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Capehart
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First Look
Charles Lane, opinions columnist,
The Washington PostRuth Marcus, deputy editorial page
editor, The Washington PostModerated by Michael Duffy
Washington Post Live
eventsThe West’s inspiring, yet selfish, response to Ukraine
The world has
seen images of
Russian military
might rolling
through Ukraine’s
suburbs, past
modest houses
and open fields
and toward its
cities. We have
seen miles of
Russian armored vehicles
headed toward the capital, Kyiv,
and heard the fearful prediction
that they would surround it.
Citizens have attempted to halt
the tanks and soldiers with
molotov cocktails, their own
body and their seething outrage.
Ukrainians have not thwarted
the Russian invasion, but they
have slowed it. And in those
lapses and pauses, the Western
world has had an opportunity to
assess and parse its capacity for
empathy.
Our empathy doesn’t flow
naturally. It lies dormant below
our own daily distractions and
obsessions. It has to be coaxed to
the surface. And it rises for
reasons that are most often
selfish and sometimes
disheartening. But occasionally,
our empathy awakens and it’s
inspiring.
The most distressing and
alarming pictures to emerge
from Ukraine have of course
been those of the Ukrainians
themselves. The world has seen
them taking cover in subway
stations, sitting on the ground
with a few belongings — perhaps
a family pet — along with a
sense of fear, a cloud of
bewilderment and pure anger.
Like so many people in Europe
and the United States, they were
accustomed to looking at images
of other people’s countries under
attack as something that was
sad, but distant. Something to be
debated and managed. War
across the ocean or beyond thesea was something political and
volatile, familiar and
dehumanized. But now, it is
upon them, which in some ways
means that it’s upon us.
Like everything else, empathy
is meted out based on the same
hierarchy that the Western
world regularly uses to evaluate
human worth. And so
international borders have
opened up for the White men
and women who are fleeing
Ukraine in more welcoming
ways than they did for those who
were fleeing violence in the
Middle East and Africa. The
Ukrainians have been hailed as
“European,” as “civilized,” as
people with “blue eyes and
blond hair.” The thinking seems
to be that they are people who
should not be suffering such
violence because bombs and
missiles are things that should
not rain down on cities filled
with high-rise buildings and
bustling universities, an
educated populace... on a
predominantly White citizenry.
The ugliness of our prejudices
and stereotypes adds to the
painful news that floods out of
Ukraine minute by minute.
This isn’t a s urprise. Empathy
has long been built on this
hierarchy. But now that the truth
has been made plain, perhaps
the world will remember to do
better the next time those who
are dark-skinned with brown
eyes are on the run from missiles
and terror. When people who
look different or pray differently
come knocking for solace,
perhaps empathy will be a little
closer to the surface, a little
more passionately felt.
Our empathy is also drawn
out by images of the mundane
aspects of life that have been
disrupted. Inanimate objects
photographed in the rubble of
an explosion tug at emotions,
which is why there always seemto be pictures of a child’s doll
lying limp amid debris or a
framed family photograph
covered in dust — its protective
glass shattered by the upheaval.
These photos are part of the
story in Ukraine, too. But there
are other photos that speak
specifically to how swiftly life
has changed: the boarded-up
shops on pristine streets, the
empty shelves in a busy grocery
store, the people exiting a shiny
red tram to head for shelter after
sirens sound.
There are also the pictures
from the second night of the
assault when missiles fired at
Kyiv damaged an apartment
complex. It was a high-rise
building — the sort that exists in
any urban area, its architecture
familiar to anyone who has
visited Parisian neighborhoods
out beyond the tourist zone, the
parts of New York City that
rarely make it into films or any
of Washington’s gentrifying
avenues. It’s a m ixed-use
complex with its exterior walls
adorned with advertisements for
fitness clubs. The ground floor
bears a sign for a coffee shop.
