Sep 15, 2009

Sacrificing Principle for Profit: Church Wildlife Enterprises and Hunting Preserves

"To what degree should the principle of 'respect for life" be extended to bird and animal creations? What do the scriptures, Joseph Smith, and other early Church leaders teach about the grand design and purposes of God's non-human creations? Does having "dominion" over the kingdom of creatures mean we are their predators and exploiters or does it suggest a "stewardship" relationship in which we become their caretakers in order to help them "fulfill the full measure of their creation?" If the scriptures teach, "woe be unto man that sheddeth blood or wasteth flesh and have no need," and "the blood of every beast will I require at your hands," what rationale could be used to explain Church-owned, revenue-generating enterprises such as Deseret Land and Livestock and the Westlake Hunting Preserve? Do these operations constitute sacrificing principle for profit?"
-Sacrificing Principle for Profit: Church Wildlife Enterprises and Hunting Preserves, Sunstone Magazine

Yesterday I did a post about tithing and we had a discussion about where it goes and what it's used for. I was appalled to learn about a Church-owned/run/sanctioned hunting preserve where missionaries are called to tend to flocks of birds and other animals so that they can multiply and be hunted down for large profit. You can read about it on Deseret News here.

I found out that the Church owns two hunting preserves: Deseret Land and Livestock, and Westlake Hunting Preserve in Utah County.

Here are just a few of the facts that caught my attention:
  • Making it a "missionary calling" for couples to tend to the preseves so that wildlife numbers are increased, thereby increasing the number of animals killed for profit
  • Archery hunting of animals such as elk, which I regard as being especially cruel
  • Over $11,000 for a weekend getaway to bag a trophy elk
  • 6 year waiting list (at least as of 2000) to hunt
  • Charging thousands of dollars for hunting permits to kill trophy game
  • The response the first brother who spoke in the podcast got to his letter by the presiding bishopric, inquiring of how this operation could be justified
  • The refusal of the Church to publish any financial records of where all these huge profits are going
Please, please, please, I implore you all to listen to the podcast that you can download for free here. There is so much that is worth being made aware of and discussing. I wish I had a transcript of the two talks on it, but I don't. So please listen to it and come back to discuss it. The first few seconds have very bad sound quality, but please be patient and listen to it in its entirety.

I'll be honest. I'm a little more hardcore about this stuff than most of you probably are. Some of you may read this and think to yourself, "Girl, take a pill." I'm a vegetarian, I'm anti-gun, I'm anti-hunting (unless it's needed to save human life), and I'm especially against bow-hunting. Along with humanitarian causes, I donate to animal causes and I've petitioned many times against canned hunting, which I would say this Church enterprise fits the definition of. So, I've donated to causes that fight against what the Church is doing (Hmm... isn't that a temple recommend interview question?). It's one thing to expect this from members of the general public who, as much as I oppose it, have a legal right to hunt. It's another to see it justified, owned, and supported by the LDS Church, whose leaders (at least at one time) had the guts to speak out against the needless slaying of animals for recreation. And on top of that, I'm supposed to continue to give 10% of my income, trusting that it's not going to be used for anything ungodly.

I'm appalled. I'm saddened that, as the second brother in the podcast said, we have to so greatly reduce our expectations about the Church. I think the message that he wanted us to get was that we almost have to expect the Church to engage in such disappointing behaviour because it's a human organization. If we expect the Church to act ethically and to respect all of God's creatures, then we expect too much. If we expect our tithing money to go where we think it goes, we expect too much.

Makes me wonder why I expect anything at all anymore.

All I can say is that I will not give another penny to an organization which knowingly, intentionally, and deliberately supports canned trophy hunting for profit. And I will not give another penny of my money to an organization which is so secretive in its administration of the massive funds it takes in and possesses, that I can't even see where it's supposedly "helping" people.

So, I could wonder whether God would rather that I financially support canned hunting and real estate in Florida, or medications and microloans to the third world, but I think I already know the answer.

If there's something I've learned the past couple of days, it's this: the Church truly is only what you make out of it. It's an incredibly human and fallible organization that we put on way too high a pedestal and it's inevitable that the good faith of members who donate large sums of money, believing it's all going to the poor, is going to be violated. And it saddens me that the organization that I always looked up to -- to have the best expectations of -- cannot live up to those expectations and may even violate them in horribly unethical and hypocritical ways, such as with these hunting preserves.

I should have known.

I apologize if I seem angry, but I am. Of all the huge Church-related disappoinments and disillusionments I've had over the past few years, this probably tops them all because of what it means to me personally. It tops all the uncertainty and conflicting information about Prop 8 and how much money the Church did or did not donate to that cause. It tops all the business about malls and squares in Salt Lake City.

It's a monster pill for me to swallow.