Posted on 02/12/2013 9:38:34 AM PST by DanMiller
Until recently, we knew little about the evolution, life and death of skeet. A recent article now fills that great void.
A scholarly treatise by Mr. Gary Abernathy, publisher of The Times-Gazette in Hillsboro, Ohio, deals with the evolution of skeet culminating in their short and pitiful lives and violent deaths. It seemed necessary to post a link and an excerpt here as quickly as possible because of the great but previously unsatisfied longing for reliable information on the subject. I do so despite my concern that it may detract from the attention otherwise likely to be paid to President Obama's State of the Union address this evening.
The following paragraphs merely introduce Mr. Abernathy's treatise, which it behooves all who wish to be considered well informed to read in its entirety.
The wily skeet has been a favorite prey of hunters for several decades. Prior to that, the skeet population was beginning to wreak havoc across much of the United States. In the 1950s, wild skeet were increasingly blamed for auto accidents and crop destruction, so the government began asking hunters to target them.
The natural habitat of most North American skeet are gun ranges, rural back yards and some country clubs. Just as hogs respond to loud calls like "sooo-eee," and cats to soft beckonings like "here kitty-kitty-kitty," skeet largely emerge from hiding in response to a quick shout of, "Pull!"
Hunters everywhere soon learned that if they stood upright in the open with shotgun in hand and called out "Pull!" skeet - usually in pairs - would come flying off the ground and into the air in a curving, rainbow arc, allowing just enough time for the hunter to fire away, blasting the skeet to smithereens and sending the critters falling back to earth in two to three separate pieces each.
Naturally, this aroused the passions of PETA, which saw skeet shooting as a particularly cruel sport that rendered a defenseless skoot (the singular term for skeet) nearly unrecognizable. Also of concern was the manner in which skeet were being bred for increasingly-popular skeet shooting tournaments.
There is much more to learn about the humble skoot (singular of skeet) and Mr. Abernathy's treatise is the best if not the only easily available* source of reliable information on the subject. Thanks to his scholarship, we can now learn why and how President Obama acquired his masterful skills in killing the once happy but now pitiful little creatures, why he should be ashamed of himself and whether his immense popularity, due in large part to his previously touted skills in that field, will soon face a precipitous decline.
What, one must wonder, will Big Bird (an avid supporter) say about the senseless slaughter of his fellow aviators by President Obama and others once the brave history and horrid treatment of the now humbled skoot become more widely known?
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* Mr. Abernathy generously refers his readers to another, longer, source of information:
For more on the history of skeet, check out Jane Goodall's excellent four-volume study, "The Skeet Diaries," chronicling her 25 years spent living among wild skeet in the South American rain forests, and her discovery of an ancestral link between skeet and the lesser understood "bostonian bruinis," more commonly known as the hockey puck.
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