EDITOR'S NOTE: The following comes to The Outdoor Wire from J.R. Robbins, Managing Editor of NRA Hunting Communications. We thank J.R. for sharing this one with us.

NRAhuntersrights.org has reported before on animal rights' groups that try to push their "educational materials" into our school systems.

Regrettably, we've just been made aware of another one. But on the bright side, this one is so ridiculous that professional educators may actually laugh it off.

"The Zargon Connection" is part of a free "Humane and Responsible Teachers" curriculum designed for grades pre-K- 9. Created by the New Jersey Animal Rights Alliance (NJARA), the package includes a variety of classroom exercises, activities and lesson plans. These documents include NJARA advice like discouraging field trips to zoos and aquariums because they "perpetuate the belief that it's acceptable to imprison animals."

Look like anyone you know? The NJARA would like kids to think the Zargonian looks like all hunters.

One of NJARA's issues, of course, is "the killing of wildlife for management or sport," and "The Zargon Connection" is the educational tool they want teachers to use--on sixth-graders. It is a science fiction story in which Earth is invaded by Zargonians-aliens that hunt and eat human beings for sport.

A few excerpts:

Parts of Earth have been "designated as human management areas where they hunt us for pleasure and for our meat, which is considered a delicacy by Zargonian gourmets."

"Zargonians use a variety of hunting techniques. They frighten us and then shoot us in the back as we run for our lives. Or they unleash vicious Zargonian hounds who chase us to exhaustion and desperation, sometimes tearing us apart with their teeth when they catch us."

"Occasionally, in a technique known as baiting, Zargonians will set up a fast food restaurant or pizza parlor and burst in on us while we eat, with their street sweepers blazing."

"Often, their weapons leave us alive, but dreadfully wounded, and we die slowly and painfully from blood loss, infection or starvation. Some of us are children, left to starve alone and afraid when they kill our parents."

There is plenty more, but you get the idea. Once the children finish reading the story, NJARA advises that they break up into groups and discuss how to convince the Zargonians that hunting should stop.

I don't want to believe that any elementary school teacher is foolish enough to use such demented material in a classroom. The idea that you can educate sixth-graders by giving them nightmares can't really be acceptable in our schools, can it?

I hope not. But if you live in New Jersey, I suggest you inquire if anything from NJARA is being used in your child's school. Even though it may be tempting to regard this material as too stupid to worry about, let's not do that.

--J.R. Robbins, Managing Editor, NRA Hunting Communications