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A canned hunt is a trophy hunt which is not " fair chase", typically by having
game animal Game or quarry is any wild animal hunted for animal products (primarily meat), for recreation (" sporting"), or for trophies. The species of animals hunted as game varies in different parts of the world and by different local jurisdictions, t ...
s kept in a confined area such as in a fenced ranch (i.e. "canned") to prevent the animals' escape and make tracking easier for the
hunter Hunting is the human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, or killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to harvest food (i.e. meat) and useful animal products (fur/ hide, bone/tusks, horn/antler, ...
, in order to increase the likelihood of the hunter obtaining a kill. The term has been used for
driven grouse shooting Driven grouse shooting is the hunting of the red grouse, a field sport of the United Kingdom. The grouse-shooting season extends from 12 August, often called the " Glorious Twelfth", to 10 December each year. Large numbers of grouse are driven t ...
, in which large areas of Britain are farmed for red grouse. According to WordNet, a canned hunt is a "hunt for animals that have been raised on game ranches until they are mature enough to be killed for trophy collections." There have been criticisms of this method of hunting from both hunters and
animal welfare Animal welfare is the well-being of non-human animals. Formal standards of animal welfare vary between contexts, but are debated mostly by animal welfare groups, legislators, and academics. Animal welfare science uses measures such as longevity, ...
advocacy groups. "Canned hunting" and "vanity hunting" are derogatory terms not generally applied by the practitioners of activities so described.


Legislation in the U.S.

Canned hunting has been banned or restricted in 20 states of the United States, including
Alabama (We dare defend our rights) , anthem = " Alabama" , image_map = Alabama in United States.svg , seat = Montgomery , LargestCity = Huntsville , LargestCounty = Baldwin County , LargestMetro = Greater Birmingham , area_total_km2 = 135,7 ...
, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware,
Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...
, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming. In 2006, Alabama was the most recent state to pass legislation banning many forms of canned hunting. In 2007, a bill in the New York State Legislature to ban all canned hunting of certain "exotic" animals was defeated by legislative inaction.


Criticism

A number of groups object to the practice of canned hunting for reasons such as cruelty to animals or that it takes away the hunting ethics known as " fair chase". The
Humane Society of the United States The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is an American nonprofit organization that focuses on animal welfare and opposes animal-related cruelties of national scope. It uses strategies that are beyond the abilities of local organizations. ...
(HSUS) criticizes canned hunting. In a statement, the HSUS called canned hunts "cruel and brutal activities", in which the hunted animal has "absolutely no chance of escape". It went on to say that animals have been "psychologically conditioned to behave as a target by life in
captivity Captivity, or being held captive, is a state wherein humans or other animals are confined to a particular space and prevented from leaving or moving freely. An example in humans is imprisonment. Prisoners of war are usually held in captivity by a ...
", among other objections. Some hunting groups, especially those who focus on hunters' ethics, also object to canned hunting. These objections are on the grounds of " fair chase", the idea that an animal has a fair chance of escaping the hunter, and it's not too easy for the hunter to kill the animal. It is believed that canned hunts remove these elements. Hunting groups such as the Pope and Young Club and the
Boone and Crockett Club The Boone and Crockett Club is an American nonprofit organization that advocates fair chase hunting in support of habitat conservation. The club is North America's oldest wildlife and habitat conservation organization, founded in the United Stat ...
do not accept animals killed in canned hunts for inclusion in their record books.
Boone and Crockett Club The Boone and Crockett Club is an American nonprofit organization that advocates fair chase hunting in support of habitat conservation. The club is North America's oldest wildlife and habitat conservation organization, founded in the United Stat ...
refers to the activity as a "canned shoot", as they claim that there is no hunting involved.
Safari Club International Safari Club International (SCI) is a US organization composed of hunters dedicated to protecting the freedom to hunt. SCI has more than 50,000 members and 180 local chapters. SCI members agree to abide by the organization's code of ethics, whi ...
no longer accepts animals killed in canned hunts for inclusion in its record books and award categories. In 2014, 62 cities across the globe participated in the first-ever global march against canned hunting. The march was organized by Campaign Against Canned Hunting. People from many parts of the world took part:
Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
,
Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...
, Australia, Europe, Middle East, New Zealand, North America ( Canada and the United States) and South America.


