This is in response to the column from Karen Coker and Elaine Tselikis (Oct. 6).

America’s violent culture, based on death and destruction, rears its ugly head yet again with the state’s allowing of senseless, barbaric killings of “big game” bobcats — majestic, reclusive creatures of the wild. It is very concerning that Maine refers to bobcats as “big game,” even though they are only slightly larger than a domestic house cat.

The fact that humans (if you want to call them human, because they certainly aren’t humane) are legally allowed to go out of their way to hunt bobcats, run them to death or near death utilizing packs of dogs, shoot them or bludgeon them, is -repulsive.

That type of hunting has absolutely nothing to do with putting food on the table or keeping people warm. Bobcats are killed, all in the name of vanity and for the satisfaction of warped braggarts’ minds.

Shame on Maine officials for proposing an extended week to kill those cats while extolling the virtues of wildlife. No animal deserves to be so senselessly slaughtered. Bobcats are just trying to survive.

If an animal truly poses a danger, then it should be either tranquilized or, at last resort, shot. It should not be hunted down to the point of exhaustion, then bludgeoned.

This situation evokes the memory of the tragic killing of Cecil the lion.

What values are we teaching the children?

One can tell about a society by how it treats its most vulnerable.

Helena Hunter, Lewiston