I got the following e-mail from the Exotic Wildlife Association this afternoon. I thought some of you might like to tune in and see what is said in the piece. Hopefully it is as fair and unbiased as they say it is....


Exotic Wildlife Association
Membership Alert

"60 Minutes" report to air on Sunday

After months of waiting we have finally received word that "60 Minutes" will air the piece about exotics that was filmed in Texas. It will air Sunday evening, January 29th at 6 pm CST on CBS during the 60 Minutes broadcast.

Following is the statement I received from Max McClellan of "60 Minutes".

"Charly - I wanted to let you know that the exotics piece is slated to air on Sunday. You are a major part of the story. Your views are fully aired. As we discussed a year ago, we do show a hunting sequence in this report. For me, it makes it clear that these hunts do not take place in someone's back yard, as the industry has been accused. But you won't find a single graphic picture in this story. The vast majority of the piece debates the issue: are Texas ranchers - like David Bamberger, you, and the 5000 exotic ranchers you represent -- helping to save some of the world's most endangered animals from extinction?

In the end, everyone gets to make their case, including Friends of Animal's Priscilla Feral, who says it's lunacy to call what you do conservation. Pat Condy, who we turned to as one of the world's top wildlife conservationists, takes a much different view. I hope you will find that we did a scrupulously fair and balanced job. Thank you for your help and patience over many months."

Charly Seale
Executive Director
Exotic Wildlife Association

Wade,

It sounds like it might be a piece that really gives both sides of the issue. If it does any open minded person might "GET" the conservation point and see how silly these antis really are. Having said that I'm not holding my breath.

The best we can hope for is that some of the vast najority of people that really don't feel one way of the other about hunting in general let alone exotics will see the program and come away understanding that hunting though it may be repugnant to them actually is instrumental in the survival of wildlife.

Mark

I won't hold my breath waiting on a fair and balanced report.

But I damn sure hope it is.


.

Won't help the scm horned oryx much.

Perry

Those of you who are old enough to remember the CBS specials "The Guns of Autumn" and its follow-up may also remember how the network touted those cheap-shot pieces as "fair and balanced."

Bill Quimby

Yes Sir,remember the Guns of Autumn quite well.

My opinion is that show alone did more to help the whole Anti-Hunting movement to get off the ground than anything.

I'm not holding my breath either guys....but I'm hoping this episode will be different than some of the past episodes regarding hunting/firearms.

If you would like, click on this link....which has a preview of this week's episode:

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/w...tentMain;cbsCarousel

I never watched Dan Rather after he did that shitty show and I agree with you 100% on your assessment Crazy!!!

The anti-hunting movement began in the mid-1600s and already was well established when "The Guns of Autumn" aired in 1975.

Cleveland Amory, whose book "Mankind" CBS used as a source of "fact," already had successfully launched his Fund for Animals group. Alice Harrington's Friends of Animals already was getting lots of ink and money for her cause. and the terrorist group Animal Liberation Front in Britain was already creating cells all across the USA.

The show may have brought a jump in membership of those groups, but what it really did was awaken America's hunters. Until then, few of us knew (and even fewer believed) that our heritage was threatened.

In my opinion, Louis Salant, the head of CBS News at the time, and anchorman Dan Rather, actually did us a favor. Within weeks, the world knew that the CBS "documentary" was anything but that.

Bill Quimby

quote:

It sounds like it might be a piece that really gives both sides of the issue.

Really???

It is CBS and 60 Minutes........

I read somewhere that in the states hunters and anti hunters are fairly well balanced in numbers, the major group are the ones that dont know or care eitherway, as hunters we need to influence them. Unfortunately MOST hunters shy away from saying that they hunt and are not very vocal as if we are doing something wrong!

They don't call it 60 one sided minutes for no reason.

In the promo they talk about the "rarity" of a Cape Buffalo. I wonder what other ignorant statements will be featured Sunday night.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18...nimals-to-save-them/

quote:

The anti-hunting movement began in the mid-1600s and already was well established when "The Guns of Autumn" aired in 1975.

You Sir have your memories, I have mine. I never saw anything about anti-hunting until after Guns Of Autunm aired. In fact here in Texas anti-hunting was a non-issue until the mid to late 80's.

You were a little closer to Kalifornicate than we were and hunting was just becoming Big Business here.

You might have not realized that there was a powerful and well-financed anti-hunting movement until it reached your corner of Texas in the 1980s, but I assure you that I have personal knowledge that it was alive and well at least two decades earlier.

By the time "The Guns of Autumn" aired in 1975, I'd been writing outdoors columns in the Tucson Citizen for nine years, and already had received my first death threats over the pro-hunting articles and photos I published.

Worse, my daughter had been singled out and criticized by a couple of her teachers because her father was a "known" hunter who had helped make bison, black bears and mountain lions "extinct."

Our paper's letters to the editor columns were frequently filled with angry notes from anti-hunters, even before I wrote my first column in 1966, and there were anti-hunting demonstrations at the local sporting goods stores that still held big deer and javelina contests.

All of this was happening long before "The Guns of Autumn." By the end of the 1970s, the University of Arizona's laboratories that conducted experiments with rats and monkeys were being vandalized and eventually were torched. Animal rights terrorist Rodney Coronado and his friends were following desert sheep hunters around in the Catalina Mountains above Tucson, banging garbage can lids to "save the sheep." (He was responsible for Arizona becoming the first state to enact hunter harassment laws.)

Yes, I do remember that era differently than you. It was my job to "cover" such things in those days and you can believe me when I say that, more than anything else, "The Guns of Autumn" made the average hunter aware that there were large numbers of people all across the USA who were actively working and contributing their money and influence to eliminate our sport.

Bill Quimby

As I said, and as you well know, things happen at different times in different places, which at that time frame included news reporting.

What was going on concerning the antihunting movement in other parts of the US and the world for that matter, from my memory, did not receive much attention from the public or the press in at least parts of Texas until after the airing of "Guns".

Not argueing with you on your assessment of the program or the anti-hunting movement, just putting things in a different perspective concerning the information a reporter/writer has access to compared to say ordinary citizens, especially during the 60's,70's and early 80's.

quote:

What was going on concerning the antihunting movement in other parts of the US and the world for that matter, from my memory, did not receive much attention from the public or the press in at least parts of Texas until after the airing of "Guns".

Crazyhorseconsulting:

Anti-hunters had been around for centuries, but their numbers exploded with the birth of environmental awareness in the early 1960s. Both anti-hunting and "green" movements got a lot of press all through that decade and early 1970s (and beyond) virtually everywhere on this planet.

In the United States, that era produced the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966, the Endangered Species Conservation Act of 1969, the 1969 amendment of the 1900 Lacey Act, The Free-Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Act of 1971, the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, the Endangered Species Act of 1972, and at least a dozen other federal laws that still affect America's hunters.

While the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) and the 1973 international treaty called CITES (Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna) were being formed, groups such as Defenders of Wildlife (formerly Defenders of Furbearers, founded in 1947), Humane Society of the United States (1954), Friends of Animals (1957), Hunt Saboteurs Association (1964), Fund for Animals (1967), Animal Liberation Front (1974), and others were seeing great leaps in membership and funding.

Outdoor writers had been reporting this in local newspapers and various hook and bullet magazines as it happened, but it wasn't until CBS aired "The Guns of Autumn" in 1975 that the majority of America's hunters suddenly realized that the anti-hunting movement already was a powerful force working to eliminate hunting.

That's why I said CBS did us a favor by alerting the uninformed that we are engaged in a war to save hunting.

I predict that tomorrow night's program on hunting of exotic animals in Texas will accomplish the same thing. Despite a stated attempt at "fairness" and "balance," it will be another cheap shot at hunting and hunters.

I just hope that in the brawl that follows the program's airing that hunters do not split into opposing factions -- those who see nothing wrong in hunting behind high wire, and those who do.

If we do, it will be just one more battle in this war that we will have lost.

Bill Quimby

If you believe CBS has ANY interest whatsoever in being "fair and balanced"...you probably also think that $100.00 hooker loves you.
At it's very outset...ya gotta ask WHY they're doing this story in the first place...???
The answer is NOT to help the exotic association make THIER case, to educate the public, or anything like it.

quote:

Originally posted by Don Edwards:
If you believe CBS has ANY interest whatsoever in being "fair and balanced"...you probably also think that $100.00 hooker loves you.
At it's very outset...ya gotta ask WHY they're doing this story in the first place...???
The answer is NOT to help the exotic association make THIER case, to educate the public, or anything like it.

+1

+ 1,000

Before CBS crews went to Arizona, Michigan, New York and elsewhere to film hunters, they sent letters to game departments, game farms and individual hunters seeking interviews, and every letter included a misleading statement that said they intended to show the tradition of hunting and its contributions to America in its bicentennial year.

