"Manly" Policeman kills pet elk

A police officer in Boulder Colorado killed a big tame elk which had become a fixture in a neighborhood where the people fed it and treated it like a mascot. The officer posted photos of himself as a hero. There is an internet petition protesting what he did. I wrote: Policeman Sam Carter - Feels good to kill a tame elk who just walks up to you? Who are you? What will you do next -- go into people's yards and kill their dogs and cats? Many of your fellow human beings have become aware of the web of life WITHIN which we live. We are not ABOVE it and our survival on the planet depends on our becoming guardians of this web. It includes every living thing, large and small. The reflex of killing as a first response to seeing a so-called "wild" animal affects all of us and damages all of us. It is out dated. It is not "manly" as you no doubt think it is. Killing that elk was no different than killing a person's pet. Do you plan to go to the zoo and shoot the animals in the cages? Is this really the example you want to hold up to children? Far from making you a "manly" example, what you did identifies you in another way and not favorably. Please re-think your approach to animals, to living beings, and your impulse to kill without thinking. Whenever you kill a being that is loved you are killing part of the souls of everyone who regarded that being with love. The more you encourage the knee jerk killer in yourself, the more you set yourself onto a path into the past, into a darkness that you may not see, a darkness that will affect every day of your life.