In some of the pictures, a
woman in a parka looks up at
the damage, all the while
holding onto the leash of a fuzzy
little black dog. In another
picture, one can see someone’s
Mini Cooper with its windshield
smashed and its front end
wrecked from debris. Off in the
distance, there are more high-
rises and squat buildings and
they appear to be undamaged.
And all of this brick and glass
and metal tugs at one’s heart
because it’s so clear just how
recently everything was normal.
The missiles weren’t fired into a
landscape that had already been
strafed by gunfire. It wasn’t a
city frozen in some distant time.
It is a c ity of dog walkers and
fitness classes and coffee shops— and bombs. It’s all those
things. And for those of us who
live on similar blocks, that
sparks a selfish, personal fear
that also breeds empathy.
Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelensky has coaxed
empathy out of world leaders
and global citizens with his
words and imagery. He’s posted
his videos to social media and
has delivered powerful remarks
to the European Parliament
sounding like a determined man
leading his country rather than
an impassioned politician
making his case. The slightly
out-of-focus sight of him on the
monitors in Brussels, with his
scruffy beard and grim T-shirt,
are the opposite of what so many
might consider presidential.
During times of disaster and
stress, no matter how dire the
circumstances, it always seems
that America’s leaders reach for
their embossed flight jackets,
their polar fleece zip front with a
presidential seal, their open-
neck shirt with the rolled up
sleeves.
Zelensky is a man situated
against a blank wall with his
country’s flag to his right. His
words were a plea for
membership in the European
Union, words that made his
English-language interpreter
seemingly pause for breath and
take a moment to compose
himself after a surge of emotion.
Zelensky was blunt and
unvarnished in both words and
image.
“We are fighting just for our
land,” Zelensky said. “For our
freedom.” And he implored the
lawmakers to “prove they are
with us.”
Zelensky was vulnerable on a
global stage. That’s a p olitical
taboo and something rarely
seen. But it’s a r emarkable
human trait. And one that
compels our empathy.Robin
Givhan
THE CRITIQUEBY JOSHUA PARTLOW
gardiner, mont. — On public
land north of Yellowstone Na-
tional Park late last year, Mon-
tana Gov. Greg Gianforte (R) shot
and killed a mountain lion that
was being monitored by National
Park Service staff, after hunting
dogs had chased it up a tree.
The mountain lion hunt,
which has not been previously
reported, occurred Dec. 28 on a
swath of U.S. Forest Service land
southwest of Emigrant, Mont.,
according to residents familiar
with the episode who spoke on
the condition of anonymity to
preserve relationships in the
co mmunity. Less than a year
earlier, Gianforte killed a Yellow-
stone wolf in a similar area that
was wearing a tracking collar,
prompting an outcry among en-
vironmentalists.
The 5-year-old mountain lion
was wearing a GPS-tracking col-
lar that Yellowstone biologists
use to monitor the rare and
elusive predators. Park staff
knew the animal by its research
number: M220.
Gianforte’s press secretary,
Brooke Stroyke, confirmed Mon-
day that the governor had hunted
the mountain lion. She said he
had a valid license, drove the lion
up into a tree and shot it on
public land.
“The governor and friends
tracked the lion on public lands,”
Stroyke said in an emailed state-
ment to The Washington Post.
“As the group got closer to the
lion, members of the group, who
have a hound training license,
used four hounds to tree the lion
once the track was discovered in
a creek bottom on public land.”
Stroyke said that after the
mountain lion was chased into
the tree, Gianforte confirmed it
was a male, “harvested it, and put
his tag on it,” she said. “He
immediately called to report the
legal harvest and then the [Mon-
tana Fish, Wildlife and Parks]
game warden. In Livingston, the
governor met the game warden
who tagged the lion and took the
collar.”
Some Montanans have raised
questions about the tactics em-
ployed during the hunt. One
person familiar with the incident
told The Post that the mountain
lion was kept in the tree by the
hunting dogs for a couple of
hours while Gianforte traveled to
the site in the Rock Creek drain-
age area. In neighboring Wyo-
ming, detaining a mountain lion
in a tree until another hunter
arrives is illegal.
