CONTINUAL WHINING IS GETTING TIRESOME

Animal-rights activists are foaming at the mouth, again - this time because a dying Minnesota teenager made a wish to go bear hunting in Alaska and some kindly donors made his wish come true.

Being in a perpetual lather seems to come naturally for quite a few Americans these days. Outsiders unfamiliar with our ways might look at the single-issue tantrums of our countless specialinterest groups and wonder if we have gotten just a bit spoiled. Here we sit, in the most prosperous democracy on the planet, fussing about how extremely offended we are that hunters kill game animals, loggers cut down trees and (fill in your favorite whining here).

All of us believe passionately, of course, in our narrow little causes. And we can donate big bucks for organizational newsletters that will keep us constantly agitated about people whose lives and opinions differ from our own.

But doesn't it make you tired after a while? Doesn't it make you yearn for community? For (take a deep breath) perspective?

Rarely has a special-interest group been as lacking in perspective as the Humane Society of the United States was when it denounced Make-A-Wish Foundation for sending a boy on a bear-hunting trip. Rarely has hypocrisy smelled as rank as it did when actor Pierce Brosnan, who glamorized human bloodshed and promiscuity as Hollywood's latest James Bond retread, urged this boy to give up his dream and visit a movie set instead.

The boy in question has grown up in a family who hunts and fishes. We can think of less wholesome pursuits; many of them, promoted by Brosnan's industry, are illegal - unlike hunting. Now, at 16, this boy has a brain tumor. For a boy who loves North American hunting and fishing, a trip to Alaska is a trip to the promised land. Adult hunters hope and save for a lifetime for a permit to hunt a kodiak bear.

We hate to break this to the long-nosed busybodies of the animal-rights movement, but all game animals die. Many, of starvation. Many others are eaten alive by predators. A few are killed by a high-powered bullet and their hides are preserved as a remembrance - by people who love big game and pay high fees which finance management of Alaska's growing bear population.

Animal-rights activists are entitled to hold their opinions. Hunters are entitled to exercise theirs. And Americans of compassion are entitled to hold their noses in the presence of ninnies so narrow-minded they would deny a dying boy one last great hunting trip.

Hope you get your bear, Erik.

Copyright 1996 Cowles Publishing Company
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