The Global Anti-Hunting Coalition (GAHC) - President's Message for 2013

2012 has been a banner year for the Global Anti-Hunting Coalition (GAHC), a worthy successor of 2010 when the founder and president of GAHC was honored with the prestigious Henry Spira Grassroots Activist Award at the Animal Rights National Conference in Washington DC.

Throughout the year, the exchange of ideas and infusion of new information within the 6000-members-strong Global Anti-Hunting Coalition facebook groups GAHC-1 and GAHC-2 have been vigorous and invigorating, eye-opening and mind-boggling, resulting from which the images of recreational hunting and trophy hunting have become, and are becoming, more and more tarnished and reviled day by day.

Several GAHC members deserve honorable mention:

GAHC Head Admin Shannon Wright launched a formidable anti-hunting blog series titled [The 12 Most Vile] showcasing the highest profile "Big Game" hunters of her own gender, which caused an uproar in the hunting community as evidenced by her being targeted for ridicule, insults and personal cyber-attacks. Under her capable administration and personable diplomacy, GAHC has gained hundreds of members, enjoyed an elevation of profile in the anti-hunting community, and forged alliances with major anti-hunting groups notably [4A] and [Anti-Hunting in America], and international groups such as [Hand in Hand With Asia's Animal Activists]. In recognition of her tireless work as GAHC admin and her external achievements, the Global Anti-Hunting Coalition is happy and proud to welcome Shannon as its new vice president.

Another honored member of GAHC is Jim Robertson, whose book [Exposing the Big Game] is a milestone of the anti-hunting movement, and worthy of GAHC's highest esteem.

Long time GAHC member Christian Raymond is steadfastly maintaining her powerful expose of hunting cruelty, particularly bow-hunting bearing its pathetic 50% non-lethal wounding rate.

On another front, in the dual capacity as the founder/president of GAHC and a spokesperson for the Vancouver Animal Defense League (VADL, of which Marley Jean Daviduk is founder/president), I have fought on the front line, shoulder to shoulder with Marley Jean, in the SHARK WAR targeting the global atrocity of shark-finning - the hunting/poaching of sharks every bit as cruel as the bow-hunting of deer, and ecologically disastrous to boot - and the shark-fin trade in western Canada, which stems from the demand from a minor sector of the Chinese community centered upon Vancouver and Richmond, BC. While Marley orchestrated the entire campaign and waged her own front-line action, including weekly demos at the Fortune Garden Restaurant in Vancouver and personally confronting the owner of the Jade Restaurant in Richmond, both of which serving shark fin soup, my role in this fight was to make formal shark-fin-ban presentations to the city/municipal councils (over a dozen) in the region - as a Chinese Canadian - in part to show that not only do the vast majority of mainstream Canadians support the ban, but the majority of Chinese Canadians as well. Originally thought by some to be lacking in potential due to the fact that we would be dealing with the local governments by their rules, our campaign achieved tangible and some say phenomenal success in that almost all of the municipalities to which we have made presentations have declared their own intention to ban, or have actually banned, the shark-fin trade within their borders. One municipality - Langley Township - which had voted 2-7 against the ban before our presentation, re-voted 8-1 in favor of the ban after our presentation two weeks later. Due in part of this campaign the hundreds of cities and municipalities of British Columbia voted in the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) convention almost unanimously in support of a shark-fin-ban province-wide. In 2013, GAHC and VADL will jointly wage a campaign on the federal level to ban shark-fins Canada-wide.

My personal view on and philosophy in the role of the founder and president of GAHC is not to be a "rear admiral", but a front line fighter, exemplified by the ban-shark-fin campaign, and staying true to my 1996 modus operandi of launching road tours, debating 100 hunters at a time. I delight not in presiding over GAHC like a wisdom-dispensing guru, but prefer instead to lead the charge in the field, on point, by example. I want not to be trailed by a horde of echoing followers, but to be accompanied by a dedicated group of fiercely independent free-thinkers and fearlessly committed warriors, each motivated by their own inner fire and governed by their own higher conscience. I am happy to say that these are what I see in the GAHC pages on a daily basis.

To all GAHC members: Together, we shall prevail.

To all GAHC members-to-be: Join us in this fight. Victory is just a matter of time.

Anthony Marr
founder and president
the Global Anti-Hunting Coalition