By Dan Wilson
(Dan Wilson is a Niagara, Ontario and longtime advocate for the humane treatment of animals. He took part in the protests against a deer hunt that took place the first two weekends of January, 2013 in Short Hills Provincial Park. The hunt in this park, a nature sanctuary which is normally off limits to hunters, was approved by the province’s Ministry of Natural Resources as a traditional hunt, using bows and arrows, for aboriginal people only.)
“The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.” – Arthur Schopenhauer
Rights are bullshit – there, I said it.
Animal activists protest the January deer hunt in Short Hills Provincial Park. Photo by Dan Wilson
They’re an illusion, a pie-in-the-sky ideal. More like “wouldn’t it be nice if things were this way” rather than the way things actually are. They’re principles, propositions and beliefs, not carved-in-stone laws. Sometimes they’re called natural rights and sometimes they’re called inalienable rights, like the right to life. But they’re still all bullshit.
If we all have the right to an education and clean water, why are so many of us without either? And doesn’t a child have the right to go to school without being murdered by a gun-wielding maniac? But it happens, doesn’t it? Without respect for another person’s life, what good are rights?
And then there are those whose rights seem to carry more weight than the rights of others. Take the First Nations deer hunt in Short Hills Provincial Park a few weeks ago. According to the Ministry of Natural Resources, the native deer hunt in Short Hills was “a traditional hunt by First Nations exercising their treaty rights.”
Because the First Nations wanted to exercise their treaty rights, my rights – including the right to enjoy a public park I help maintain – were not only secondary to the natives’ treaty rights, but for the first two weekends in January, were actually taken away.
Why didn’t I have the right to enter a provincial park funded in part by my tax dollars? My “right” to hike through a provincial park was suspended so a group of natives who don’t even live in the area could exercise their treaty rights. Their “rights” trumped mine.
And why were the native hunters allowed to drive their trucks and suburban assault vehicles into the heart of a provincial park when non-native hunters, during their hunting season, are not?
On the second Saturday and Sunday of the hunt, Niagara Regional Police shut down Pelham Road, stopping any vehicular traffic from driving past the Pelham Road entrance to Short Hills where the protesters were set up.
Hunter’s vehicles parked deep inside Short Hills Park where cars and trucks are not normally allowed.
This effectively killed any chance the protesters had to educate passersby about the deer hunt at Short Hills. Sure, the protesters still had the “right” to assemble peacefully, and they still had the “right” to exercise their freedom of speech. Unfortunately, the only ones around to listen to their message were a couple of pigeons sitting on the telephone line across the street.
The police said they shut down the road because they were concerned about public safety (somebody being hit by a car because they might stand too close to the road was the reason given). Then why wasn’t the deer hunt shut down when the police learned that several groups of protesters were inside the park? So much for public safety.
Because of the political tension surrounding the hunt and out of a fear of being labeled racists, the police ignored the rights of one group of citizens to accommodate the rights of another.
And what about the rights of the animals not to be hunted down and killed? What gives anyone the right to take the life of another? Whether you’re native or non-native, if you kill other animals when you don’t have to (meaning the human body doesn’t require animal flesh to maintain good health or nutrition), saying you respect those animals is just more bullshit.
When killing becomes a “right”, perhaps it’s time to say that certain “rights” are wrong. Instead of Idle No More, I’d like to see Killing No More.
Dan Wilson is a Niagara resident and long-time advocate for the humane treatment of animals. He is a regular contributor of commentary and photography to Niagara At Large.
(Niagara At Large invites you to share your views on this post. PLEASE NOTE that NAL only posts comments by individuals who also share their first and last name with their views.)
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I hear you however, if the rights given to the natives by treaty were denied to them over your rights to hike in the park for four days out of a entire year, then are your rights not trumping their rights? And by what rights?
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What about the rights of the deer to live in the peaceful, protected sanctuary of Shorthills Prov. Park as they have done for the past 40 plus years. Rights??? What about the rights of the landowners surrounding the park that were NOT notified that this hunt was going to take place until after the fact? What about exercising those “native rights” somewhere else after they got the opposition they received from our land owners and said “we will walk away if we have protestors and opposition?” No one walked away Julia as they promised……………..rights???? I am a land owner. I have rights. The deer should have rights to live in peace…….they can hunt anywhere, why in a protected Provincial Park?
