Omaha, NE—
With President Donald Trump’s recent wobblings on the issue of trophy hunting of threatened animals, The Halfway Post reached out to billionaire Ralph Utrecht, who is an armed, self-proclaimed “King of the Jungle hunter-aficionado.”
“Donald Trump better not go back on this, or he will lose my vote,” explained Utrecht. “Hunting big game with guns is a God-given right enshrined in our Constitution via the protection of property rights. Animals are our property and we as humans can do what we want with them, even kill them! ‘Endangered’ and ‘threatened’ are just politically-correct terms for minority animals used by liberal snowflakes. Trump ended the need for all this social justice jargon. And besides, if they really go extinct—which I think is statistically impossible since they’ve been on the Earth for 6,000 years already—God can just reCreate them again. Problem solved. Now, where’s the most endangered species on the planet? I want to stalk it and kill it, and then I will be stronger than it and absorb its soul with God staring down at me happy with the sheer amount of testosterone and freewill I am exhibiting.”
The Halfway Post reporter suggested to Mr. Utrecht that threatened species and all animals should be preserved so that future generations can enjoy the diversity that has accompanied humanity in the Earthen biosphere.
“Hell no,” exclaimed Utrecht. “Who cares if the elephants are gone, whatever. My grandkids can see the elephant I shot and stuffed in my mansion. All the other kids can just deal with it that their families aren’t rich and their granddaddies weren’t kings of the jungle like me. Besides, Jesus is gonna be back any year now and all the elephants that are left will go down to Hell. Big deal. So glad we saved them. My grandkids probably won’t even be teenagers before Jesus comes back. My life is not going to be much longer, and I have a hunch that Jesus is gonna come back right before I’m about to die so I don’t have to deal with the actual dying stuff. I don’t want to die. Which is why I love hunting. I make other things die so I won’t have to.”
The Halfway Post reporter gave away an intellectually disheveled look on his face.
“What? It’s true,” said Utrecht. “And besides, me taking advantage of those African countries with limited government and capability of regulation is actually helping them. My money gives them a reason to get their shit together and give me a good experience. And the money I spend to shoot these beasts goes to reservations and safari companies. It’s a reverse psychology thing. If we hobbyist hunters kill a lot of these threatened animals ultimately there will be a bunch more. It’s like a calculus thing that works out in the end. I’m not exactly sure how these companies are legally allowed to economically own a large number of wild animals to profit from their being shot, but hunting is awesome. Donald Trump better not take away my Second Amendment right to trophy hunt anything in Africa I want.”
The Halfway Post 