Fight 'Canned' Hunts

Sometime Amagansett residents Paul McCartney, Alec Baldwin, and Kim Basinger, as well as Mary Tyler Moore are lending their support to a Brooklyn-based group working to prohibit so-called "canned hunts" in New York State.

The canned hunt is one in which hunters pay for the privilege of killing animals within enclosed areas, even caged or staked animals including surplus zoo or circus animals.

John Richard, who has for three years led the effort to prohibit the practice, said that, to him, canned hunts include shooting preserves such as the Spring Farm in Sag Harbor, which releases ducks and other wild species of fowl into a large area to be hunted.

"It's a fine line," Mr. Richard said of shooting preserves. "If animals are not naturally living in an area, if they are maintained [for hunting] they are still confined."

Not Far Enough?

There is now no law against canned hunts, nor are they defined, which seems to be the reason that legislation has failed thus far. Mr. Richard said that the legislation has been "hung up over language."

A State Assembly bill and a matching Senate counterpart submitted last spring sought to ban the killing of animals raised in captivity that no longer have the fear of humans.

The proposed law made a special effort to protect "non-native big-game animals," like those that are retired from zoos or circuses.

The language in the proposed billsdrew a distinction between canned hunts and legal hunting and trapping, even that which takes place on licensed shooting preserves, although the latter are not specifically mentioned. The proposed law would also exempt the slaughter of animals as provided by the State Department of Agriculture.

However, opponents of the bills say they do not go far enough to define the hunts themselves so as to exclude hunting preserves licensed by the state.

Mark Lowery, a wildlife specialist with the State Department of Environmental Conservation, said the term canned hunt had different meanings to different people.

Ambiguous Meaning

"For some, releasing pheasants in a large shooting preserve is a canned hunt, or if animals are confined at all, even in a large area, if there is any fence at all."

Others, he said, believe a canned hunt is one in which an animal is caged, or tethered.

Mr. Lowery confirmed there was no state law that prohibited the canned hunting of surplus zoo or circus animals. "Unless the animal is protected as an endangered species, D.E.C. law would not apply. For the most part, animals can be dispatched," Mr. Lowery said.

No Specific Mention

A spokesman for the Spring Farm preserve said, "If they pass a law on canned hunts for old tigers and lions, that's fine with me. Where do they get people to do this? I don't know of any place in this state where people would pay for this. The way the [bills] are written, it does not include me."

Game preserves are defined in the proposed legislation that failed to pass in 1996, as places from which "captive animals are primarily dependent upon human beings for food and water."

However, the game preserve animals the proposed bill would protect are defined as "non-native, big-game mammals."