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Thank you for sharing your insights Dan. Your point about the hunt not being shut down when groups of protesters easilly breached the security to enter the park was proof that “safety” was not the reason for such a huge police presence. Closing the roads made it difficult for media coverage and older people to attend the protest. However, getting there around 4am, before the “security” I honestly believe was for the hunters, enabled protesters to park right at the entrance. It was a horrific event that shamed both the aboriginal hunters and our ministry of Natural Resources. One of the lady’s who gave me a ride to the protest had her native status card and band papers that she provided to the ministry idiot when she claimed she too had the right to participate in the hunt. The ministry twit first asked where her archery equipment was, then told her she was not on the list. This lady told him that she planned to shoot with her camera as some of the other aboriginal protesters there wanted to do. I was amazed that the first question was about weapons. How depraved does someone have to be to kill pregnant deer? Seeing those pictures of gutted prenant deer with their babies laid dying beside their mother’s carcas made me sob uncontrolably, though I never let any of the creeps allowing this to happen have the satisfaction of gloating over the reaction of what they considered a racist protester. Every aboriginal I know has e-mailed me their disgust at what was allowed to happen. Several described the hunters as lazy cowards and other things that involved some creative profanity. Their comments resulted in how I worded my protest sign, Like every other culture there will always be the ones who shame their heritage and the ones who live in the now, making every effort to display accomplishments they can speak of with pride. Thanks again Mr. Wilson for all of your experience that you share and for all that you do to raise awareness that all creatures and animals share the planet with the human animals. Hopefully we will evolve enough to take to heart the quote usedin this post: “The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.” – Arthur Schopenhauer
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I know that you do not have the consensus of the animal rights community. Your criticism of the police tells me that if you don’t get your way you will throw words like racism around to further your point. I think that if you were trying to make an argument in favour of animal rights I might take a good look at the mega-corporations that handle “meat processing”, instead of complaining about a few First Nations hunters ruining your weekend picnic in the park.
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First, the hikers and other park visitors use that park much more often than for only four days a year. Second, nobody should ever be given the right to murder docile animals, some of whom were pregnant, for any reason. Those deer have lived in a state of sanctuary for more than half a century with no one shooting them with anything other than a camera. The deer are so used to normal park visitors that they have not much fear of people. They have not had the awful experience of developing the “flight or fight” defence that animals need in areas where people usually hunt. This hunt was paramount to shooting fish in a barrel or murdering animals at a petting zoo. I cannot believe that the ancestors would be proud of those who used a treaty right as an excuse to hunt somewhat tame animals merely because, in their words: “it was a convenient location that did not require too long of a journey”. That has to be the epitome of laziness. It was interesting that many of the people protesting this hunt were aboriginal people ashamed of those hunting in a provincial park. Also, there were many hunters protesting against this location and the bow and arrow method of the killing of somewhat tame animals. In many scenarios one person’s rights should be just as important as another’s but you must realize that morality and cruelty are issues that need to be addressed by anyone with a conscience.
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Since this story first broke I’ve found myself thinking about this treaty and the possible scenario of an annual allowance of “x” number of settler girls to the First Nations. I mean, they’re just girls, right? And this is the 1800s. Granted in the 1920s our Canadian government decided that, okay, females are persons and they are entitled to the same rights and privileges (as bullshit as they are) as males. I wonder if such a treaty existed and tomorrow a group of First Nations came to collect their allotment of women would you protest?
Complacently allowing First Nations to take the lives of other animals for non-survival reasons is speciest. There are volumes of evidence that shows other animals are capable of having relationships and forming bonds; they care for their young and teaching them life skills. Other animal species play, grieve, plan for the future, are self-aware, and they all fear death. They are persons. They are as much of a person and have the same value as I, born in the shape of a human girl am a person and having the same value as another born in the shape of a human boy. The law just needs to catch up.
In the animal rights community, complacently allowing First Nations to take the lives of other animals for non-survival reasons is, to me, racist. The aim of the AR movement is to create a shift in global consciousness, to adopt a new morality that recognizes all animals (human animals included) as having the same value and the right to live their lives free from exploitation. If the aforementioned treaty existed, in 2013, would a group of First Nations take possession of a bunch of little girls? Probably not. Why? Because they have an evolved morality that views women as having the same value as men and would find the practise offensive. To not question the First Nations’ treaty right to shoot deer in a park suggests, to me, that they are deemed incapable of any further evolvement.
