About Gwendolyn Craig

Gwen is an award-winning journalist covering environmental policy for the Explorer since January 2020. She also takes photos and videos for the Explorer's magazine and website. She is a current member of the Legislative Correspondents Association of New York. Gwen has worked at various news outlets since 2015. Prior to moving to upstate New York, she worked for a D.C. Metro-area public relations firm, producing digital content for clients including the World Health Organization, the Low Income Investment Fund and Rights and Resources Initiative. She has a master's degree in journalism from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. She has bachelor's degrees in English and journalism, with a concentration in ecology and evolutionary biology, from the University of Connecticut. Gwen is also a part-time figure skating coach. Contact her at (518) 524-2902 or gwen@adirondackexplorer.org. Sign up for Gwen’s newsletter here.

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Comments

  1. Mary says

    It will be to New York’s great credit if this bill is signed into law. It should, however, include fishes, bears, etc.

    Our fellow animal species consist of sentient beings who deserve respect and compassion. Treating them like targets in bloodthirsty contests is egregious cruelty, and awarding prizes for such killing indulges base motivations. It retards progress toward human society becoming genuinely civilized.

  2. Carol says

    Frans de Waal, a primatologist and professor of psychology at Emory University, in a New York Times article writes, “When our ancestors moved from hunting to farming, they lost respect for animals and began to look at themselves as the rulers of nature. In order to justify how they treated other species, they had to play down their intelligence and deny them a soul.”

    Animal advocates are sick and tired of “humane washing” PR propaganda by the marketing media as a cover up to protect the status quo of “business as usual” and sick and tired of the use of oxymorons such as “humane treatment” and “humane slaughter” in order to make ourselves feel good.

    The fact that the law doesn’t ban hunting itself is proof that “our humanity” is a fraud. The same goes for wildlife “management”: Wildlife Services, the USDA’s agency of assassins, killed 433,192 animals in 2020. This is actually better than the 1.3 million killed in 2019. The list of victims is listed below:
    “In 2020, Wildlife Services killed 62,537 coyotes, 25,400 beavers, 2,527 foxes, 703 bobcats, 434 black bears, 381 gray wolves, 276 cougars and 6 endangered grizzly bears.”

  3. Kathryn Lezenby says

    These contests bring out the worst in humans and encourage sadistic acts of cruelty. If we stopped viewing wild animals as a “resource” here for our benefit, and acknowledged, instead, that they are fellow living beings who value their lives as much as we do ours and have as much right to be here as we do, there would be no way to justify killing them for a prize. The bill should include deer, bears, and fish. Nine billion people on the planet are destroying the places animals live; when they show up in spaces we’ve claimed as ours, we call them threats and feel justified in exterminating them. It reminds me of how European colonizers treated indigenous people around the world.

  4. Plow Boy says

    The 1st step in no hunting at all. PETA is smiling for sure they can see a meat free future. No leather seats in your SUV.

  5. Bob Searles says

    when god kicked adam and eve out of eden he clothed them in animal skins. If itsgood enough for the creator then its good enough for me.

  6. Rob says

    I can’t believe this passed. Will be a xtra thankful for when I eat my venison breakfast sausage for breakfast

  7. Joe Kozlina says

    Two competing definitions of the word ” contest” NOUN
    an event in which people compete for supremacy in a sport, activity, or particular quality:
    VERB oppose (an action, decision, or theory) as mistaken or wrong: You decide as to the meaning of Killing CONTEST!

  8. Dennis says

    There is no practical way to control these now APEX predators. Two days ago a Canadian child was mauled by a Coyote and nearly killed. Will the suburban white woman offer thoughts and prayers or maybe a gofundme as these attacks will rise.

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