It isn’t often that card-carrying conservatives find
anything People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has
to say palatable. This, then, is a red-letter day as rightwingers
and PETA are in full, er, bear hug mode over the sad case of Jim
West, of British Columbia.
A bear recently attacked West after he inadvertently came
between a mother bear and her cubs. The bear knocked him down
repeatedly before he was able to grab a large stick and bludgeon
it to death. In the attack, West suffered injuries that required
60 stitches. West had to kill the bear in self-defense.
End of story, right?
Wrong.
Since the attack, a different sort of vicious clawed beast
has been attacking West: animal rights activists. Some activists
pose as West and tell reporters that he killed the bear
maliciously and wasn’t threatened at all.
Others call and harass him at home. “One woman asked me why
I killed the bear and why I didn’t run away. Well, you can’t
outrun a mother bear,” said West.
West is not unsympathetic to concerns about cruelty against
animals. He said he regrets that he had to kill the bear but
claims to have had no choice. Sixty stitches is pretty good
evidence that the bear didn’t have West’s well-being in mind. Yet
the harassment continues.
Since the start of the smear campaign, PETA has refused to
add to West’s injuries. “We are absolutely not involved,” said
PETA spokesman Martin Mersereau. “We focus our efforts on
accomplishing things and this doesn’t fit in that
category.”
What’s this? Common sense from a PETA point man? The group
typically sets the bar for nutty animal rights activism. PETA
wraps people up like steaks at the meat counter to protest eating
meat. PETA demonstrators throw paint on people wearing
fur.
PETA recently urged Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream to replace
cow’s milk with human milk in producing ice cream. Ben &
Jerry’s declined, thankfully.
How far off the reservation does an animal rights activist
have to be to alienate PETA? When one is attacked by a bear, one
should merely accept being mauled to death? Even PETA agrees,
that’s downright un-bear-able.
Animal rights activists need to watch Stephen Colbert’s
<I>Colbert Report</I>. The broadcaster and satirist
has worked long and hard to expose the savage truth about bears.
Bears are “actually Satan’s children,” says Colbert. They
are “after our kids” because human children are “tender, juicy,
you don’t even have to throw away the bones.”
Or maybe these activists were raised by bears.
In all seriousness, it is unfortunate that a man who
successfully defended his own life now needs defending.
Animal rights activists have gone too far on this one. For
the first time in its 28-year history even PETA finds itself on
the side of sanity and common sense. Too bad it won’t
last.
