Gored Utah Man Finds Out That Payback Really Is Hell

Imagine your legs giving out as something sharp tears through your skin, shredding muscle and penetrating bones. Your heart races with panic as you see your own blood. You feel yourself growing weak, and you try to catch your breath, but you can’t move.

This is what deer, elk, moose, and other animals experience when they are shot down by hunters every year all over the U.S. And it’s exactly what Utah hunter Bradley Greenwood felt when he slipped and was gored in the face and neck on the antlers of a 700-pound elk he’d killed only moments before.

Greenwood isn’t the only hunter who’s hurt himself drooling over a “big rack.” With plans to place a billboard in Vernal, Utah, that shows an elk with blood dripping from his antlers and reads, “Payback Is Hell. Leave Animals Alone!” PETA is bringing attention to the fact that hunting draws blood on both sides. Every year, hunters hurt or kill themselves, friends, family, and even strangers innocently hiking through the woods.

©iStockphoto.com/rpbirdman

There’s No Sport in Murder

Hunting isn’t necessary for human survival, and so-called “wildlife management” is a myth that often intentionally inflates “game” populations, rather than the reverse. Wildlife populations are self-regulating, responding to naturally occuring disease, the availability of food and habitat, and prey-predator relationships. Hunters hunt for the thrill of it, often injuring animals who manage to escape, only to die later from blood loss, infection, or predation.

Now that a recovering Greenwood knows what it feels like to gasp what you believe to be your last breaths, maybe he’ll stop killing animals and agree with PETA that compassion feels better than (bad) karma.