Sometimes I can't make the slightest sense of what I read in the newspapers. Here's an example. But first some sheep news.
The desert bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis nelsoni), smaller than the ordinary bighorn and one of the rarest and most endagered our native mammals, has been reduced to dry ranges in Nevada and California, near rocky cliffs in almost waterless environments. "Hunting has been prohibited or controlled since the early 1900s, but much illegal poaching still occurs. The subspecies Ovis canadensis auduboni of the Black Hills and adjacent areas has already become extinct."
Now the newspaper report. The Longmont Times-Call celebrates a local heroine, Ms. Sara Brandenburg.
"At age 15, Brandenburg became the youngest female in the world to the earn the North American Grand Slam after shooting and killing four different species of North American wild sheep — a dall, a stone, a Rocky Mountain bighorn and a desert bighorn. She shot a 230-pound dall sheep Aug. 17, 2009, in Alaska and pinned her final animal — a 220-pound stone sheep — in the Yukon Territory on Aug. 8, four days before her 16th birthday.The previous record-holder was a 32-year-old, according to the Grand Slam Club/Ovis.When she shot the stone sheep — the final one for her grand slam — tears poured down her face. “It’s a big emotional rush when you get it,” she said. While working on the record, Brandenburg, who is a sophomore at Longmont Christian School, missed two months of classes. She ended the year with a 4.0 grade-point average, in part because she hauled textbooks on hunts. Moments before shooting her desert bighorn sheep in Mexico’s Baja Desert, she was finishing algebra homework. Her father, Rod Brandenburg, taught Sara and her older sister, Katey, 18, to hunt at an early age, instilling in them the same pioneer spirit his great-grandfather had when he moved from Germany to homestead in the 1870s in Westcliffe, Colo. He estimated it cost about $120,000 to arrange for Sara to kill four sheep. When friends remark about the cost, Brandenburg says it was worth it. “I couldn’t afford not to,” he said. When he watched Sara shoot her final sheep, a wave of relief, exhilaration and admiration washed over him, he said. Last month, she took up archery and hopes to repeat the grand slam with a bow this time or advance to the Super 10 title, which is awarded to hunters who shoot and kill 10 North American big-game animals. In addition to sheep, Sara Brandenburg also has shot and killed three antelopes, one white-tailed deer and one black bear, as well as a gemsbok, an eland, a wildebeest and a zebra during a hunting trip in South Africa."
I don't understand blood sports. I find them repulsive and inhuman.
Am I missing something? The Brandenburg family values ($120,000 to kill four rare sheep) are disgusting, sociopathic, and barbaric. Are these people locked into the Stone Age?
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