Crows Escape Massacre in Vermont Thanks to You!
We're thrilled to let you know that thanks to thousands of compassionate In Defense of Animals supporters like you, the Boonie Club's cruel crow hunt was stopped! According to the reports of dedicated activists on the ground, no crow shoot took place in Williamsport, Vermont this past weekend. Crows were observed flying around peacefully after a night of snowfall and a dawn of cold weather and wind, and the small town was free of any organized activity.
Over the course of the day, minimal target shooting at the Boonie Club occurred, and only a couple of other gunshots were heard all day, with no crow killing observed.
We were concerned the crow hunters had gone underground, given the ambiguous wording of the cancellation notice and the lack of responses to our most recent correspondence with the crow shoot organizer, Mark McCarthy of Lenny's Shoe and Apparel.
While we can't be 100% certain that Mark didn't privately shoot crows or other animals with a few like-minded killers over the past weekend, we can be confident that the public shoot was cancelled and overall this was a huge victory for our feathered friends. Many killing contests with prizes for the most animals killed of a particular species result in massive carnage. Thanks to your support, a wild animal massacre was prevented with the hunt cancellation.
Many things happened as a result of pressure from activists inspired by our posts and others on social media. It was this post that brought the hunt to our attention. We created an alert which almost 10,000 of you signed, and many of you made personal phone calls as well which made a huge difference. We posted continuously on social media with this image of men posing with the bodies of 80 dead crows being the most shared by In Defense of Animals supporters, and Mark's least favorite when we called to speak with him!
All the negative press coverage combined with the pulling out of the Moose Club, which was the location of the weigh-in station, plus the constant phone calls and barrage of emails did the trick.
We can't thank you enough for taking action for animals and supporting our work! We also want to thank all the groups that got involved to strategize including Protect Our Wildlife Vermont and SHARK as well as brave activists who staked out the town on the day of the hunt including Tiki Pirie and many other activists.