Formal Writing

Hunting Animals for Sport Should Not Be Banned:

Hunting animals for sport should not be banned. In this essay, I will explain how it helps the environment by eradicating pests, hunting certain animals is already illegal, and how it can train people in the correct usage and handling of firearms.

There are 7 classifications of conservational status for animals; extinct, extinct in the wild, critically endangered, endangered, vulnerable, near threatened, and, the category that humans fall under, least concern. Great efforts have been made for the species before vulnerable. Most animals that are hunted for sport in New Zealand are least concern or, in some cases, invasive, such as carnivores like stoats, weasels, possums, and rats, or herbivores that feed on native plants, like tahr, deer and wallabies. These have decimated New Zealand’s wildlife and plant-life, and it seems that hunting them until we can reduce their populations to a manageable size, and then farming them for either meat or fur. Hunting least concern status species also prevents overpopulation, as some species with great populations, although they are normally positively co-existent with their environment, as with European rabbits in England, managed by fox populations, but tear through it with large populations.

Another point that I must make is that any hunting of endangered animals is already illegal. The average New Zealander is not going to stalk and hunt a kiwi, for example. There are laws set in place preventing the poaching/killing of threatened species. Besides, our population already has a vested interest of maintaining and increasing the population of threatened animals. As explained above, hunting certain species that can decimate threatened species will, in time, increase the latter’s population, while allowing us to control and manage the former’s population.

Finally, hunting trains people how to handle firearms. If we are more proficient in the correct usage of firearms, accidental injuries and deaths by shooting will drop. On average, since 1979 there has been one accidental shooting of a hunter by another hunter every nine months. On a more offensive side of this point, if New Zealand were to go to war with, for sake of example, Australia, we would need to train soldiers to serve for the country. If applicants already had basic knowledge of firearm usage, fewer man-hours would be wasted on teaching them how to load, aim, and fire a weapon.

In short, hunting animals for sport should not be banned, as it eliminates pests, does not affect endangered and protected animals, and teaches people correct firearm handling and safety around firearms.

By Matthew Hitchings

Heil Satan, Hitler, Osama bin LAden and Gary Busey!

Film Techniques for: Quest for Fire

In J. J. Annaud’s film “Quest for Fire”, Annaud utilizes film and editing techniques like cross-cutting, close-up camera shots and background music.

During the opening sequence, the Ulam are attacked by the huge, ape-like Wagabu tribe, and are driven out of their village/cave, and into the wolves’ territory. However, not everyone escapes from the wolves. During this sequence, the film cuts from the terrified Ulams running through the woods, to the wolves chasing them. Annaud also shows us brief shots of the dead Ulam. He ends the scene with a lone Ulam being attacked and killed by the wolves, while continuously cross-cutting to the group getting away. This sequence creates a scene of terror, that the Ulam are being set upon by a pack of wolves, have suffered devastating losses, and that anyone out of the group has almost no chance of survival.

At the most important moment of the movie, where a human tribe-member teaches Naoh the secret of fire, Annaud uses close-ups to show exactly how important this moment is. He focuses on Naoh’s reactions to the fire; from his casual interest in what this scrawny little human is doing, to when his attention is grabbed by the smoke coming from the wood, then finally his breaking into tears as the fire roars into life. Annaud is getting across to the audience that what Naoh is learning is something huge, the most important thing of survival, how to make fire.

The final technique is an editing technique, when Naoh and his group are about to be attacked by the cannibalistic Kzamm tribe, whom they stole the fire from; a herd of woolly mammoths appear over a ridge, and start to roar. At this point, everything is silent, but the mammoths’ roar. Soon, as Naoh slowly makes his way up to the lead mammoth clutching a few straws of grass, the music builds. Just as Naoh hands over the grass to the huge beast, the music builds to a crescendo, Annaud effectively yelling at the audience from the editing room “This is important! Watch!” He is telling us that this is what he imagines the domestication of animals to be, or at least an understanding of how to make peace with wild animals.

In the movie, Annaud utilizes these techniques well so as to alert the audience to what he is showing them, conveying emotion to them.