It's okay, Haz...we can take the heat...this one is particularly funny, however...send the kids out of the room, maybe to McDonalds for a big ole burger! But hey, to each their own...here's the apology...
...
Dear sir;
In light of yours and other comments, I would like to apologize for the recent buffalo hunt episode of COWBOYS. The responsibility is mine alone, and I acted against my own better judgement in allowing it. It will not happen again. The problem is that no buffalo "hunt" is a hunt in the sense of an elk, deer or antelope fair chase hunt.
We should have certainly made clear that this was a "culling" rather than a "hunt," which is a legal and quite popular activity. Most large buffalo spreads, including Cook's Bison Ranch (an avid supporter of SASS, which is how this project came about), routinely cull their bulls when they reach a certain age and disposition. Let me make something very clear...the only "free range" buffalo hunts I know of in America are in conjunction with park herds (which are hardly "free range" as we might think of free range), including the Yellowstone herd in the state of Montana, which issues limited by-lottery tags for buffalo who stray outside the Park, and the cull of specific large bulls at Custer State Park in South Dakota.
The rest of the buffalo in the U.S. and Canada are ranched exactly like cattle, to the same end as cattle. Buffalo are meat animals, slated to be "harvested," which is a modern euphemism for "killed, butchered and sold to market." Virtually every "buffalo hunt" we looked at were in fact harvests taken from ranched herds. Buffalo are and never were like elk or deer...buffalo "hunting" even in the old days was less of a question of fair chase as we now use the terminology as a shooting exercise. Current buffalo herds on even the largest American ranches are as hard to track as, say, a train.
The buffalo Tequila shot at 100 yards was slated to be killed because it had become a danger to horses and ranch hands. All parts of the buffalo were used, as is the case with any harvested animal. I was concerned that the open ranch land of Indiana would send the wrong message — as indeed it did! — when compared to the less obvious fenced ranch lands in the West — but to be sure, they are all fenced! — but I made the decision to go ahead with a reenactment of an old days hunt.
Again, if you were offended by the show, my apologies. I hope it doesn't change your overall view of COWBOYS. In the future, hunts we film for any of my shows will be "fair chase" by the strict definition of the wording and we will not participate in culls.
Michael Bane
Series Producer, COWBOYS
MBTV
Forum Index
Help
Calendar
Contact Info
Register as a member