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Loraine you certainly made an excellent analogy to prove the point many of us were too wimpy to express: the lack of evolment by those who do not understand that rights should be recognized for all species. I really was not that long ago that female humans were not considered persons and by extention “people”. The genuine humans dedicated to the AR movement are making enormous progress and will continue to do so. Hopefully the ones who opt to pick and choose which species deserve rights and respect will come back to realize that exceptions to who deserves protection is unacceptable as well as the epitome of hypocracy.
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I cannot condone the hunting and killing of any animal for any reason….culture, tradition, to exercise treaty rights or for ceremony. I cannot accept cruelty on the grounds “…that is something that has always been done” or “…it is our way of life….”
As for Mr. Dockstader, I am right behind you when you want to “…take a good look at the mega-corporations that handle “meat processing…” Been there, done that, and willing to go again. Isn’t it interesting when people stand up to be counted against one cruelty, someone always gets the idea that they should be speaking out against another cruelty???
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Karl… if I understand you correctly, you misunderstand what I wrote. I was not calling the police racists. I was referring to those people who call anyone opposed to the native deer hunt, or anyone (including the police) who stand up to native protesters, as racists.
And you’re right, I don’t speak for the entire animal rights community. In fact, a great deal of criticism and racist name-calling came FROM members of the animal rights community, who said we didn’t have the “right” to question the First Nations’ treaty rights, or stand up for the animals in this case.
The difference between mega-corporations slaughtering and processing animals (also a horrible thing that I speak out against), and the deer hunt, is that slaughtering animals for food has (unfortunately) been happening for quite some time while hunting animals in Short Hills has never happened before. I think it’s important to stop it before it becomes a regular activity.
Julia… that’s why I wrote that rights are bulls**t. If I lived in a different time, it would’ve been my “right” to beat the crap out of my wife. If I lived in a different part of the world, it would be my “right” to kill my wife if she is unfaithful to me. Times change and so should “rights”, based on whether they’re good or harmful to society and others we share the planet with.
And the idea that one group of people is permitted special rights, because of a document signed 400 years ago, is not only wrong, it’s racist.
By the way Karl, I don’t usually have my picnics in the winter. 😛
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Karl needs to look up the meaning of the word “concensous”. All of the genuine Animal Rights organization members I know and respect, and I communicate with hundreds of them, supported the protest of the deer hunt murders at Short Hills Provincial Park. Those who were not there sent their support in many ways. Only one organization made the choice to shun and slander this protest. It has been said that sponsors and funding were issues that made them become selective about which animals have the right to be protected and advocated for. At one time I had praised that group as being the hope for the future of animal rights advocasy. Maybe as they age and are able to focus on the knowledge that supporting too many human rights causes result in encountering tough decisions that hinder what were their original intentions of passionately raising awareness of the animal rights movement. Happilly, that group still has many members who supported the deer hunt protest and those members will continue to follow their own conscience. Thank you Karl for pointing out that meat processing is an area that requires intense scrutiny and enorrmous changes which I hope you mean in relationship to the factory farming horrors. It was quite offensive of you to make the comment about a weekend picnic being ruined by a few hunters though. i assure you that there were more than a few hunters and it was no picnic for protesters to be out there in some visciously rotten weather from 4am until 10pm every day the hunters were there. Hopefully this will never happen again, but if it does we who truly are devoted to stopping atrocities such as this one, will be back even if the weather includes hurricanes. Happilly, the weather had an effect on the hunters too. The OPP police, especially the OPP “Sean” were cordial and I will not mention where their sympathys were. However, the one hunter who mistook OPP “Sean” for a protester and tapped him with his car seemed to express that the hunters were the ones who really did not appreciate the police pressence,
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Dan, I enjoyed your article and the interesting discussion. One point of clarification: Idle No More is about Canadian rights, Constitutional rights, and the right of Free Prior Informed and Accomodated Consent. (So if Harper wants to railroad the public with his omnibus bills, he’s doing it the wrong way, and with no respect for the rule of Constitutional law, or for the environment.) The Short Hills issue is a clash of rights, and as with other such issues,resolution involves negotiation, according to the rule of law. Treaties, the Indian Act etc. need to evolve with full participation of both government and First Nations. As for the OPP, I think they’re doing a good job so far and fulfilling their mandate as it pertains to the clash of rights between First Nations, First Nations allies, and the Harper government. I count myself as a First Nations ally for many reasons, including the fact that their world-view has far more respect for the environment (and animals) than the Harper government will ever have.
