Letter: Killing is not sporting

I found the article about killing birds as “warmup” for killing other birds distasteful (“Hunting September game birds is good warmup for waterfowl and upland seasons,” The Columbian, Aug. 31). What is the attraction of killing living creatures, be it birds or other animals?

We’ve messed up the natural order of prey and predators in our world so badly that, in some cases, it’s probably needed to cull certain species. But why these birds that you mention in your article?

I tried hunting when I was a youngster. I shot at sparrows and pigeons in the countryside, but after wounding a pigeon, and coming upon it struggling to survive, I immediately lost any further desire to kill anything.

It saddens me that people take pleasure in killing these creatures and call it “sport.” Why not just go to a shooting range to “kill” clay pigeons?

I wonder how an alien species, coming upon our Earth, would look at us. Would they evaluate the environmental situation and decide what species is causing the most damage? If they did, I suspect they’d find the answer that we humans are the biggest culprit.

At that point, I’d be curious how they would address this damaging organism. Maybe start with some “warmups” and go from there.