Courageous big game hunting runs afoul

[Sam1911]

I can't believe that a dentist from Minnesota would fly all the way to Zimbabwe and then hunt land that joins a game preserve. Surely there is wild back country that would be more interesting to hunt even though the challenge would be greater.

Really? You don't quite understand what a "game preserve" looks like in Africa, then. It isn't a zoo. It isn't Disneyland. You would have a hard time finding anything in the entire world that would be closer to "wild back country," LESS touched by human encroachment.

If hunting big game is your thing, that's probably exactly where you want to be.


...

Every trophy animal that this guy has taken was probably located by someone else and he was put into position for the shot by writing a check. This doesn't make him a hunter it makes him a shooter. There is a big difference. Hunters don't make the news, shooters make the news.

So using a guide is not "hunting." Ohhhkay then. Guess that's one way of looking at it.

I'm completely over the entire "that ain't hunting!!!" argument. So inane. If you use bait, that ain't huntin'. If you use dogs, that ain't huntin'. If you sit in a stand and shoot an animal at 500 yds, instead of stalking it and shooting it at 30 yds, that ain't huntin'. If you use a semi-auto, that ain't huntin'. If you're using a vehicle, that ain't hunting. If you shoot on Sunday, that ain't huntin'. If you shoot a bird sitting on a branch, instead of a split second later when it is flying, that ain't huntin'. If you shoot an animal that's on a fenced ranch, that ain't huntin'. If you shoot an animal that's "cute" or "majestic" or "sacred" or "noble" or is named Cesil, or whatever other anthropomorphic bullcrap, that ain't huntin'. And on and on and on.

So much self-congratulatory arrogance picking fly poop out of pepper. If you're killing an animal you didn't raise as livestock, WTH? It's hunting. Stop with the goofy, divisive, embarrassingly pointless denigration of other animal killing sportsmen and accept that hunting, like nature, is "red in tooth and claw" and no amount of gussying it up in "sporting" fluff and glitter changes one single thing about eradicating the life of another creature for your own purposes. No animal ever thought it was fair and no animal ever wanted to die of starvation, or being eaten alive by predators, more than it wanted to die of a bullet or arrow wound.

It is what it is. Stop pretending.

 

[Nom de Forum]

In the case of the rhino that was taken a few months ago that everyone was up in arms over- that particular rhino was 1 of 5 that were designated for elimination due to their age. They were no longer siring new rhinos and attacking the younger males. They are also competing with the younger rhinos for resources. So the government could just kill these rhinos, or allow a fatcat to come along and pay a 5 digit sum for the privilege, in which the money goes right back into conservation of the rest of the herd. Big hunter gets a trophy, the herd gets reduced competition, and the local village gets a few hundred pounds of meat. Sounds like a net win to me.

Sounds like a net win to me too. I have no problem with hunters paying for the privilege of culling problem megafauna.

 

[Nom de Forum]

wow.. now he wants to use our wasted tax dollars to arm terrorist groups with drones and kill hunters for hunting the big 5... This thread has gone from strange to flat out stupid.

Such a ridiculous assertion it does not warrant further reply.

 

[Sam1911]

Oh, and if you have 20,000 lions, killing a lion isn't a one time event. You've got 19,999 more tries. Well, no not really. That's misrepresenting the situation. As long as you are killing below the birth rate, you have an infinite number more tries. Lions, like any other animal, are not a finite resource when managed properly.

Good point. And it is an important point misunderstood (or more commonly, ignored or deliberately misrepresented) by folks who hate hunting or hate hunting of specific species.

Animals are a renewable resource. Too much pressure may indeed overburden their ability to maintain a neutral or positive population growth rate, but "too much pressure" is not at all a given that goes hand-in-hand with hunting or other harvesting, or culling for that matter.

And this very point is why the pro-hunting (conservationist hunting) argument is in reality much stronger than the anti-hunting (I don't want people to kill animals) argument. It is more practically effective. It actually WORKS to promote wildlife populations. Anti-hunting policies allow wildlife populations to collapse and vanish due to benign neglect. The blood of those animals is not "on my hands" because I didn't pull a trigger. But they're dead and gone because they served no compelling purpose, filled no need that was important enough to human beings to ensure their protection and promotion.

The pro-hunting argument COULD be responsible for wiping out wildlife species due to over-hunting, but it generally ISN'T. Benign neglect certainly has wiped thousands of species off the planet.

It, like just about everything else, comes down to economics. What is the compelling reason to do hard things and make sacrifices to actively protect these species? Hunting is a very powerful one. We want to be able to hunt these creatures, so we pay a LOT of money to do so, and that money helps sustain environments and protections for them.

If hunting isn't a legal option, that money goes away, and if other money/reason/compulsion does not step in to encourage (or force) local populations to do all the work necessary to keep them healthy and flourishing, they'll simply cease to exist.

It is grand to say that photo safaris and eco-tourism might fill that gap, or that some form of force should be applied to make that happen, but that's all just so much American/western cultural imperialism trying to impose an unfunded mandate upon another culture. And that other culture, no matter how much we look down upon them for it, doesn't and/or can't care enough about those species' survival to make it happen out of love for the creatures or the goodness of their hearts or a sense of ecological duty.

