If any activists can be in St. Petersburg, Florida over the next few days, we need to coordinate. Feel free to network through this site; email camille@negotiationisover.com with the subject “Florida”. I urge serious activists to stand up with me against this despicable display of ANIMAL TORTURE and CHILD ABUSE. There’s power in numbers.
Following is the text of an email I received earlier; I have confirmed that details.
The Southwest Florida Water Management District is sponsoring a “hunt” by winning essay contest applicants. The contest was open to children 8-16. There were to be 24 winners, but the contest attracted only 20 applicants. The applicant featured in the St. Petersburg Times is a 9-year-old girl, a fourth-grader at St. Jude’s Cathedral in St. Petersburg, Florida, who’s mother encouraged her to enter the contest not long after the girl learned to shoot on a camping trip.
The Children’s “Hunt” is scheduled for October 17th and October 24th at the Edward W. Chance Reserve – Gilley Creek Tract in the Lake Manatee Lower Watershed southeast of the city of St. Petersburg, Florida.
The guns will be loaded when the children are situated in a blind.
[Since the shooting is to take place from a blind, it is probable that bait will be placed in front of the blind(s) (where hogs were likely drawn by bait previously in order to habituate them to the site), making the hog's set-up targets. This whole thing is extremely unethical from a number of perspectives. Some would call it psychologically damaging child abuse that may do permanent harm.]
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
FIRST CONTACT THE PUBLIC OFFICIALS LISTED BELOW. THIS IS MOST IMPORTANT
THEN CONTACT THE MEDIA IN THE TAMPA – ST. PETERSBURG AREA
For the Times story (with picture) see: http://www.tampabay .com/news/ humaninterest/ article1043489. ece
Also see the story at the bottom of this e-mail.
WHO TO CONTACT: (see contact information further down – after this basic list)
Todd Pressman
Governing Board Chairman
The Southwest Florida Water Management District [SWFWMD]
Cori Cuttler
Community Affairs Program Manager
The Southwest Florida Water Management District
Tampa Service Office
Rodney L. Barreto
Chairman
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission
[this is a really important one to contact
he is extremely influential in the state of Florida]
Florida Governor Charles J. Crist, Jr.
Florida Lt. Governor Jeff Kottkamp
Florida Department of Children and Families
(to Protect the Vulnerable)
Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum
Tampa and St. Petersburg area media
(newspaper web site is given above)
(link to TV stations: http://www.stationi ndex.com/ tv/markets/ Tampa-St. +Petersburg)
Please contact public officials first – don’t rely on media to resolve this – time is short
HERE’S DETAILED CONTACT INFORMATION
Todd Pressman
todd.pressman@ watermatters. org
info@watermatters. org
Governing Board Chairman, The Southwest Florida Water Management District [SWFWMD]
Possible home phone number: (727) 784-3084
Anywho.com found two with the name Todd Pressman in the Tampa Bay area of Florida.
(both numbers may be for the same person)
Cori Cuttler
cori.cuttler@ watermatters. org
Community Affairs Program Manager
The Southwest Florida Water Management District
Tampa Service Office
7601 US Hwy. 301
Tampa, FL 33637-6759
Phone: (813) 985-7481
1-800-836-0797 (Florida only)
.
Please sign & cross-post: Petition Florida to Incorporate a Humane Education Curriculum
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To submit work to NIO for consideration and publication, please send an email to camille@negotationisover with the subject “submission”.
To receive NIO updates, please send an email to camille@negotiationisover with the subject “subscriptions”
Why don’t they teach the children how to lead a Klan rally and picket a gay man’s funeral while they’re at it?
Camille,
I really wish I could get down to Florida to help you with this, but there’s no way that I can. I will however contact those on the list provided. Let me know if there is any other way that I can help.
What in the hell is wrong with people that they have to kill kill kill …and teach their children to do so as well… It’s no wonder this world is so fucked up!!
I’d support it. the soon kids learn to picket a gay man’s funeral the better, and if we teach them right, they might just join the Klan!
/endsarcasm
Really, how do you make the connection between picketing a funeral and hunting?
You may enjoy my blog, http://negotiationisdone.com/
They like klan rallies and dead faggots; the kids will do those things without prompting.
Thanks so much Laura.
I would appreciate it if you would cross-post this blog as widely as possible.
Every activist’s message is stronger when we have others standing with us in unity. And I haven’t even coordinated my own campaign yet.
Thank you!
Connor,
Does picketing a gay man’s funeral stike you as repulsive, bigoted and vicious?
That’s how this issue strikes us.
It doesn’t matter if they average deluded necrovore EVER gets it.
They won’t.
At this point, it’s just about waiting for you idiots to finally die (that your diet is killing you folks off by the zillions is its own poetic justice), and we’ll get the generation that comes after you.
The reason people die from eating meat is because in the American society today people tend to not get the exercise they need. You seem to like ignoring the fact that we have been eating meat for thousands of years and that there are infact healthy people who eat meat. Why can you just ignore things like this?
That we’ve been eating meat for a very long time doesn’t make continuing to do it acceptable.
We’ve been raping, murdering, exploiting children and causing all manner of harm to each other since the beginning of time, TOO. That doesn’t mean that it’s acceptable to keep doing it.
Why do you ignore this?
Connor, these kids are being taught how to be speciesists. So I basically said, why don’t they teach the kids how to be racists and anti-gay bigots while they’re at it. Sorry you couldn’t see the correlation. It was quite clear.
i understand raping and murdering people isn’t an exceptable act but there is nothing that I can do about this.
trike: I’m not saying you have to prevent all rape, all murder or all torture worldwide. But you CAN make ethical choices about what you CHOOSE to eat, to wear, or to use in your daily living.
You won’t get my generation, nor my Children. I’ll teach them to hunt, because not all food should come pre packaged. I’m Canadian by the way, and I think PETA and anyone affiliated with PETA are bordering on sub human.
The hypocrites posting this crap, hoping against hope to get google hits, must not realize that they are contributing the the destruction of the planet, while Google’s servers chug away, spewing out large amounts of carbon dioxide. But they can sit high and mighty, with their nose in the sky pretending like they’re out there saving the world one animal at a time… Hypocrites!
Lets be honest, your food is probably picked by some 12 year old Mexican making 3 cents an hour, then packaged in some semi plastic container and stamped 100% organic, meanwhile pumping more carcinogens into our water supply, polluting more of our run off, toxifying our fish, supporting slave labour and you hypocrites think you have some god given right to tell others how to live their lives?
We didn’t make it to the top of the food chain by eating berries and twigs, like some would have others believe. You need look no further than Lascaux or Tassili to find the answers to our pre historic survival. We hunted and ate meat, the first nations did it before we ever came to North America, we did it in Europe, African’s did it and still do it in Africa.
But you continue on with your ideologies, keep living in your cement playground, driving your smart cars, with your pre packaged food, sipping your zero dairy latte’s, it’s all serving the destruction of our natural resources. But that doesn’t matter… as long as you have your way.
Outstanding post, Dylan. It would take exactly one generation of Americans who refuse to kill, before we were overrun by savages who knew that we would not or could not fight back.
Teach your kids to hunt and use a firearm. One day his life and the lives of his/her loved ones could depend on it.
Dylan & Conner, I see in them the mindless paranoia and xenophopia of a terrorist right wing militia. One of the many reasons I desire the Amerikan nation to be wiped of the face of the Earth. And before you say “if I don’t like it leave” I’ve never been there. The world is more than your increasingly Fascist state.
*sigh* I hope you’ll rethink your “engagement” position, Camille.
Subhumans who hunt for pleasure calling ARA’s subhuman?
Keen. Irony.
Ian,
In one respect, it’s useful to display their idiocy.
But if it gets overwhelming, don’t hesitate to tell me. They’ll be gone.
Camille