Animal rights outweigh trophies
by Brian Wainstein, Editor-In-Chief

   The plains of Africa, the jungles of South America and the forests of North America all have one thing in common: wildlife.
   National parks and preserves exist so that the animals we share this planet with are not routinely destroyed.
   Already so many species of plant and animal have become extinct through man's casual indifference toward life.
   Nowhere is this more evident than in the sport of trophy hunting.
   These hunters stalk wildlife and then needlessly murder them with an array of weapons ranging from rifles to bows and arrows.
   Trophy hunters tend to justify their actions with a horrifying hypocrisy; they think that wildlife is best appreciated dead and mounted on their walls as bragging pieces.
   Now, I do not think that hunting is wrong. Hunting for food is an activity passed down from time immemorial, but these hunters killed because they needed it.
   Primitive societies revered wildlife, glorifying animals in cave paintings, giving their deities bestial attributes and even treating animals as sacred pets.
   Our generation? Well, it looks like a whole bunch of us wants to get on down to the huntin' store, put on our camo, get our shotguns and blow the [expletive deleted] out of some animals. And then mount 'em up all nice like.
  Does this seem wrong to anyone besides me? Here are these beautiful, graceful products of evolution, each one perfectly suited and connected to its environment, and here we come slaughtering them because we want something nice to look at.
   Such action is wrong and unfair.
   Humans are the most powerful species on the planet. The tools we create can do anything from impacting the smallest of atoms to annihilating entire cities.
   As Toby Maguire's character learned in Spiderman, with power comes responsibility.
   We should not be hunters, but rather caretakers.
   The animals sharing the Earth with us have as much right to be here as we do, and as long as they are not going to do us any harm, they should be allowed to stay here in peace.
   Let me have my piece of land, and let the animals have theirs ... unless I get hungry.