by Fund for Animals

About the author: The Fund for Animals is an animal rights organization founded by author Cleveland Amory in 1967.

Hunting, it is true, is an American tradition—a tradition of killing, crippling, extinction, and ecological destruction. With an arsenal of rifles, shotguns, muzzleloaders, handguns, and bows and arrows, hunters kill more than 200 million animals yearly—crippling, orphaning, and harassing millions more.

The annual death toll in the U.S. includes 42 million mourning doves, 30 million squirrels, 28 million quail, 25 million rabbits, 20 million pheasants, 14 million ducks, 6 million deer, and thousands of geese, bears, moose, elk, antelope, swans, cougars, turkeys, wolves, foxes, coyotes, bobcats, boars, and other woodland creatures.

“Overpopulation” Is a Smokescreen

Q: Don’t hunters mercifully shoot animals who would otherwise die a slow death from starvation?

A: When hunters talk about shooting overpopulated animals, they generally...