In the news

In 2005,
internet hunting Internet hunting is the practice of hunting via remotely controlled firearms that can be aimed and shot using online webcams. The first internet hunting website, Live-Shot.com, was created in 2005 by John Lockwood, who saw it as a way to provide ...
became a major news story when a man in Texas set up a webcam and remotely controlled gun to allow hunters to shoot from their computers. According to the Humane Society, most internet hunts involve game ranches where animals are kept penned, making them essentially canned hunts.Humane Society Wildlife Abuse Campaign, On August 15, 2006,
Troy Gentry Montgomery Gentry is an American country music duo founded by singers Eddie Montgomery and Troy Gentry, both Kentucky natives. They began performing together in the 1990s as part of two different bands with Montgomery's brother, John Michael M ...
, half of the country music singing duo
Montgomery Gentry Montgomery Gentry is an American country music duo founded by singers Eddie Montgomery and Troy Gentry, both Kentucky natives. They began performing together in the 1990s as part of two different bands with Montgomery's brother, John Michael M ...
, appeared in federal court in Duluth, Minnesota, charged with canned hunting. Federal prosecutors allege that Gentry bought a bear named "Cubby" from Lee Marvin Greenly, shot the tame bear while it was in an enclosed pen, tagged the bear as if it had been killed in the wild, and then arranged for the editing of a videotape of the alleged "wild" kill. Gentry and Greenly were said to face a maximum penalty of five years in federal prison and a $20,000 fine if convicted. On November 27, 2006, Gentry pleaded guilty to a charge of falsely tagging the bear. Under the plea agreement, he agreed to pay a $15,000 fine, give up hunting, fishing and trapping in Minnesota for 5 years, and forfeit both the stuffed bear and the bow used to shoot the animal in 2004. Gentry posted a statement on the duo's website on November 9, 2010, apologizing for his actions. Another less-well-known incident occurred in late 2003, two years prior to the infamous hunting accident, when then-
Vice President A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on ...
Dick Cheney Richard Bruce Cheney ( ; born January 30, 1941) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 46th vice president of the United States from 2001 to 2009 under President George W. Bush. He is currently the oldest living former ...
participated in a canned hunt at the
Rolling Rock Club Rolling Rock Club is a private country club located on along U.S. Route 30 about SE of Pittsburgh, in Laughlintown, Pennsylvania, Ligonier Valley. History Rolling Rock Club was originally of land owned by Judge Thomas Mellon, who left it to hi ...
in
Ligonier Township, Pennsylvania Ligonier Township is a township in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, United States. Ligonier Township entirely surrounds, but does not include, Ligonier Borough, which is a separate municipality. The township's population was 6,058 at the 202 ...
. Cheney and nine companions killed 417 out of 500
ringneck pheasant The common pheasant (''Phasianus colchicus'') is a bird in the pheasant family (Phasianidae). The genus name comes from Latin ''phasianus'', "pheasant". The species name ''colchicus'' is Latin for "of Colchis" (modern day Georgia), a countr ...
s, of which the Vice President killed 70, and an unknown number of
mallard duck The mallard () or wild duck (''Anas platyrhynchos'') is a dabbling duck that breeds throughout the temperate and subtropical Americas, Eurasia, and North Africa, and has been introduced to New Zealand, Australia, Peru, Brazil, Uruguay, Argen ...
s. In 2006, the South African Minister of Environmental Affairs, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, announced new laws to stop the practise of "canned hunting" in his country. The South African Environment Minister announced long-awaited restrictions on lion hunting, declaring he was sickened by wealthy tourists shooting
tamed A tame animal is an animal that is relatively tolerant of human presence. Tameness may arise naturally (as in the case, for example, of island tameness) or due to the deliberate, human-directed process of training an animal against its initially ...
lions from the back of a truck and felling rhinos with a
bow and arrow The bow and arrow is a ranged weapon system consisting of an elastic launching device (bow) and long-shafted projectiles (arrows). Humans used bows and arrows for hunting and aggression long before recorded history, and the practice was common ...
. This comes in response to the imbroglio created over the potential canned hunt of the African rhinoceros 'Baixinha.' Dismissing threats of legal action by the hunting industry, Marthinus Van Schalkwyk said the new law would ban "canned" hunting of big predators and rhinos in small enclosures that offer them no means of escape. In addition, lions bred in captivity would have to be released into the open for at least two years before they could be hunted. Van Schalkwyk said a previously proposed six-month delay would not give lions enough time to develop self-defence instincts. "Hunting should be about fair chase ... testing the wits of a hunter against that of the animal," he told a press conference. "Over the years that got eroded and now we are trying to re-establish that principle." This measure was later overturned. In May 2007, a much-reported hunting trip involved the killing of a pet pig in an alleged canned hunt. The pig was named "
Monster Pig Monster Pig was the subject of a controversial 2007 story that initially ran in the news media as a report (and a series of accompanying photographs) of an 11-year-old boy shooting a massive feral pig. The pig was claimed to have been shot during ...
" by the media and was thought to be a feral hog, but it was soon discovered that the pig, previously named "Fred", had been someone's
pet A pet, or companion animal, is an animal kept primarily for a person's company or entertainment rather than as a working animal, livestock, or a laboratory animal. Popular pets are often considered to have attractive appearances, intelligence, ...
and was then sold to a hunting facility only a brief time before he was killed. On May 3, paying customers Mike Stone and his 11-year-old son Jamison hunted the pig in a fenced enclosure. Jamison shot Fred a total of eight times over a period of three hours. A June 2007 story on
CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by t ...
detailed canned hunting in South Africa and includes a video of a canned lion hunt where the animal is shot against a fence. On November 30, 2014,
CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...
's ''
60 Minutes ''60 Minutes'' is an American television news magazine broadcast on the CBS television network. Debuting in 1968, the program was created by Don Hewitt and Bill Leonard, who chose to set it apart from other news programs by using a unique sty ...
'' broadcast a story ("The Lion Whisperer") about one man's sanctuary in South Africa for 26 lions, raised in captivity, which he rescued from the fate of canned lion hunting. In November 2015, the Professional Hunters' Association of South Africa (PHASA) voted to disassociate itself from the practice of canned lion hunting in South Africa. Unless the conservation value of canned lion hunting is demonstrated to PHASA, the organization will remain against the practice and, under penalty of expulsion, no PHASA members will be permitted to participate in canned lion hunts. In November 2017, PHASA came under fire over the body's reversal of its 2015 policy against the hunting of captive-bred lions.


See also

*
Turkey shoot A turkey shoot is an opportunity for an individual or a party to take advantage of a situation with a significant degree of ease. The term likely originates from a method of hunting wild turkeys in which the hunter, coming upon a flock, intention ...
*
Big game hunting Big-game hunting is the hunting of large game animals for meat, commercially valuable by-products (such as horns/antlers, furs, tusks, bones, body fat/oil, or special organs and contents), trophy/taxidermy, or simply just for recreation ("s ...
* Cruelty to animals * Hunting * Hunting license


Notes

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External links


Canned Lion Hunting Video
Hunting Cruelty to animals Crimes