Wednesday, April 10, 2002
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Wednesday, April 10, 2002 |
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Turner, the animal pariah Allow me to respond to William F. Fielder's letter asking "Why no squawk from PETA?" regarding Ted Turner's bison subsidies, bison hunts and wildlife killing ("Ted Turner has a few causes beyond buffalos" Feb. 13]. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has sent out letters protesting all these things. The latest was sent Feb. 19 of this year, as follows: Ted Turner's wolf-shocking experiments have fizzled. Nearly two years ago, Turner teamed up with the notoriously cruel federal Wildlife Services to trap a mother wolf and her three adult sons and pen them on Turner's "Flying D Ranch" in Montana for electrical shock experiments. It was all part of the gruesome war on wildlife waged for Turner and other ranchers who refuse to pay the costs of raising livestock in wild country. The wolves were fitted with collars that shocked them if they approached a live cow or calf hide put in their pen. Mom wolf died from stress-attributed liver and kidney failure. After her sons were released last December, one fell through thin ice and drowned, and the other two were shot after feeding on dead livestock. Turner, who sponsors elite bison hunts at $10,500 per hunter, has also called in Wildlife Services to kill wild dogs on his 320,000-acre Ladder Ranch with aerial gunning, shooting, and steel-jaw traps. He also has erected "killer fences" that snare and torture migrating wildlife. Turner, the largest private landowner and largest bison rancher in our country, sells bison meat to a cooperative subsidized by the federal government with millions of tax dollars each year. Taxpayers also provided $190,000 in 2000 to Turner and his companies in federal farm subsidies designed to prop up needy farmers. Plus, Turner has started a restaurant chain pushing bison burgers [one is in Peachtree City]. If you find Ted Turner's tactics hard to swallow, do something good for you, the animals, and the environment go vegetarian. You can get People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals' beautiful free Vegetarian Starter Kit at GoVeg.com or by calling 1-888-Veg-Food. Carla Bennett Senior Writer People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals Norfolk, Va. CarlaB@peta.org
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