Stroyke denied that account.
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks
spokesman Greg Lemon also said
“the idea that the governor just
showed up to harvest the animal
is not consistent” with what he’s
been told.
The hunting site was locatedclose to the Point of Rocks Ranch,
where Gianforte trapped and
killed the Yellowstone wolf last
year. That ranch is owned by
Robert E. Smith, who is a co-
director of the Sinclair Broadcast
Group, a Maryland-based compa-
ny that owns or operates nearly
200 local television stations
across the country. Smith has
donated to Gianforte in the past.
In the wolf hunt, Gianforte
was accompanied by the ranch
manager, Matt Lumley, who is
also vice president of the Nation-
al Trappers Association. Resi-
dents said Lumley was also in-
volved with the lion hunt. He did
not respond to requests for com-
ment. Stroyke also did not re-spond to a question about the
governor’s hunting partners.
The February 2021 wolf hunt
violated state rules because Gian-
forte did not take a mandatory
trapping certification course be-
fore the hunt. Montana Fish,
Wildlife and Parks gave the gov-
ernor a written warning, and he
later said he “made a mistake.”
Conservationists have been
out rage d by Gianforte’s personal
hunting exploits as well as his
support of controversial pro-
hunting laws that passed last
year. One law mandated a cut in
the state’s wolf population and
prompted regulations freeing up
hunters to kill wolves just out-
side Yellowstone’s boundaries. Inthe past six months, 25 Yellow-
stone wolves have been killed — a
record for one year — all but six
of them in Montana.
“The consequences are severe
for wolves,” said Dan Wenk, who
was Yellowstone National Park
superintendent from 2011 to
2019.
Hunters killed off mountain
lions in the park in the 1930s, but
the animals moved back in dur-
ing the 1980s. Park staff monitor
the population through satellite
GPS collars, remote cameras and
genetic surveys. The sophisticat-
ed collars used to study the
population have embedded ac-
celerometers that can identify
when the animal is hunting,
feeding or on the move.
There are an estimated 34 to
42 mountain lions that reside
year-round in Yellowstone. But
for wildlife watchers in the park,
they remain a rare and special
sight. The lions tend to move
across rugged and difficult-to-
access terrain, and are adept at
hiding.
“We almost never see a moun-
tain lion,” said Nathan Varley, a
biologist who leads wildlife view-
ing tours in Yellowstone.
“They’re just too secretive. They
usually only move around at
night. They love to hide. They
just don’t sit out in the open very
much.”
Young male mountain lions
are known to tr avel widely in
search of territory not already
dominated by a rival, covering
many miles in a single day. Those
characteristics make them likely
targets for hunters once they
leave the park’s protected bound-
aries.
“It often puts young males in
the highest category of probable
mortality,” Varley said. “It’s so
hard for them to live long enough
to be competitive with the older
males that hold territory.”
Mountain lion M220 was first
captured and collared by Yellow-
stone biologists in December
2019 in the northern section of
the park, according to Yellow-
stone spokeswoman Morgan
Warthin. Gum-recession mea-
sure ments indicated that the lion
was 3^1 / 2 years old at the time and
weighed 130 pounds.
Lemon, the spokesman for
Montana’s fish and game agency,
said that targeting mountain li-
ons is legal but relatively rare
compared with other game hunt-
ing and is managed carefully.
There were 515 mountain lions
hunted in 2020, the most recent
year for which data is available,
he said.
It often takes place in winter,
Lemon added, as hunters will
follow lion tracks in the snow
and then dogs chase them into
trees.
“Once the animal’s in the tree,
the hunters choose to harvest it
or not,” Lemon said.Montana governor shoots collared mountain lion
OBTAINED BY THE WASHINGTON POST
A mountain lion thought to be M220, the animal shot by Montana
Gov. Greg Gianforte, is seen in the state in December.MATT VOLZ/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Gianforte, then a candidate for governor, poses with animal
trophies at his home in Bozeman in 2016.M0140 2x
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