According to an official within the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals organization, local members plan to start trapping area deer and squirrels.
“We’re not trapping them for sport, though,” said Edith Cronhour of Kinston. “We’re going to move them to a safe place — the city limits.”
Cronhour said she and fellow PETA members have so far captured four deer and 17 squirrels.
“We believe it’s inhumane to hunt down these poor animals for sport,” Cronhour said. “We figured the only way to get these animals out of the reach of the hunter’s rifles was to move them to an area where shooting is illegal — the city.”
Fellow Animal Security Specialist (A.S.S.) Jeremy Montaugh says he looks forward to the day when young fawns will be spotted drinking out of the coffee cups of homeless people on Queen Street.
“Me and some of my buddies did a trial run of this program in Boston a few years ago,” Montaugh said. “There were a few hitches — the sight of a deer being roasted in an alley by a group of homeless people was demoralizing. We tried to explain to the homeless guys that meat was bad for them, but they just kept biting us on the ankles, so we had to leave.”
Hunters in Lenoir, Greene and Jones counties have reacted with a combination of disbelief and what one witness described as “violent guffaws.”
“Hunting is a tradition in our family,” said Jon Nugent of Wheat Swamp. “I’ll bet this PETA crowd is the same bunch who don’t get upset when a human being dies, but if the President of The United States swats at a fly, they get their panties in a knot.
“And for the record, I ain’t against panties; I wear my frilly John Deere britches every time I go hunting; see — they’ve got a flower on the front.”
What Nugent was referring to was a statement released by PETA after President Obama was shown swatting a fly during an interview. The following is an excerpt:
“We support compassion for all animals, even the most curious, smallest, and least sympathetic animals. We hope that everyone will take inspiration from Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Albert Schweitzer, who included insects in his realm of compassion and would stop to move a worm from hot pavement to cool earth.”
While Cronhour and Montaugh seem committed to the cause, fellow A.S.S. Bill Scheft of Greene County admits he’s on board for selfish reasons.
“One day in college, me and a buddy got in what we thought was a line for Phish tickets,” Scheft said. “I guess we’d done too much baking the night before, but it turns out we’d actually joined a protest against coffee grinding machines. No, dude, totally, this really hot chick at the rally told me if you put your ear up against the grinder, you can actually hear the tiny screams of each coffee bean as it’s ground to a fine powder.”
Scheft said that day changed his life forever, although he still drinks at least a gallon of coffee before 10 a.m. everyday.
“I learned that hot, politically active chicks dig dudes they think are politically active, too,” Scheft said. “Picking up women at protests is much cheaper than normal dating. I don’t waste money on dinners, because all I have to do is say I’m protesting the low pay the restaurant workers receive; that same argument guarantees I’ll never have to read another newspaper again.”
Cronhour said a holding pen for the deer and squirrels has been erected in a secluded location adjacent to the Kinston city limits.
“It’s been quite a challenge housing these animals; the feces has piled up a lot quicker than I thought,” Cronhour said. “In retrospect, it may have been ill-advised to feed them spaghetti.”
On the other side of the fence, John Nugent says he’s started a group of his own to combat what he refers to as “a group of hippies who should be forced to crop tobacco for a summer.”
“Me and the boys from the Tin Shack Hunting Club are going to set up our deer stands inside the Kinston city limits,” Nugent said. “We usually tick a lot of people off out in the county when they’re trying to enjoy a quiet Saturday afternoon, but we figure a little extra gunfire added to the mix of the usual city gunfire won’t disturb anybody in Kinston.”
When asked if he thought hunters migrating into the city to hunt would cause an increase in the amount of gunfire within the city limits, local panhandler Crazy Courthouse Man responded dolefully:
“There are so many guns in Kinston, the deer will probably learn how to use them and shoot back, orange hats or not; deer are color-blind, you know. Them deer from the county are all high from sniffing them meth labs; let them get in here and tangle with these crackheads; they’ll have to put wheels on that gun boat and run ‘em all out’n here together. Have you every seen two groups shooting at each other while running from a third?
“It’ll make you wet your britches. Whoops … guess I’m way ahead of ’em.”