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My picnic comment was an ill conceived reaction to the misguided Idle No More reference made by the writer, I am sorry that I offended anyone, or if I made any implication that I do not respect the lives of animals. I think that all life should be treasured.
My concern is that this event is under extra scrutiny because of the involvement of First Nations, and the writer’s Idle No More reference, while not racist, reflects ignorance of the topic and a trend in Canada as of late. If you see me around I am easy to find because I sport a nifty Idle No More hat because I think dialogue, the heart and soul of a site like this, is the path to resolution of difference. It is the way to form consensus. It was never my intention to invite the barrage of criticism around First Nations topics that it sometimes invites. People are quick to point out the flaws of First Nations culture, meanwhile the Prime Minister is blatantly working to further big oil, the Premier of Ontario for a decade became so enshrouded in scandal and had to resign but will be drawing a nice large pension soon, the mayor of Toronto voted in a clear cut conflict of interest and refused to apologize and got off the hook, and yet Idle No More is one of the worst things happening in Canada in some peoples eyes…I wear the hat because I love this country and I want to talk about how to make it better, I even respect those who disagree with my standpoint, but the comments that Canadian society allows to flourish on the corporate news websites can be fatiguing. The constant scrutiny of First Nations while the mainstream leadership gets a pass is a sad but frequent occurrence. The notion that Native rights are “bullshit” (there I said it too), is the kind of thinking that closes dialogue.
If the 30 or so protesters had handed me a petition that said I will work to support a local farming infrastructure that has at it’s heart the welfare of society by protecting the life of animals by countering wastefulness and consumeristic supply resulting in the decomposition of millions of pounds of meat a year I would sign, volunteer, and lobby immediately. I directly support local farmers in as many ways as I can. I think that the bigger under addressed problem here is that Canadians should be working on their own issue of contributing to a society run by unaccountable money happy governors instead of the never ending scrutiny around Native issues.
It is hard to look at the history of Canada and to rally around an article that claims: “rights are bullshit” (oops – I did it again), and minimizes a nationwide movement to empower youth and women while I read about how Canadians waste 40-50% of all of the food processed here in this country . I do not pretend to speak on behalf of the Haudenosaunee people, but I can assure you that entrenched in the value system of the culture of these hunters is a fundamental respect for the lives of the deer as a gift given from Creator. I think that not just going to the grocery store because you can is actually a better sign of respect for life than mindlessly consuming, wasting, ignoring problems in the fiber of your nations values, and then pointing the finger at Native Hunters.
Please, remind me, which is the bigger problem here? When is the rally to end wasteful practices leading to meaningless slaughter? Where are the support local coalitions in Niagara so that people can learn about where their food comes from and not have a recurrence of the XL beef disaster that stemmed, again, from an unmanned system that fosters the growth of poor practices around food?
I will put on my thick skin in anticipation of responses, but as usual I will read every word of every comment on here because I think it’s admirable to fight to have people respect a value you strongly believe in and it is my hope that the unknown solutions to the problems of our society might be a gem of a comment buried in the belly of a lightning rod blog article like this one.
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The epigraph from Schopenhauer works against what follows: Schopenhauer is describing “Western crudity and barbarity” — the hunt at Short Hills was conducted by members of a non-Western culture/nation. So…maybe keep googling?
After the epigraph, Wilson acts like declaring that rights are constructions is a brave, revelatory move. The fact that rights get violated is invoked as another reason to dismiss them. (Interesting that the first of the sometimes-violated rights that Wilson cites are “the right to an education and clean water” given that a chronic underfunding of education and lack of access to clean water are experienced disproportionately by First Nations people in Canada. Idle No More: get into it, guy!)
Then without warning Wilson starts asking after *his* rights. Whatever, rights are a tough concept, I don’t know how I feel about them either. But can we keep in mind that, like them or not, rights are a Western invention — like capitalism, and like the idea that other animals are automatons, are means to our ends? What I’m trying to suggest is that calling on Western philosophy and a Western rights discourse to argue against a hunt by First Nations people is kind of a joke — you’re way more likely to find a worldview that gives other animals some standing in Onkwehonwe culture. So that’s one retort to this piece: deal with your own culture’s violence against other animals, and other humans, before you start asking another culture to adopt your values. Or, better, trust that First Nations cultures are self-critiquing, and include voices that argue against practices like hunting, and, given a chance at self-determination, will do much better vis-a-vis other animals than Western cultures have.
