Gotta-Grip Golf Blog

I will admit when I was 10 years old I threw rocks at birds on several occasions.

We used to have Blue Jays that would terrorize us, and the other birds where I lived. Now that I am older, I feel bad about taking action against them.

I can only imagine how bad Tripp Isenhour feels following the incident recently published about his accidental killing of a Red Shouldered Hawk in Florida while "shooting" (no pun intended) a television show.

The show, titled "Practice Like A Pro", (which was also reported as "Shoot Like a Pro", and "Play Like a Pro" in some sources), was inturrupted several times by a noisy hawk. According to reports, Mr. Isenhour took aim at the tree where the noise was coming from and the hawk was hit and killed instantly.

I read that the Red Shouldered Hawk eats Small mammals, amphibians, reptiles, small birds and large insects. You would think this would be a desirable animal to keep around in a state like Florida where the animal's "menu" consists of all the things people pay good money to get rid of.

You can click on the picture below to see what Wikipedia has to say about this bird.

Like most stories reported, there are two sides to the story, I watched a video posted on the Golf Channel where Mr. Isenhour was intervied about the details of the charges against him.

Tripp Isenhour claimed it was an accident, and that he was merely trying to scare the bird that was making noise away, by shooting at the tree where the bird was perched. He went on to say it was a "one in a million shot", that they called the authorities, and buried the bird per the instructions of the officials. . He concluded by stating that he was remorseful about the incident.

Perhaps we should leave it at that.

The alleged scene of the alleged crime was reported to be the Grand Cypress Golf Course according to news reports. One I found had some more background (video too) on the type of bird it was and why they are so loud.

I am sure this was an isolated incident, and perhaps some good will come of this. Awareness has been raised and that is usually a good thing.

Let's all move on, and try to be better from this. Tripp too!