A fabricated story

I would like to respond to the Nov. 11 letter by Sheila M. Coyle. On the surface, it is a ridiculous fiction. A story of crazed men with huge knives racing wildly into the woods to hack open a living moose is beyond belief. Coyle’s story was obviously fabricated to make a point.

On another level, it is an example of how a growing segment of anti-hunting activists has turned toward portraying hunters as subhuman. Not many people would advocate teaching our children to hate or fear people of other races or religions, but somehow it is OK to portray your hunting neighbors as people to be feared and hated.

Hunters are people who love the outdoors. They don’t believe that hiring someone else to kill your meat is somehow morally superior. The average hunter shoots a deer about one year in 10. We continue hunting during those nine unsuccessful years because our enjoyment of hunting is not measured by success.

Hunting in Maine is changing and hunters are learning to accommodate large numbers of people who don’t hunt. I would hope non-hunters would make the same effort to understand and accommodate those of us who do hunt. Propaganda like Coyle’s certainly doesn’t promote this kind of understanding. Non-hunters as well as hunters should reject her approach.

Charles Grosjean Franklin