OP ED
Anyone unable to reach a decision about the Village Board’s planned program to allow indiscriminate bow hunting of deer on public and private lands should consider this one salient fact: If deer were domesticated and slaughtered in licensed slaughterhouses under government supervision, killing them as bow hunters do would be prohibited as cruel and inhumane.
Add that the hunting will be done from tree stands fundamentally dangerous to the hunters. Also add that the public will be using these properties for recreation at the same time, and you have a situation fraught with danger. Literally, this is an accident about to happen.
The only word to describe this policy is madness, sheer madness. My family and I moved to Croton 47 years ago, attracted by its rich history of toleration and compassion. These qualities all seem to be on the brink of being eradicated by fiat.
We are frankly puzzled by this Village Board’s fixation on killing innocent animals by the most cruel and inhumane methods to satisfy the misguided appetites of a small clique of bloodthirsty hunters. The Board’s purpose is to avoid having blood on their hands—but history will prove them wrong.
There is a stench of death about this Village Board when the most important piece of Village business is to rush into killing animals cruelly and painfully as a futile solution to a long-standing, almost universal problem.
Wanton, inhumane killing is not the answer. When will the Village Board learn this simple truth? They have yet to understand that the only important lesson in this life is to learn to live like human beings.
