We need to take a moment of silence. First, to mourn the death of Blue Boy and five others of Martha Stewart’s peacocks who met their untimely death when a coyote invaded her New York farm for a midday snack over the weekend. Second, to weep for the ignorance of Hollywood elites and their state lawmakers when it comes to preventing these sorts of tragedies.
Here’s an understandably distraught Martha Stewart pleading for somebody — anybody — to tell her how on Earth to prevent this sort of invasion: “any solutions for getting rid of six large and aggressive coyotes who have expensive tastes when it comes to poultry??”
Moment of silence over, and since Martha’s asking, there’s a pretty tried-and-true method of keeping bloodthirsty predators out of your yard and peacock-coop: Shoot them.
That’s one good reason millions of law-abiding Americans keep firearms in their homes, in addition to self-defense and the basic constitutional right to keep and bear them. And one group in particular is using this fine-feathered massacre to push for Americans and their legislators to do just that and “get justice for Martha’s peacocks.”
Hunter Nation, a grassroots organization devoted solely to protecting the rights of hunters and promoting the responsible management of dangerous predators, is calling on the Empire State to look over and fix its predator hunting rules because, as it said in a press release on Tuesday, “While it was Martha Stewart’s peacocks today, without a serious expansion to their state’s coyote hunting season, it’s likely something similar will be occurring to someone you know and their pets tomorrow.”
Because coyote hunting season in New York only extends from October through March, unlike other states where it’s year-round, the celebrity could be forgiven for not knowing her state’s rules for nuisance animals.
If she’d had time to log onto her state’s Department of Environmental Conservation webpage — which I’m guessing she didn’t if a pack of wild dogs was attacking her pets in broad daylight — she would have found a list of requirements for shooting a coyote out of season depending whether it’s a nuisance, a threat to property, or a threat to public safety. All of the above classifications, which require further discernment and redirect to myriad webpages with more definitions, permit various responses ranging from shoot-to-kill authority, to obtaining a permit, to providing the state agency with proof that the animal is threatening and waiting for them to give a yay or nay on taking the shot.
It’s your typical bureaucratic hoop-jumping where nobody quite knows the rules and everyone is thus paralyzed from taking action. (And I bet Stewart is not trying to give the FBI — we’re looking at you, James Comey — or other law enforcement officers a reason to come knocking on her door… again.)
“We empathize with Martha and the pain of losing her prized pet peacocks. Sadly, it’s important to recognize that it didn’t have to be this way,” Keith Mark, founder of Hunter Nation, told The Federalist. “Without effective predator management plans in place, tragedies will continue to happen. Today it was Martha’s peacocks, tomorrow it could be your pet.”
It’s not just coyotes Martha and other pet owners need to keep an eye on either. Plenty of other predators are lurking and willing to strike too, including raccoons, wolves, bears, and cougars. And they can do far more damage than destroying beautiful birds, such as mutilating livestock and thus livelihoods.
“With a more expansive predator management program in Stewart’s home state of New York, tragic instances like this would be far less of a common occurrence,” said Hunter Nation CEO Luke Hilgemann in a press release.
It’s not every day a pen of peacocks gets ravaged, and it’s also not every day a high-profile celebrity calls for action that would logically result in far more gun ownership and hunting. But experience is the best teacher, even when that experience includes fallen birds, and that makes Martha Stewart a student of the conservatives’ case for firearm efficacy. Hopefully, the experience will also make her an advocate for what could best be described as “common-sense gun reforms”: the unquestionable right and responsibility to smoke a deadly predator before he and his posse maul half a dozen of your domesticated friends.
We stand with Martha Stewart and Hunter Nation. And we stand with Blue Boy (R.I.P.). It’s time to get justice for these poor peacocks. Get the gun.
