishing, like hunting for many people, is food for the soul. Some feel it necessary to shape opinion to meet the needs of their conscience regardless of the fact that the conscience of others allows an activity that is moral, lawful, healthy and based in sound science. Maybe it's time they heard from us.
[signature]
Outdoors with Oz
by Rick Asmus
Anti's Team with Disney to Attack Fishing
I couldn't decide whether to chuckle or get
when I read "Fish Are Friends-Not Food."You know the emotion that rises when someone bases an argument that is short on fact and long on personal feelings. When someone's story has an air of credibility but is about as well grounded in truth as an umbrella in a hurricane.
Well PETA is at it again. This time with aid, directly or indirectly, from the Walt Disney Company.
Recently Disney released a cute but highly imaginative (read far-fetched) animated film called "Finding Nemo." Disney seems to have a penchant for this; remember the cartoon film "Bambi?" Anyway, "Finding Nemo" features a shark who attends a support group for vegetarians.
PETA has won permission from Disney to use Nemo and friends in an ad campaign. The idea is to promote vegetarianism and make people feel guilty about fishing and eating fish. Their course of action is to use untruths and psuedo-science about fish and fishing and wrap it into a guilt trip to lay on children. To this end they have developed a web site (www.peta.org/feat/nemo) that offers a colorful hand-out for kids that attacks both commercial and sportfishing.
PETA is the group that believes we should look at animals as individuals. Several years ago they ran an effective campaign in Michigan to help deny passage of a dove-hunting season. However, a new dove-hunting bill has been introduced that will be voted upon in the near future. More on that issue at another time.
This time the attack is on fishing, not hunting. Here's an idea of what's in the handout for children entitled, Fish are Friends not Food.
"Fish are a lot like us. They make friends with other fish and talk to one another through gurgles and squeaks, squeals and other underwater sounds," says the brochure.
Yeah, right. Can't you just picture two pair of walleye setting a dinner-date?
"Heh, Bob, how about we take the wives and get together for dinner at the AuSable this evening; I heard theirs a new school of minnows in town."
And then there's,"Being hooked hurts." This statement is a dandy and has been bandied about for years by the anti's. However, in a recently published research study Jim Rose, a scientist for the University of Wyoming, concluded that we know enough about a fish's consciousness to understand they don't have the hardware to feel pain. Fish do not have a neocortex, which is the organ that produces an awareness of pain. Oh well, so much for scientific research when you're trying to make a point.
Or how about this statement that PETA would have children read, "I would never eat anyone I know personally. I wouldn't deliberately eat a grouper any more than I would eat a cocker spaniel."
Aw, come on now. I don't know anyone that would grill the family pooch. But a platter of perch or whitefish fillets is a different matter.
Statements like these would be laughable if it weren't for the minds they are intended to persuade. Statements such as these, to a reasonable adult, are just so much more noise -- nonsense we hear on a daily basis in this media-spin world. But to a young and forming mind, this information could seem believable and real, something that might form a basis for future decisions.
What gets me is not the idea that there are a few people out there that have ideas like those held by PETA. But the fact that a company like Disney, one I have always viewed as encouraging family values, would lend credence to a group that is so anti-hunting and anti-fishing, bothers me.
Hunting and fishing are about family and friends. About people sharing unique outdoor experiences that are found in no other setting. Outdoor experiences that include self-reliance, sharing, goal-setting and morality, among others. Annually, sportsmen contribute 1.5 billion dollars to conservation, with fishermen anteing up about half of it. Caring sportsmen along with the money they provide are the primary reason that so many species have survived and flourished in a modern age where increased demands from a growing nation have stressed the land and her creatures.
Perhaps the people at Disney need to hear from
sportsmen that they have stepped over the line by associating with an anti-fishing/hunting fringe group. That fishing is a pursuit enjoyed by millions upon millions of Americans that would much rather spend some time on the water with a rod in hand than take their families to see movies or attend theme parks that are owned by folks that associate with a radical group such as PETA.The address at Disney is 500 S. Buena Vista St., Burbank California 91521, the telephone number is 818-560-1000 and the fax number is 818-560-1930. Hey, don't let anyone kid you, fish are food, food for the body to grow strong and healthy. And fishing, like hunting for many people, is food for the soul. Some feel it necessary to shape opinion to meet the needs of their conscience regardless of the fact that the conscience of others allows an activity that is moral, lawful, healthy and based in sound science. Maybe it's time they heard from us.
[signature]