I feel like my response has been pretty generous so far. But I also have to say that it looks like Wilson et al. saw a dozen-some folks from a vulnerable group (i.e. a group that has been resisting genocide for a few centuries now, a group that is way less likely to get adequate funding for education or to be able to turn on the tap and get a drink of water than other Canadians) and decided to have at them. Easier than confronting white hunters, right? (I hear some of them actually joined you!); easier than confronting the enormous institutions dedicated to animal exploitation and brought to us by Western culture. Way easier to attack a group that is always already under attack every single day. I know that’s not very generous; I know that cath ens thinks it’s interesting that “when people stand up to be counted against one cruelty, someone always gets the idea that they should be speaking out against another cruelty.” But that sounds easy to me, too: it sounds like there’s a kind of menu of distinct cruelties one can choose to “stand up to be counted against,” and as soon as one has chosen from the menu one can forget everything else on it. It sounds like the idea is that so long as one is protesting “one cruelty,” one doesn’t have to worry about being complicit in other cruelties; so long as one is critiquing cruelty, one gets a free pass from critique; so long as one is arguing against violence, one cannot be engaged in violence. I mean come one — *that’s* bullshit, no?!
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Karl and David are welcome to attend one or all of the many, many protests against factory farming for meat and farms that breed and cruelly kill critters for fur apparel or any ot the other protests held to bring awareness to and someday abolish the unacceptable horrors that God’s or the Creator’s or Allah’s non-human children constantly suffer. My apologys if I don’t know or have not included all of the names used when addressing prayers. The hunters could have been non-native, martian, purple or poke-a-dotted for all I cared. It was wrong of our ministry of natural resources to give permission to anyone to hunt relatively tame deer in a provincial park. I suspect that the fear of being called a racist at a time when the idle no more and other native protests were active may have turned them into cowards. I do not believe the Creator is impressed with anyone thinking that he was offering gifts of pregnant deer who had lived in a state of sanctuary for decades without being shot by anything more leathal than a camera. The hunters admitted in a newspaper article that this site was chosen because it was convenient. Seems a bit of a lazy reason. Yes, there were hunters and natives protesting the deer hunt. They spoke with me and others about how a park with deer who have had no experience being hunted would never have developed a “flight or fight” instiinct. How can anyone claim to have a fundamental respect for animals they kill in a setting similiar to a petting zoo? As for the educational opportunitys for native youth, at every pow wow and every other native event there is a native person with a booth set up to recruit people interested in taking advantage of the funding for pursuing a post secondary education. One of these people is a prof at Brock. Unfortunately not very many youth sign up and even less follow through. Thankfully, my sister’s sons are taking advantage of the funding and are completing more than one degree at this time. Those boys will not have huge loans to repay after graduation but like any other students they do need to pick up a little bit of part-time student jobs to cover some of the extras. This is an excellent forum to express and share concerns. I too hope that awareness of the cruelty our non-human relatives suffer will prompt others to take a stand. It is never too late to do the right thing. Mr. Wilson is not alone in his passion to end animal cruelty and abuse. He is a person with the integrity to speak up and inspire others to do the same. Mr, Wilson certainly made a lot of people aware enough to share their opinions here!
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most of the people present at those demos do not eat any meat at all, from the grocery store or elsewhere. I can not speak for everyone present, but I will not cede one animals life for any purpose. The animals that perished would not care the colour of the skin of the person that killed them…or care of their culture, religion, sex, interests, politics, etc….they would only be stressed, fearful, wounded and or dead.
there are indeed groups in Niagara that host events that talk about food culture and diets (do I see you rolling your eyes??) and how the current systems of farming and slaughtering animals is not good for the planet, (any of) her people or indeed the animals themselves…they encourage a vegan lifestyle.
And, if it is any interest to you at all, I am aware of and indeed have spoken out against the situation that the First peoples have endured. I still have relatives on the reserve, and an aunt who just passed with whom I spoke regularly about these issues. And indeed, I wouldn’t for a moment say that one shouldn’t speak out against all injustices. I just happen to think that killing animals is an injustice too.
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Dear Dan,
I understand your concern for animals. The Fact that the hunt took place is a testimonial that that Six Nations live here and hunted here before we came here to share their land.
Ron Walker
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