Animal Legal Defense Fund Sues to Stop Texas Bigfoot Hunt
Posted by: Craig Woolheater on April 1st, 2013
From Press Release
April 1st, 2013
Parks and Wildlife Department Taken to Task for Greenlighting Sasquatch Slaughter
For immediate release
Contact:
Megan Backus, Animal Legal Defense Fund
AUSTIN — Today, the national nonprofit Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) is filing a lawsuit against the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, requesting judicial review of the agency’s May 2012 administrative finding that Bigfoot is an indigenous “nongame” species that can therefore be hunted without a permit. The Texas Administrative Procedures Act requires that administrative findings are “reasonably supported by substantial evidence.” The suit alleges that the agency’s designation is arbitrary and capricious due to a lack of credible evidence supporting its conclusion that the elusive primate is indigenous to the state of Texas, and cites a preponderance of evidence that the man-beast is instead native to Northern California.
Why are Texans messing with the yeti? Tex. Parks & Wild. Code § 67.001 defines “nongame” species as animals who are indigenous to Texas, not endangered, and not otherwise listed in any other part of the code. According to expert declarations accompanying today’s lawsuit, the alleged evidence that Bigfoot is a Longhorn—mostly shaky, grainy videos of what appear to be humans in giant hairy ape costumes—cannot reasonably support the Department’s finding. ALDF is also pursuing endangered species protections for the secretive simian, under Tex. Parks & Wild. Code § 68.00.
“Cryptozoological creatures like Bigfoot must not be deprived appropriate legal protections,” says ALDF attorney Chris Berry. “The lack of credible evidence that Bigfoot is indigenous to Texas sets a clear legal prohibition on Sasquatch hunts in the Lone Star State.”
Co-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005.
I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films:
OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.
What a surprise. There is no actual “hunt”. But I think people should not be shooting something that hasn’t been classified yet. No bullets for Bigfoot. I naturally think of them as people – different kind of people, but people nonetheless. This should be the policy, in the absence of definitive data; it should be the policy, PERIOD.
Well, then there’s also the open-season-on-ape-suits that de facto exists in TX. Does that state really hold the opinion that bigfoot hoaxing is a capital crime?
(It’s TX, DWA. Whaddaya think?)
I have mixed feelings about this. It is pretty hard to protect an existing animal. In NYS it was a battle to protect the Karner Blue butterfly, largely because of the realestate business. I was peeved when they lifted the insect’s protection because the animal was barely out of the “in danger” range. The only reason they did this was so the the state could ok building in the pine bush (which is their only habitat and requires burning every year in order to help the health of the pinebush and germinates plants vital to the Karner Blue’s life cycle).
On the other hand, it seems states often give bigfoot protection when he hasn’t been scientifically classified. On one breath it’s a good thing if the species really exists. But on the flip side it prevents anyone from proving it exists by arranging a hunting expedition and bring back a body, which is the only way the science world will accept it.
Unless we can convince Bigfoot to come into our labs for the sake of his/her species, we’ll never have the chance to actually prove it exists. Unless we are lucky that is and happen to find a bigfoot burial ground or a corpse that has not been tended too.
Me thinks this was an April Fools’ Day prank.
The press release was dared April 1st.
Craig: yes, but that doesn’t stop legitimate points being raised, right?
1. Somebody ought to do it (there are good reasons for hunting regs that prohibit hunting anything not specifically permitted);
2. In this case, manslaughter is actually encouraged by TX game laws.
(And we know those are no joke. Not in the April 1 sense.)
I hate it when I post and then get the good idea!
It is a moral imperative for the TX game authorities to work hand in hand with Jeff Meldrum. In order to prevent involuntary manslaughter (which OK in some cases might not be so involuntary), every TX hunter should be required to have, in possession, a copy of Meldrum’s sasquatch field guide.
Win/win!
DWA: Well, it’s also good, because it means you’re always thinking, instead of in bursts. Perhaps a law that prohibits any sort of monetary gain from killing one?
These are mere ideas, and there must be a great deal more thought put into any legislative or policy action. And this law or policy (it must have the force of law, really) must be made widely known to all hunters. A law will not bring back a dead Bigfoot.
I think we have far too many laws already (I propose a Constitutional amendment that requires lawmakers to repeal two laws before passing one!), but a protective law for Bigfoots is urgently needed, IMO, to protect hunters from wounded Bigfoots, if nothing else!
I support the Second Amendment and gun ownership – I’m a gun owner and shooter myself – but I don’t hunt. But I support hunting, and I don’t want our hirsute friends being blown away.
OR letting hunters off the hook for shooting some poor nitwit in a suit.
Yep, it’s annoying, in a society sometimes seemingly driven by idiotic rules, to propose more rules.
But then, hunting in the US is, after all, illegal.
(With a whole bunch of exceptions, captured in game laws.)
And one more – well, maybe a few (and how many would be needed? Not many, really. Shoot. Somebody write one, and let’s paste from there) – should be considered to (1) protect people with, well, maybe not the most enlightened regard for personal welfare and (2) allow in this too-smugly-sure society that maybe, just maybe, we don’t know all we think, in our worst moments which seem to be getting more and more numerous, we do.
LOL! Fooled me! I went to the website didn’t even notice the date!
Hi Craig, so is this really an April Fool’s Day prank?
John
of martingale collar