Well, it’s just like the title says, story here. A PGA tour golfer filming a video was annoyed by a noisy hawk, and took multiple shots at it with golf balls, eventually killing it. This story doesn’t seem to have the legs the Michael Vick story did. It happened three months ago and I just heard about it. Is it because people don’t care as much for golf as football, or because dogs are cuter than hawks, or what?
Red Shouldered Hawks are very common around where I live, and that man should be ashamed of himslef for killing such a majestic bird. Asshole.
People have greater social attachment to dogs, and it’s an isolated incident of the killing of one animal, not an infrastructure designed to confine and torture dogs from birth until someone sees fit to kill them.
Save some disgust for the 15 persons in the filming crew who watched it all unfold, felt uncomfortable about it, but did nothing to stop the asshole.
I’m impressed by the guy’s ball control, I must admit.
As good as Randy Johnson’s nailing a pigeon during game play? See here. 
Poor guy…the pigeon.
Heard about it on the news yesterday. Seems like he could go to jail for it. Good.
Remember back when Dave Winfield threw a warm up ball back to the dugout and killed a seagull up in Toronto? He was charged with cruelty to animals. I’m not a big Steinbrenner fan, but he had a great line after the event. He said that if Winfield had done it on purpose, it was the first time he’d hit the cut off man all season.
I guess he birdied the hole!
Fine of 1500 and some jail time possible I read. 6 Months?
Up to a year. Probably probation, but I hope not.
Perhaps because he didn’t systematically pit hawks against each other in death matches, wager on the outcome, and torture and kill the losers?
It’s a nasty thing the golfer did, but hardly on a par with running a dogfighting ring.
It’s interesting how we as a society condone the killing of animals as well as promoting an uncomfortable life for many of the animals we kill while at the same time getting upset over someone killing a hawk. Why is one animal valued higher than another?
Yeah, you could argue that killing the cow serves a purpose but is it really that much more wrong to kill a hawk for annoying you then it is to kill a cow for food?
Marc
If the guy had killed a cow in the same manner and for the same purpose as he did the bird, yes, the outrage would be the same. He’s a loser, and nitpick, not currently good enough to be on the PGA tour.
No one cares about the story because the guy is a nobody. If some schmo playing minor league football had a dogfigihting ring, it wouldn’t be that big in the media either.
We do the same for people, don’t we?
-Joe
I figured it was some kind of weird hierarchy of animals. There are food animals, pet animals, and then those neither food nor pets, at least in this country. You can do pretty much anything you want to food animals as long as you avoid outright torture, and even that’s pretty flexible.
On the other hand I’ve seen people charged with animal cruelty for shooting their own hunting dog because it made them miss a shot. You’ve got to admit that’s strange. You can shoot ducks all day long, or at least in season and up to the bag limit, but one dog and it’s off to the courthouse.
Birds of prey generally are not food animals, and not kept as pets, but most people still feel it’s wrong to kill one. Maybe not as wrong as killing a dog or cat, which are animals kept as pets.
It’s like at the end of the movie when the ASPCA logo certifies that no animals were harmed in the filming of this movie. Really? The catering was all vegan? They didn’t have rodent problems that made them call an exterminator? The location shoots didn’t displace any bunny rabbits?
If you can trust the IMDB the Humane Society made the crew of The Shawshank Redemption find a maggot that had died of natural causes to feed to a bird. They could have fed the bird a piece of hamburger and nobody would have flinched.
If he killed a cow with golfballs, that would be awesome.
Here’s an article about some of Vick’s dogs. Some of them had their teeth filed to nubs, or pulled altogether, so that they would not be dangerous during breeding, or while being used as bait. Not really in the same ballpark as killing a hawk, as ugly as that iis.
To be fair, he thought he was going for an eagle.
Just what I was thinking. In another story, one was quoted off the record as saying the situation was “awkward.” Ya think? Sheesh. :smack: