Bloody Deeds Cloaked by Fall Foliage

It’s autumn and soon our forests and wilderness areas will resemble Impressionist paintings, brilliant with color. This magnificent fairyland setting will again hide the bloody deeds that take place there--it’s called hunting season.

“Brave” men and some women, who fancy themselves as Diana, Goddess of the Hunt, will be going forth armed with precision-made binoculars and state-of-the-art semiautomatic shotguns.

And then, to bolster the nerve of these daring individuals, a booster shot of booze, as they set out on their daring hunt--to explode the three-pound body of an exquisite bird in flight, or to shatter a gentle, graceful fleeing deer. These innocent creatures who never harm anybody have nothing more than their God-given instincts to protect them from the well-armed killers who “harvest” them. What great sport!

Those of us who are squeamish about drawing blood are always being reminded that the hunters are indeed acting in the interests of the animals, keeping their populations down so that they won’t starve.

These gun-toting self-proclaimed “preservationists” no doubt feel they are playing the same role as the plagues and wars that control human overpopulation. Are we supposed to welcome and accept these disasters as necessary remedies to ensure our existence on this planet? What a hideous premise!

MOLLY COHEN, Laguna Hills