Political Animals Of 2008
SuperVegan posted a good overview of animal election issues, including these three:
- Good news: California’s Proposition 2 passed. Prop 2 regulates animal welfare and reduces the egregious cruelty of California factory farms.
- Bad news: Oklahoma’s Question 742 passed. This initiative makes hunting, trapping and fishing a human right protected by the state’s constitution. Luckily, the rest of the country doesn’t view Oklahoma as a trend-setting state.
- Good news: Massachusetts’ Question 3 passed. This is a ban on dog racing.
What are you thoughts?
The Oklahoma’s prop was put-forward by a Democrat too. At least we in the AR movement are equally despised, left and right.
~ Recent blog post: On ensoulment ~
According to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, in 2006 only 5.5% of the country hunted, down from 6.1% in 2001. In 2006 31% of the country was involved in wildlife watching. In 2006 there were 12,534,000 hunters, but 71,068,000 wildlife watchers. Hunters contributed $21,976,621,000 to the economy through their expenditures. Wildlife watchers contributed $40,561,910,000.
Oklahoma is a ‘throwback’.
Jill, good point. And don’t forget that some pro-animal people buy hunting licenses they don’t use in order to reduce the number of animals killed. So… some of that “hunting” revenue is actually from anti-hunting people.