That moose
Toolbox
Published: September 15, 2009
That moose held at a game preserve in Irasburg now has a lawyer, not to mention a Facebook page. Though the Fish and Wildlife Board has ordered that the moose be removed and destroyed, it appears the doomed animal may have its day in court.
Rutland Herald outdoors columnist Dennis Jensen, writing about the moose controversy last month, made the pointed decision not to use the moose's given name, and with good reason. The moose has come to be known as Pete, and since it gained an identity knowable by humans, it has gained a following. Now a lawyer from Vermont Law School has agreed to look into the case to explore animal rights issues that may be germane to the moose's plight.
One of the reasons it is illegal in Vermont to hold wild animals in captivity is to prevent the spread of chronic wasting disease, a fatal condition that can decimate wild animal herds. Chronic wasting disease has been found in 14 states, including New York. Vermont's deer herd, and the economic benefits that derive from it, depend on keeping chronic wasting disease out of Vermont.
Making a fetish of the moose known as Pete is absurd on many grounds. There is, for instance, the place where the moose now lives, a 600-acre game farm where the owner raises elk so that would-be sportsmen may pay big bucks to walk up and shoot them. It recalls the remark of former House Speaker Ralph Wright, who declared that hunting a moose was as sporting as shooting a parked car.
If animal rights are the issue, what about the elk that are slaughtered on the premises as trophies? In addition to the moose known as Pete, there are perhaps a dozen other moose on the property and 100 to 200 deer. Is it humane to contain them in densities so high they may become the nexus of a fatal disease? Is it humane to prolong conditions that may imperil the well-being of the animals outside the fence?
The moose known as Pete became a cause celebre when his story became widely known — a kindly old man nursed it to health and brought it up after finding it injured as a calf in the woods. Everyone acknowledges that possessing wild animals is against the law. For one thing it is not in the interests of wild animals to become dependent on humans. For another, the wild animals of Vermont belong to the people of Vermont, not to any individual or game farm owner.
The idea that the moose known as Pete has rights more sacred than the elk it lives among, or the other moose and deer among which it lives, or more sacred than the deer and fish whose slaying by hunters and fishermen is facilitated by state hunting and fishing policy, has placed the moose controversy in a ludicrous light. And yet the affection that a named mammal can engender is real enough that Gov. James Douglas has said he would look for a way to resolve the problem without destroying the moose. Fish and Wildlife Commissioner Wayne Laroche has refrained from threatening to destroy the wild animals at the game farm, even though the Fish & Wildlife Board has ruled the animals must be removed by Jan. 4.
Human beings who respect wild animals ought to let them stay wild. Some of them will die, of course. Human beings ought not to pretend they can tame the wild. Hunters who want to engage in the hunt of wild animals ought to hunt wild animals, not animals penned in for the purposes of target practice.
The fate of the animal known as Pete ought not to be elevated above the fates of other moose or deer. If the captive moose and deer can be saved without imperiling Vermont's wild animals, that would be a good outcome. But if wildlife policy is hijacked by sentimentality, then it will be the animals that pay the price.
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