Letters To The Editor
Protection act could work
During the past several months, the evidence of big game waste and carnage has become so evident that not only should hunters, who pay for licenses and tags to hunt, but tribal leadership as well should be outraged. As I have viewed video tapes and photographs of cow elk, within 6 weeks of calving, killed, gutted with calves thrown to the side and cow left to rot, I am sickened and outraged.
Congresswoman Linda Smith has once again taken a courageous stand with her “Deer and Elk Protection Act.” This “act” has come about as a result of constituent complaints and the lack of action on the part of the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Department of Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The issue of off-reservation hunting has been complicated, over the years, because Fish and Wildlife has basically had a hands-off policy. The negotiations, between the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife and the tribes, has not been, in my opinion, in the best interest of long-term conservation of the elk herds in the state of Washington.
The state of Washington has an elk herd count of approximately 60,000 and a tribal membership of approximately 44,000.
Some tribal members feel they have a right to kill three elk per year. If a significant number of tribal members decided to take three elk per year, the elk population in the state could be significantly endangered. Furthermore, the off-reservation hunting is no longer a question of subsistence.
On April 18, 1998, a letter on Attorney General of Washington letterhead, signed by Fronda Woods, assistant attorney general, in response to a concerned constituent, states, “Your letter urges that the Federal government needs to clarify the nature of Indian tribal hunting rights, and should require that tribal hunters be subject to the same laws that govern hunting by non-Indians.
“Congress indeed has the power to do that. Congress can decide how Indian tribes shall relate to state governments, and whether that relationship should be changed.”
Before I am labeled anti-Native American, it should be known that I had three first cousins who were 1/4 Cowlitz Indian, and my great-grandmother was 1/2 Native American. As far as I am concerned, this is not a Native American issue, this is an issue of survival of our elk and deer in the state of Washington, and an issue of equal rights for all under the law. Myrna J. Neeley Chehalis, Wash.
Toporowski’s style misguided
Dan Weaver, in an article on the front page of the sports section of the Sunday, July 12 issue of The Spokesman-Review, writes in a way that glorifies and highlights the violence associated with the career of hockey minor leaguer Kerry Toporowski.
Fighting in real life for intelligent, compassionate and courageous people is always the last resort. If you are an intelligent, reasonable human being, please try to read the following quote from Toporowski without laughing: “I’d fight if I had to - stir things up if I had to - but I never tried to injure anybody intentionally.”
KT, I hope you were misquoted! Let’s see now, “stir things up” means we were not above being the first to throw a punch or instigate a fight. Is this a situation where we have to fight? Secondly, in a fight, by definition you are trying to hurt someone. “Gee Mr. Police Officer, I didn’t intend to hurt him, I was just trying to shove my fist into his face!”
I guess Toporowski’s hands were broken five times because all those instigators just kept assaulting his fists with their noses.
It is sad and unfortunate, but also poetically just that his career was ended by being on the short end of a fight. Obviously, other more skillful players in the NHL and in the minor leagues have not found it necessary to fight as often as Toporowski.
I’m sorry the author chose to focus on and glorify the fighting in KT’s career, excusing it as “standing up” for his teammates and his team. He was doing nothing of the sort. He just wasn’t smart enough to avoid fighting in a physically and emotionally charged game and now his career has come to an end because of his responses to it at the age of 27.
The word “legend” applied to a minor leaguer that almost no one outside of Spokane or the minor leagues has heard of had me laughing. What an assault on the English language! If that’s true, then I’m a “legend” in wrestling, due to my fourth-place finish in the state wrestling championships in high school and my status as a varsity wrestler back when WSU had a wrestling program. I’m also a “legendary” martial arts practitioner, because just last Friday, myself and one other guy defeated our third-degree black belt instructor in a two-on-one sparing match.
The article was offensive. Timothy Paul Pullman