What sort of person preens about taking out a little wombat?
Like a trophy hunter, drunk on power, he flexes his muscles for the camera. Victorious. On the spectrum of ghastly violence, it’s the first step, Tory Shepherd writes. What’s next is even worse.
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- Wombat stoned to death by off-duty SA Police officer
Like a trophy hunter, drunk on power, he flexes his muscles for the camera. Victorious.
Proud and preening, after what can only be described as a hateful and cowardly act.
This guy chased down a wobbly, lonely wombat to throw stones at him. Big stones. On a South Australian track, his mate trained the headlights on him, capturing the details of the attack. They whoop and holler as though they’re imagining themselves as some sort of warriors.
Heaving big stones at a stocky little animal who just wants to shamble off into the darkness.
The footage is sickening and enraging. Not just for its careless-seeming cruelty.
What sort of person revels in killing a harmless animal? What sort of person poses once the deed is done? What sort of person films it, baying for blood?
What sort of person shares it, believing their friends will hoot their approval?
Are there people out there who will approve?
This isn’t some one-off case.
The Wombat Awareness Organisation says it’s common practice to attack.
Pause.
I wrote the above words soon after seeing the footage. Then I found out that he was Aboriginal, and an active part of the Aboriginal community, and that it is legal in some circumstances for Aboriginal people to hunt native animals. And that actually, it’s traditional.
It’s part of the Native Title Act, which restored some rights for “hunting, fishing, gathering, cultural or spiritual activit(ies)” in the wake of the Mabo case. So people who, for tens of thousands of years, hunted on their own lands, could continue to do so. To pass down traditions.
Across Australia Aboriginal people are fishing and hunting – on their own lands and seas – with guns, and spears. Boomerangs and, yes, stones.
This is good and right. Non-Aboriginal people took Aboriginal lands and disrupted the way traditions were passed on.
But this video doesn’t pass the Mabo test. It’s not the vibe.
Aboriginal people hunted from necessity. There are rituals and traditions involved. But not masochism, surely. Not gleeful prancing while inflicting pain. Not striking from behind, toying with your prey.
(One of the secondary sadnesses of this saga is the fuel it will lend to people who will take every eager chance to attack Aboriginal culture, to spark their petty culture wars).
Some will defend these specific actions as being part of a cultural tradition. Some will condemn them as part of a cultural tradition. For now, though, let’s focus on the individual.
We don’t know enough about the who or the why of what happened in this video that has surfaced.
But we do know, viscerally, that enjoying inflicting that sort of pain is wrong.