When the hunters become the hunted

I find it amusing, in a macabre kind of way, when the animal kills the hunter for a change....

A group of five hunters including a man identified as Jürgen C. were recently patrolling the fields outside of the village of Linthe in Brandenburg when they spotted a large boar, according to the Friday edition of the Bild newspaper.

The 72-year-old Jürgen sent his terrier Ben in after the burly pig and another hunter, Torsten P., soon followed. “We then heard a cry and Torsten came toward us with his leg slashed open,” Ehrhard said. “He was brought to the hospital in Potsdam.”

The hunters found him on the ground bleeding heavily from the leg after the boar had slashed a main artery near the knee with its tusks. “I wrapped his wound but he passed out,” said Ehrhard. “It was terrible.”

Despite their efforts to revive him, Jürgen bled to death on the field.

I don't have a problem with hunters. I eat plenty of meat myself. It's just that sitting in a tree stand with a whisky bottle in one hand and a high-powered, rifle in the other, waiting hours for a dumb, unsuspecting creature to wander past so you can blow his brains all over the forest floor from 1000 meters, isn't exactly hunting......it's more like sniping. Unless you leap naked out of a tree, onto the back of a wild boar, with only a Bowie knife between your teeth, then you are nothing but a sniper, an assassin. I mean seriously, how low must your self-esteem be if it makes you feel superior to brag to your drunk, unbathed friends back at the lodge about shooting a defenseless, unaware animal from the safety of a hunting blind from quarter mile away? An animal that you lured there with green grass, salt-licks, and other assorted goodies like grains and nuts that animals cannot resist?

No, if you want to call yourself a hunter, kill hand-to-hand style, then brag about it.

I didn't print the rest of the story, but old Jurgen's 4 friends went out and killed the boar. And I'll bet they're bragging about what a conquest it was. My feeling is that if a hunted animal manages to hunt and kill the hunter, then it should be awarded an orange vest signifying that it is off-limits for killing for the rest of it's natural life.