WILDLIFE SANCTUARIES NOW KILLING FIELDS

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, January 28, 1993                   TAG: 9301280367
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short
WILDLIFE SANCTUARIES NOW KILLING FIELDS
WHEN WILL we replace hunters like W. Matt Knox (letter, Jan. 14, "Don't disparage hunters' contributions,") who monopolize administrative positions in our fish-and-game agencies with non-hunters who genuinely care about animals?
Only 6 percent of Americans hunt; less than 1 percent trap. Yet, in return for campaign contributions from the National Rifle Association, legislators have appointed hunters and trappers to virtually every managerial position.
Consequently, hunters and trappers now swarm through our national forests and state parks, and have turned 259 of our 452 national wildlife sanctuaries into bloody killing fields. They are massacring animals, who by law belong to all Americans, with semi-automatic rifles, high-powered bows and arrows, and the excruciating steel-jaw leg-hold trap, outlawed for its cruelty in 70 countries, but not - thanks to our wildlife agencies - here.
These agencies use our taxes to pay people like Knox to write about how much these jokingly called "sportsmen" contribute to our economy, when actually they don't even cover the game wardens necessary to police them. CARLA BENNETT People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals WASHINGTON, D.C.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB