Protesters Take Dead Aim at Hunting Exhibits

About 50 animal rights activists picketed the Anaheim Convention Center on Sunday, protesting a sport and vacation show at which some exhibitors promoted taxidermy and hunting expeditions.

Some protesters came flamboyantly dressed, their costumes dripping with theatrical blood meant to represent that of slain animals. Others wore more conventional garb but were equally intent on proclaiming their message, expressed in placards bearing such epithets as “Real Men Don’t Hunt” and “Hunting Is Sadism--Not Sport.”

Inside, several thousand enthusiasts of fishing, hunting, camping and recreational vehicles examined displays put up by makers of sporting equipment and tourism agencies from such vacation spots as South Dakota and Nova Scotia.

The business of the 23rd annual Sports, Vacation and RV Show--which organizers said drew 90,000 people over nine days--continued largely without incident despite demonstrators. Outside, however, occasional arguments erupted between hunters and their opponents.

“We are against the killing of animals for any reason,” asserted Bill Dyer, a theater producer and spokesman for Last Chance for Animals, one of the protest groups. In response to hunters who told him the sport has existed for millenniums, Dyer said that “slavery was popular for a long time, too.”

“Shooting an animal is destruction--you can’t discuss it any other way,” said protester Hans Siegenthaler, 66, a retired chemical engineer from Northridge.

Hunting, countered Britt W. Wilson, “is all part of the grander scheme of things.” A hunter himself, Wilson called the killing of game a helpful activity for wildlife.

“It’s a strong conservation tool, it’s a management tool, and it’s a great family thing,” he said.

Wilson’s arguments had little impact on the protesters, and he soon gave up trying to persuade them that hunting had benefits for animals.

“If they’re morally against killing, then there’s nothing I can do,” the Pasadena bank employee said.

Last week, a group called Compassion for Animals was ejected from its booth in the convention center for displaying books and videotapes highly critical of hunting. Steve Fletcher, general manager of the firm sponsoring the show, H. Werner Buck Enterprises Inc., said the group had misrepresented itself as a manufacturer of sporting equipment and rented the booth under the name Info Vitesse Corp.

Toni Hopman, a spokeswoman for the group, said Info Vitesse was Compassion for Animals’ corporate arm through which the group sells anti-hunting literature. She said the Buck firm had known this and had ejected her group because hunters attending the show had objected to its views.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge on Thursday denied Compassion for Animals’ request to be readmitted to the show, which closed Sunday.