You know the thing that really bothers me about some of the posts in this thread is not so much the shear ignorance of what sport hunting/ trophy hunting/ meat hunting is but, the regurgitation of the anti hunting pop culture one liners that keep reoccurring in this thread.
The anti message is getting through loud and clear apparently.
lets try and clear a few thing up.
1. There are no non sport hunters in the USA today except in very RARE circumstances. That is a very simply fact because with extremely rare exception we all make the concious effort to hunt and we do so by choice because we enjoy it. There are almost no circumstances where it wouldn't be cheaper, easier and far simpler to just purchase out food from the store. Therefore we are hunting whether purely for food or not because we derive some pleasure from this age old activity of hunting. Remember from an evolutionary stand point we were predators/ scavengers long before we were farmers. It is our genetic code to hunt.
2. The "I despise trophy hunters" statement is probably the most misunderstood statement. It is a favorite of your various voracious anti-hunting/ anti-American/anti freedom groups out there today. It seems to be quite popular here too.
First off the term trophy hunter immediately brings the vision to the unwashed ignorant masses of a rich overweight banker who kills some poor doe eyed defenseless animal. Then has the head removed so he can hang it on his wall letting the carcass waste.
WHAT A BUNCH of unmitigated senseless BS. Trophy hunters as a group are the most disciplined, careful, and intensely conservation minded hunters in the world. They have to be or there wouldn't be any trophies left for them to hunt. They are intensely concerned about herd health, proper genetics, correct land management, license allocation, proper kill ratio, FAIR chase, ethics, land accessibility and preservation and most of all the sustainability of the precious resource of wildlife and wild country for endless generations to come.
Trophy hunters are the guys who pay the big out of state and out of country fees to make sure these things are available in the future. GET a clue guys WE trophy hunters pay a huge portion of the bill so that everybody else can enjoy the wildlife our fee's pay to keep around. With out us fighting for and financing the struggle to keep wild places wild and wildlife at sustainable levels you'd see a rapid dissipation of these place and these animals as they became of less value and your land all of a sudden looked more inviting as a strip mall than a winter feeding ground.
I've posted far to many factual instances of the good trophy hunters do to go in and regurgitate them here but I'll summarize a few facts:
One only needs to look at the dismal wildlife densities in Kenya where hunting was banned in 1978 and in particular the African Elephant as compared to ALL of the other countries which continued the practice of controlled regulated and heavily fee based sport hunting of Elephants and other game animals.
All of the countries who have continued using the very effective conservation tool of TROPHY hunting are simply overrun with game and in fact some are begging for more hunting quotas to pay for the removal of elephants as they are over populated. There are hundreds of thousands of elephants in Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Mozambique and Namibia where hunting is allowed.
Kenya's Elephant population is down from roughly 160,00 when the hunting ban went into effect to less than 16,000 today. WHY? Because these animals have no intrinsic value to the average native who would just as soon poach one and make a few schillings on the ivory. In the countries that allow hunting the elephants are worth more as an asset to the natives in the form of employment fees paid to the local villages and legal meat than they are a set of illegal ivories.
The black buck of India, there are more Black buck living in the state of Texas on TROPHY hunting ranches than there are in the also non-hunting country of India. WHY? Well I think you already know why.
I have never killed a game animal in Africa where the meat wasn't fully utilized by the indigenous population. That is part of the deal over there.
I am a trophy hunter. I am always hunting for the biggest oldest critter I can find. That is wise herd management. I also always pack out any and all of the usable meat from said animal. There are many times that I come home empty handed because I don't find just the right critter. I still paid for the license. Heck I've made three trips 2 + miles back to a cape buffalo bull to pack out the meat with four guys so we could give the meat to a local village. I didn't eat it but they were sure as hell happy enough to have it. Does that make me evil? I've also shot a crop raiding non trophy elephant at the request of a local chief which I paid a Healthy license fee on. The carcass feed four villages in the area and the hide and bone was split four ways to those communal villages and my license fee also goes directly back in to the community. Was I an evil non compliant non bambyist for doing that? I'll tell you this as well. I was majorly jazzed, totally tuned in, and completely psyched when I closed to with in 40 yards of that elephant in heavy cover and killed her with a side brain shot from a .470NE double rifle. Cow elephant are without a doubt the most deadly animal on the planet to hunt on foot.
Was I completely excited when I stopped a bull buffalo charge at mere feet in the jesse of the Zambezi valley. You bet your sweet buns I was and you'd have been too. I am excited and alive and free and in my element every time I grab a rifle and head for the distant horizon. Whether to hunt cape buffalo or cow elk to deny that feeling is to deny a basic human condition I am not a spectator in nature I am a participant just like that lion in Botswana.
I couldn't give two poops what the elitist left has to say about it. If you cherish wildlife and if you cherish wild country the world over you should thank a hunter and not just a hunter but a trophy hunter WE PAY THE BILL FOR IT EACH AND EVERY DAY! So enjoy it's on me.