To the editor:
I would like to respond to the letter by Brent G. Moss (Forum, April 29), titled "Open LDS-owned land to all hunters." Moss requests that the Farm Management Co., owned by the LDS Church, make the 200,000-acre piece of land accessible to the general membership of the church for hunting.As a member of the church, I find it disturbing that after all that has been said on the subject of hunting for sport and killing for recreation, from Joseph Smith down to President Ezra Taft Benson, that the church would still own and operate, for profit, a trophy big-game hunting preserve.
Ezra Taft Benson stated, "I have often felt that the Lord is further counseling us in this revelation (Doctrine and Covenants Section 89) against indiscriminately killing animals, for He has said elsewhere in scripture, `Wo be unto man that sheddeth blood or wasteth flesh and hath no need.' "
Spencer W. Kimball delivered a strong denouncement of killing for sport and advocated humaneness. Similarly, Joseph Fielding Smith said, "It is a grievous sin in the sight of God to kill merely for sport. Such a thing shows a weakness in the spiritual character of an individual."
The point is that individuals are not to hunt and kill for recreational pleasure. A reverence for all forms of life should be cultivated and practiced.
If, indeed, some branch of the church is operating a big-game hunting preserve for recreational killing, perhaps it would be prudent to re-examine what its leaders have said on the subject.
Chuck Spence
Salt Lake City