They neglected to say that they intended to use Cleveland Amory's anti-hunting book "Mankind?" as a source of "facts."

Bill Quimby

if anyone really believes anything the press says to them, i have a bridge for sale

quote:

Anti-hunters had been around for centuries, but their numbers exploded with the birth of environmental awareness in the early 1960s. Both anti-hunting and "green" movements got a lot of press all through that decade and early 1970s (and beyond) virtually everywhere on this planet.

Still not arguing with the points you are making, just pointing out the fact, as you pointed out in ther above quoted statement everywhere on this planet, the area I grew up and have moved back too, really has not had the type of exposure to the anti-hunting element of society.

From my experience, your mileage may vary Mr. Quimby, but if something is not flashed in front of a persons eyes on at least a weekly basis, or not being constantly brought to their attention, or affecting them directly, they do not place the same importance on that issue as say someone being bombarded by it continously.

Believe it or not, the locals in the area I live in are aware that there are anti-hunters, but they have never had any dealings with one. Hunting is still a major part of life in this area. Lots of folks in this area tend to feel that the whole anti-hunting movement in't anything to be concerned about, simply because they have not been affected by it personally.

When I discuss the anti-hunting movement with folks in this area, one of the first respones usually onvolves beating hell out of someone pulling that kind of crap.

As for myself, I understand the anti-hunting movement as well or better than most. My stance is that the anti-hunting movement/anti-gun ownership, any ANTI movement of any kind, has very little if any thing with what the "Movement" is about, because the "Movement" is strictly about one group of people wanting legislation passed so that they will control the group doing/wanting to do the activity.

As soon as they get what they want, they move on to the next cause Celebre.

quote:

I just hope that in the brawl that follows the program's airing that hunters do not split into opposing factions -- those who see nothing wrong in hunting behind high wire, and those who do.

If we do, it will be just one more battle in this war that we will have lost.

I tend to be pessimist especially on that issue, I believe that battle will never stop and it has already been lost in the war.

OK i have one question why would anyone let the Bias media on there place to film this? we all know the media never tells the truth and is always anti hunting anti gun.

Just watched it and was pleasantly surprised. I thought the situation of the oryx was presented fairly and the people with a plan for the species (hunters and exotic ranchers), came across as an asset to the species, while the woman lobbying against it came across as a bitter control freak who was more concerned with a unch of men in Texas than the survivalof the species.

Well, I just got in from a dinner date. I missed the show. I look forward to an analysis from the people here on AR.

Seems like the folks on the African Hunting topic section thought it was good.

Just watched the show. It was fairly balanced but Ms. Feral is a nut case. How did she get this past USFW?

Also pleasantly surprised at the show. Fairly unbiased. Confirmed my opinion of "friends of animals" and the crack that runs it.

I watched the piece. It was pretty well done. I also thought the "friends of animals' people came off looking pretty bad.

I think I will email the network and thank them for being unbiased.

You can see it here:

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/w...=component.0;topnews

Missed the program, but I'm glad to hear that my prediction of another CBS cheap shot did, too.

Bill Quimby

Compared to the Guns of Autumn back in the 70s it was a masterpiece. That anti gal came across great for our side, LOL! What a nutcase!!! I'd also like to know how the USFWS thinks they are going to control animals that are considered private property! All in all, I thought for a news show that is normally liberallly biased, the piece was about as good as it could get for our side. In fact, there was less than three minutes of anti rhetoric out of the 12 minutes.

That was actually a much better piece than I expected from 60 Minutes.

And you're right, the "friends of animals" chick came off appearing bitter and greedy.

I was VERY pleased with the program. I can only hope and pray that about 50 million people watched it....and share my opinion, that the lady representing the antis was a total whack job.

I would love to see the new USFWS regulations repealed.

I watched the show, and the ranchers and hunters certainly won this one.

Seemed that the FOA folks certainly don't want these animals in TX regardless if they die or not. A damn shame!

Too bad the damage has already been done regarding the scimitar, Dama and addax!

I concur, and kudos to Fossil Rim for speaking the truth.

The ARF lady just looked like an idiot. Especially when the newscaster asked her why Texas wasn't a better choice than Senegal.

That crazy lady would just like to see these animals extinct. Basically, she said if they were not in thier indiginous land they did not deserve to exist.

Shocked and pleasantly surprised! Sometimes I enjoy being wrong.......

Don't know if anyone here also does Face Book, but lot of comments being made over there. The big problem is that some folk claiming to be hunters are making comments that are only creating an impression that not all hunters are equal.