Do hunting and middle-school education mix?

They do in tiny Poplar, Wis., where a middle-school bulletin board featuring pictures of students with their dead game has been caught in the crossfire of the national anti-hunting movement.

Ken Bartelt, principal of Northwestern Middle School, refuses to take down the pictures of student hunters holding their ruffed grouse, deer and bear after complaints from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

"Half of our school board are hunters,'' he said of the rural northern Wisconsin district, where hunting is a long-held tradition. "How could I explain that to them?"

Last week, PETA wrote to Bartelt, asking him to remove the bulletin board because it encourages a "dangerous mindset" of violence in students.

The bulletin board with about 50 student pictures is in science teacher Russ Bailey's classroom. Bailey is a volunteer firearms safety instructor, and the pictures feature some of his students.

PETA's April 7 news release, however, sparked a flood of e-mails to Bartelt from across the nation, both for and against the bulletin board. The release was posted on PETA's Web site.

"Northwestern Middle School's 'hunting wall' is nothing more than a monument to violence, suffering and death,'' wrote PETA officials. The organization drew further connections between hunting and school shootings, including the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado.

Responding to the furor has "been very time-consuming for us,'' said Bartelt, whose rural school is in a town of 570 people.

Bartelt said his research shows no connection between hunting and school violence. He fired off a letter to PETA saying, "Hunting is a part of the culture, not only in our school but in many parts of the country, and especially so in northern Wisconsin.

"Students here at school get excited about it, and it seems that's all they talk about before and after they return."

During his five years as principal, he said, there have never been any violent acts. Even fistfights are "almost nonexistent," he wrote.

Bartelt doesn't hunt and grew up "a city kid." In an interview, he said, "Violence in our society is because of family and societal issues. I think hunter safety classes and hunting teaches respect for weapons, and that they are not for fun, destruction or violence. Hunters are probably the least violent subset of our society."

The bulletin board has been on Bailey's wall for many years and features the same hunting pictures printed in local newspapers, Bartelt said.

PETA's Sangeeta Kumar, who wrote the letter to Bartelt, said hunting and animal abuse lead to abuse of humans.

"There is a very strong connection between animal abuse and abuse toward human beings," she said. "As far as we're concerned, hunting is animal abuse. In these days of school violence, we shouldn't be encouraging kids to pick up guns."

She said PETA would not print Bartelt's response letter on its Web site. "It's not our responsibility to defend indefensible actions," she said.

The bulletin board was featured in a newsletter to parents called News of Your Schools. Kumar said the newsletter was sent to PETA after several Poplar citizens alerted the organization, based in Norfolk, Va.

It's not the first time PETA has targeted Wisconsin pastimes. The group once requested that the Green Bay Packers change the team's name because it highlighted violence to animals in slaughterhouses. It suggested Green Bay Six Packers, to honor the state's beer-brewing tradition.

While hunting may be part of the culture of northern Wisconsin, "culture is no excuse for cruelty,'' Kumar said.

Bartelt said he hasn't received complaints from Poplar citizens or parents about the hunting-picture bulletin board. He said if it weren't for hunting, the ancestors of today's PETA members might not have survived life in the wilderness.

"I doubt there were many vegetarians 150 years ago,'' he said. "PETA's members' ancestors survived because of hunting. Why was it acceptable for their great grandfathers to hunt? It seems hypocritical to me at some point."

Chris Niskanen can be reached at 651-228-5524.

Read PETA's letter and Principal Ken Bartelt's response.
http://extras.twincities.com/pdf/PETA.doc

http://www.twincities.com/ci_8951197