I’m very forgiving, but you’re seriously a jerk.

As a sculptor, my job is to create things that have never existed before. I love the work, and strive to build art that is new to the planet, sometimes making a piece in an afternoon, sometimes over the course of two or three years. People have different responses to my work. Some love it, and will spend thousands of dollars to call it their own. Some mock it and some vandalize it.

Once, a piece called “Stone Differential,” which had taken 50 hours to make, and another 30 to install, fell prey to some drunken teenagers in a public show in Charlotte, North Carolina. Rods were bent in all directions, in a haphazard way.

I know what it is like to have the people you created a gift for, literally spit on it. But nobody has ever stopped the existence of my sculpture. Nobody has ever shot at or killed one of my stone creations for temporary fun. People are doing that left and right, to the most powerful, stunning animals on the planet.

The elephant,

lion,

big cats,

and rhinos, are toast.

Chameleons can stay.

This morning, it’s really got my panties in a twist.

“If you want to be close to God, don’t murder his children.”

~Sri Dharma Mittra

Guess what you guys? Every creature on this planet is for sale.

Rights to its life belong to the guy with the money. Endangered? Protected? Pah!

So I don’t really know how God feels when a white rhino meets Jerry, a New Jersey-based stock broker, takes a bull-market bullet from him, and then suffering, dies.

But if God has a clue, and studies have shown she most certainly does, she’s got to at least roll her eyes.

All over the planet right now, creatures like the rhino, the lion and the elephant are falling to “sportsmen” who wouldn’t know the first thing about how to track and find one on their cleverest day. They just buy the shot.

The Thing I

 respect and admire

 about Hunters is…

oh wait,

there’s  nothing.

So: every animal in existence is for sale. You can buy a “kill” of endangered species without any fuss. Money will slip you through all the laws and rules in just a sec. It’s like a carnival without any of the carnival-like qualities.

Check out the book, Dominion. Matthew Scully’s research undercover at a safari club convention in Las Vegas will break your heart and open your eyes. It is over, for any trophiable species. (I made the word up, work with me.) So if your head looks good on a wall, you are so f*cked.

The most visible proponents of animal “conservation” in many places are hunter advocates, who keep animals alive to broker their death when the money comes along.

(And a stunning amount of safari expenses are tax-deductible. Trophy room = ‘museum.’ Really.)

I find the rhino more noble than Jerry. There is a perfection in the beast, which the killer hiding behind his gun (and the backup guns all around him) lacks. I believe paying hunters are cowards and thieves. They hide under the strong arms of the professional hunter. They are stealing a false sense of virility, which they wear like the cheapest cologne on the planet. They don the fool’s grin, but not in a good way.

And as if that were not bad enough…

You can now just shoot your quarry while it is in a cage. 

Trying to find love and compassion for these sheep in wolves clothing has me seriously stumped. Any ideas, folks?

So New York People…

There’s a nice bit of lawmaking percolating right now. Two good, simple actions to take to abolish “Canned Trophy Hunting,” where these wizards go into large cages to shoot captive prey, are right here.

 

As if hunting in the wild isn’t cowardly enough, now people   are driving in to shoot caged animals by appointment.

If you live in NY, this one is a no-brainer.

 

                     If you know anyone in New York, please send them a link.

Three cheers to Nicole at the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary for facebooking this to my attention.