If we want those creatures to survive, we have to compensate the peoples who will have to make it happen (by not killing them to protect crops, by not using their grazing lands for farming or development, by defending them against poachers ... or accepting the payments of poachers who WILL compensate them for the ability to take all they can).

 

[sage5907]

Sam1911, I do understand. The reverse situation would be for someone who lives in Zimbabwe to fly all the way to Cody, Wyoming and then hunt on land that joins Yellowstone Park. I know it's done all the time but it doesn't look right. It's too easy for people in the guide business to push animals off of regulated land so they can be shot. They hunt along the fence with the parks because the large trophy animals are on the regulated land. There's too much of an incentive to cross the line from right to wrong.

 

[H&Hhunter]

Sam1911, I do understand. The reverse situation would be for someone who lives in Zimbabwe to fly all the way to Cody, Wyoming and then hunt on land that joins Yellowstone Park. I know it's done all the time but it doesn't look right. It's too easy for people in the guide business to push animals off of regulated land so they can be shot. They do it because the large trophy animals are on the regulated land. There's too much of an incentive to cross the line from right to wrong.

Sage,

In Zimbabwe most parks are bordered by hunting blocks. The hunting blocks provide a buffer zone for the private land blocks and higher population areas.

 

[Art Eatman]

sage, I'm dubious: First you have to find that trophy animal and then you have to "push"--herd--it somewhere within range of the customer. Doesn't really sound to me like any sort of common occurrence.

 

[Hookeye]

The lion had Skittles and Arizona Tea, just stole some cigars and tried to lift a gun from a cop.
He was a model lion, was chosen to be the first big cat sent into space to find a cure for cancer on a space station.

 

[Sam1911]

The reverse situation would be for someone who lives in Zimbabwe to fly all the way to Cody, Wyoming and then hunt on land that joins Yellowstone Park. I know it's done all the time but it doesn't look right

What doesn't look right about it? Come here to hunt? Ok. Is this land legal to hunt on? Ok. Is this animal lawful to shoot when it is standing on this land? Ok. Then it looks as "right" as it ever could.

It's too easy for people in the guide business to push animals off of regulated land so they can be shot.

I don't know if that deliberately happens, but it would certainly seem that there would be laws against driving animals off of national park lands set aside for their habitat. I'd need to see data on this before I consider it a real problem.

They hunt along the fence with the parks because the large trophy animals are on the regulated land. There's too much of an incentive to cross the line from right to wrong.

What are you saying here? That they "cross the line" onto protected lands and shoot animals? Or that they shoot animals that have freely crossed onto non-protected ground? If the latter, that's perfectly acceptable. This isn't England and we don't poach "the King's deer."

 

[Nom de Forum]

But it suddenly becomes not culling and not conservation if a hunter pays to do it instead of a park ranger doing it for minimum wage?

I never criticized the use of paying hunters to cull problem animals instead of a park ranger. But you are implying that legal trophy hunting is equivalent to culling.

Why not? That's the pattern with historical precedent. You remove the ability to hunt the animals and there is no longer an economic incentive to keep them around. Oh sure, someone will pay to come take pictures of them and that will go gang busters... Which is the hidden explanation behind why zoos are such economic powerhouses these days.. oh, most of them rely on grants and research funding?... Well, maybe that's why all those drive through wilderness parks are making such epic money... Oh, they all went broke too.. I guess keeping animals around because they are nice to look at wasn't exactly the massive economic force everyone hoped it would be.

You are over-simplifying the issue. First off, historical precedent does not prevent change. Whatever the history of "drive through wilderness parks" that does not mean people will not support the conservation of these animals even if they never travel to see them. How many people do you think support the conservation of marine mammals but never in their life ever travel to see them? Nothing wrong or unusual with taxpayer funded grants and research to preserve things of priceless aesthetic value for future generations.

Tell me something, have you ever seen something like this dedicated to photo safaris:



It's not hard to follow the money on this.

You are correct it is not hard to follow the money. The trail of money from Cabela's, etc., that leads to back to megafauna trophy hunters is so miniscule it is financially irrelevant to Cabela's, etc., bottom line.

You know, just out of curiosity I Googled just how much a photo safari would run and found out it would be under $5,000... or, roughly 1/11th of what this hunter paid. Ouch.

What brings in more money for conservation, 100 photo safaris at $5K or 1 trophy hunt at $50k. I am sure there is easily a ratio of 100 people wanting to see these animals alive to 1 trophy hunter wanting to kill them. Regards of what would bring in more money the point is the amount of money trophy hunts provide for conservation is trivial in comparison to the money governments and NGOs could easily provide to supplant it if they had the willingness to do it. Greater public awareness of the relatively trivial amounts need could make it happen.

 

[H&Hhunter]

There have been some great points brought up by our members here. And this thing has gone full circle and is becoming repetitive. With that in mind we're going to close it for now.