Their aim is to miss

Anti-hunters take shot at protecting ducks

By Jennifer Langston

Herald Writer

Kathy Woods’ hunting partners have sneaked into the circus dressed as clowns to demonstrate there. She’s traveled to England to wreck fox hunts, confusing the dogs by calling out the wrong commands.

The animal rights activist usually carries signs to protest furs or zoos. Saturday morning was the first time she had shouldered a shotgun.

Blasting into the air at the Crescent Lake Wildlife Area south of Monroe, she was one of a half-dozen activists engaged in a thinly veiled attempt to scare ducks away from hunters on one of the first weekends of duck hunting season.

The group launched a 7-foot-tall papier-mache and fiberglass duck mounted atop a metal boat into a quiet finger of the lake, then fired shotguns in the air.

That — along with the clarinet playing — was designed to spook any waterfowl from the popular hunting area.

"It felt really weird getting a hunting license," said Woods, a Tacoma resident. "That was a creepy thing. It just bothered me that people thought I was going to go around killing animals."

Duck Season

General duck hunting season lasts from now until Jan. 20

It’s one of the first anti-hunting actions in Snohomish County in the last five or 10 years, state wildlife officials said.

"It’s not very common … but apparently we’re due," said Bill Hebner, regional enforcement chief at the state Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Mill Creek office.

There was just one monkey wrench. The group didn’t know that because of fickle weather most of the migrating ducks hadn’t arrived yet.

Jay Clark, a Kenmore resident who brought his camouflaged 6-year-old son Sam to scout for waterfowl, didn’t find the stunt very amusing.

"If there were any ducks, there’s not going to be any more with those yahoos out here," he said before calling it quits. "They’re violating every rule of etiquette there is."

Because it’s illegal to harass wildlife or interfere with hunts in Washington, the activists claim to be a legitimate recreational group called the Field of Dreams Hunting Club. They’re just bad shots, they say.

"Our hunting method is to just go out there and keep shooting," said Bob Chorush, a Seattle resident who came up with the idea. "Near as we can tell, we’re legal hunters."

They figured they’d give the birds a fair chance by giving them some warning, said Chorush, a 40-year vegetarian who is retired from the computer industry.

The only casualty Saturday was an inflatable yellow duck that accidentally got mangled in the boat’s motor. They stopped hauling it off the lake to save an earthworm about to be smushed.

Woods accidentally shot part of a tree branch while aiming into the air. They congratulated themselves on each miss, speculating that any minute the ducks would fly into their fire.

Everett hunter Michael Selders said he and others were peppered with falling shot while pheasant hunting across the slough where the activists were shooting. He said hunters have gone to a lot of trouble to make sure everyone in the field is educated about gun safety. One of the activists, dressed in red high-tops, could easily slip in the mud and misfire, Selders said.

The shooting didn’t faze the pheasants, he said, but all the racket did confuse the dogs.

"It sounded like a war over there," he said. "I’m not a crusader, but I just think what they’re doing is unsafe. … I don’t care what they do, as long as they don’t shoot at people."

Hebner of the Fish and Wildlife Department said deciding whether to prosecute someone for interfering with a hunt is a judgment call.

On Friday, he said because there simply aren’t many ducks in the area yet, the agency probably wouldn’t take any action unless someone complains.

He said confrontations between hunters and anti-hunters are rare. If some sort of protest occurs, the hunters realize their nice day on the lake isn’t going to happen and they leave.

"It’s probably going to be a nonevent for us," Hebner said. "Usually these protests are one-sided. People come out there and do this and look like fools."

You can call Herald Writer Jennifer Langston at 425-339-3452 or send e-mail to langston@heraldnet.com.

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