No middle ground

What tangled language webs we weave when exercising anger over hunting and animal rights.

Rich Landers, a writer I admire, took on Chris Anderlik of the local Animal Advocates, a group I support, when she penned a letter in the Inlander. She said “conservation” is sly code chiefly for the interests of sportsmen who spill blood. Then Jeff Holmes, a colleague whom I respect, chimed in by naming Anderlik “a far-fringe element of the far left.”

Evidently there’s no way to mediate between these sparring parties.

A recent article in Newsweek, though, aims to raise the discourse to a scientific level. The article, “Survival of the weak and scrawny,” has provoked a righteous stir in hunting circles, even if the burden of that report by Lily Huang proved intuitive for most readers.

Trophy hunting is counter-ecological. It removes from gene pools the largest and most magnificent specimens of animals that evolution has produced. Those left alive in natural environs learn a genetic lesson: Grow homely and unimpressive specimens only. A kind of reverse natural selection takes place, a survival of the plainest.

In this bicentenary of Darwin’s birth, one wishes the gentle discoverer of evolution were here to intercede.

Paul Lindholdt

Spokane