Anchorage Daily News

Link: Alaska Dispatch As the trial date approaches for the defendants in the Point Hope caribou slaughter, Dispatch correspondent Seth Kantner of Kotzebue writes of villagers' relationship with caribou and about his own family's dependence on caribou meat. He wasn't surprised by what he heard about the Point Hope case; he saw similar behavior last year when a huge herd came close to Kotzebue. "Out on the ice north of town and beyond a circus was going on. Four-wheelers and snowmobiles were chasing caribou in all directions. Not everybody -- but some -- were getting crazy, shooting crazy. Chasing and shooting big bulls (even though their meat is stinky with hormones in late October, and tastes worse after being run hard.) Shooting cows with calves, chasing everything. It was scary out there on the ice. It was sad. And it was exactly what I had predicted. It was exactly what friends of mine (Native, white, etc.) had predicted with so many animals coming so close to a community. We've seen it before." But, Kantner points out, the behavior is not about race, nor about village life. "Put enough people with enough guns close to enough animals and that behavior can show up. ... It's about lack of respect for the animals and the land. And any color of human is capable of that, none immune."

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