"Not to hurt the creatures brethren is our first duty to them, but to stop there is not enough. We have a higher mission - to be of service to them wherever they require it." --Saint Francis of Assisi

Please have compassion for animals-Tell President Obama to abolish National Hunting and Fishing day, and institute a Compassion for Animals day for a gentler, kinder America:

“If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.” St. Francis of Assisi

"Not to hurt the creatures brethren is our first duty to them, but to stop there is not enough. We have a higher mission - to be of service to them wherever they require it." --Saint Francis of Assisi

Please have compassion for animals-Tell President Obama to abolish National Hunting and Fishing day, and institute a Compassion for Animals day for a gentler, kinder America:

“If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.” St. Francis of Assisi

President Obama just released an official Statement that says it is okay to torture and kill animals for pleasure:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Presidential-Proclamation-National-Hunting-and-Fishing-Day/

NATIONAL HUNTING AND FISHING DAY, 2009

According to FBI profiling people who enjoy killing animals, which is what "sport" is all about-pleasure-are high risk of committing violent acts against fellow humans, and child abuse due to the infliction of suffering and pain to helpless creatures.

Hunting is far from safe and accidents escalate every year including fatalities. Given that the actual engagement in hunting is somewhat limited in both hours and participation, the rate of serious injury or death is fairly high. While more people do die in car accidents, more people spend more time actually driving. Compare that rate to each trigger pulled as opposed to each turn of the ignition key and you have a different statistic emerge. Please see this year's fatalities, which are many, from hunting accidents including children being killed by hunters:

http://www.all-creatures.org/cash/accident-center.html

Fishing is far from safe as 100% of fish contain mercury, per the USDA 25% of those are "unsafe levels" which can even mean toxic mercury. Our nation is accumulating pollutants- they don't just magically vanish. I know this is going to sound stupid to you, but it's a fact that fish feel pain too. But I guess compassion is not a strong point in our species.  What makes it worse is that we know what we are doing, and we are aware of the pain and suffering we cause. Further, eating deer meat probably spreads disease, such as "mad deer disease" which is similar to mad cow disease. Please see:

http://www.maddeer.org/

Animal lovers supported Mr. Obama during his election due to the cruelty of Sarah Palin i.e,  aerial hunting of wolves.  Now Mr. Obama is doing the same thing by glorifying hunting (and fishing): Now we feel lied to, & VERY hurt over this declaration.  Animals are living creature created by God: Breathing, sleeping, eating, drinking, etc., that is, alive and full of feeling. Creatures also suffer pain and fear just like we do and  are small, can't talk, and are helpless-isn't that enough to justify compassion?

"The greatness of a nation, and its moral progress is measured by the way its animals are treated" - Ghandi

“The soul is the same in all living creatures, although the body of each is different.”--Hippocrates

“If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.” St. Francis of Assisi

Bow hunting is one of the sickest, cruelest "sports" you can imagine, and death is very painful and slow to the animals. Some deer are found wandering with an arrow lodged like in their head (e.g., through the nostrils into the head) and still alive for days, or still alive for days when pieced into the body. Hunters also use cruel steel traps-sometimes even stray cats and dogs get caught in these instruments of torture, and sometimes the animal, in horrendous agony, literally chews its own leg clean off just to free itself. Eventually the poor animal dies an agonizing death.

By declaring a national "hunting and fishing day" you are saying animal cruelty is okay fine. It's not. You can't imagine how much you upset people of many faiths as well as animal lovers by encouraging people to hunt and fish. I have no doubt that the less savory elements within 4H and other pro-gun groups will see your declaration as an excuse to try to get inner-city black kids (and other races of course) involved in hunting and guns.

The United States of America is quite violent enough-

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-166094302.html

"Each year, approximately 30,000 to 50,000 Americans are killed secondary to gunshot wounds. This upper range nearly equals the number of fatalities (59,021) sustained during the 12 years (1961 to 1973) of the Vietnam war. (1) In 2003, the last year for which these statistics are available, 30,136 persons were fatally wounded by firearms, representing 18.4% of all injury-related fatalities."

Declaring a "national hunting and fishing day" is both shocking and offensive and promotes cruelty and violence in America. FBI profiling verifies that serial killers start out by torturing/killing animals  because they find *pleasure* in slaying a helpless creature and enjoy watching it suffer. Then they graduate to humans.

It was bad enough that during his campaign that he held up "Baby," the rescue poodle that had its vocal cords severed so the breeder wouldn't have to hear the dog yelping from being locked in a chicken cage and bred like chicken, including a leg that was amputated from the massive infection from being in said cage-that Mr. Obama went back on his word and got a dog (the Water Dog) which came from a *breeder*, which is NOT a legitimate rescue. It also made breeders prosper, never mind the fact that America spends over $2 billion dollars a year in tax money to kill unwanted homeless pets.

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REMEDY: PLEASE MR. OBAMA REMOVE THIS DECLARATION OF A NATIONAL HUNTING AND FISHING DAY, and institute Compassion for Animals Awareness Day, which shall promote a more Compassionate, gentler America: Also please encourage Americans to spay/neuter their dogs and cats due to the epidemic of homeless animals and costing tax payers untold billions ever year to destroy them in pounds (California *alone* spends a quarter of a BILLION dollars a year--yes, per year-on killing animals, destroying a half a million dogs, cats, puppies and kittens as a means of population control because not enough homes for them).