Meanwhile, Back in New Jersey…
The New Jersey Appellate Division has upheld the convictions of three activists for the heinous crime of jeering hunters and warning bears. Four unarmed animal-lovers (Angela Metler, Albert Kazemian and Janet Piszar along with a fourth woman who got away) hooted and hollered when armed men (one of whom turned out to be an undercover police officer there specifically to foil their efforts to protect the bears) entered the woods purportedly to hunt bears. They were convicted of being “disorderly persons” even though their shouts surely were less loud than the gunshots by which hunters repeatedly break the peace. Banned from offering an entrapment defense — they would not have shouted if the police officer pretending to be hunting had not entered the woods — the activists argued that their shouting constituted free speech. Since no unbiased bystanders were present, the judge relied on the hunters’ and the pro-hunting police officer’s assessment of the activists’ behavior as disorderly.
Perhaps they were lucky they got arrested instead of shot. Hunt sabotage is perhaps the most dangerous form of direct action for animals. Here, where machine-gun toting men in combat gear roam the nearby woods in (and sometimes out of hunting season) hoping to kill the deer and wild turkeys I so often see on my walks, I don’t dare engage in hunt sabotage for fear that somebody would retaliate by shooting up one of the sanctuary’s chicken coops one night. So, I have nothing but love for anybody who puts her life on the line to warn deer or bears or turkeys that the men with guns are coming.
I say “her” (although I am of course grateful to male hunt sabbers too) because — notice: Three of those hunt sabbers were women. Here and in the UK, overt hunt sabbing often has been led by women and I suspect that the proportions among underground hunt sabbers are similar. Indeed, the movement against sport hunting, like animal advocacy in general, largely has been driven (if not formally led) by women. As I wrote in “Mothers with Monkeywrenches,” recognizing that much of underground action in defense of animals is undertaken by women might have the dual effect of undercutting both movement sexism and popular perceptions of earth and animal libbers as menacing young men hiding behind black ski masks.
But back to New Jersey, home of HLS and setting for the infamous miscarriage of justice perpetrated against the SHAC7. As it happens, the very entertaining Strange Maps blog has just published an eerily cheery 1950s map showcasing all of New Jersey’s prisons as if they were tourist destinations. Another item for the new Green Is the New Red shop?
