Interesting facts on African hunting, just what PETA doesn't want you to hear!
- Thread starter H&Hhunter
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Yet another article on the pending elephant over population train wreck.
Mmegi/The Reporter (Gaborone)
In the recent past, the lives of ordinary villagers in Botswana have been endangered due to elephants and other wildlife. A Bobirwa woman has just lost her life after being trampled upon by an elephant. That is not the only life that has been lost due to animals that are part of Botswana's ecosystem. However, the fatalities have not armed our leaders with enough courage to be more vocal about the dangers posed by wildlife to people.
Government should be warned against the dangers of becoming too obsessed with conservation at the expense of human life. It is Botswana's government and those responsible for wildlife management that should be in the frontline when articulating what the country needs to do with its wildlife. One hopes that such people are competent enough to measure up to the task. Otherwise doubts will emerge on the extent to which they are in touch with reality when Batswana continue to die because of wild animals.
Animals have not only been a source of menace to human life. They have also led to environmental degradation and soil erosion. At another level, they have impoverished Batswana by eating their crops and destroying their fields.
Currently Botswana has over 150, 000 elephants. The herd has swelled because of a crackdown on poaching and a moratorium on culling. The largest herd is found in the Chobe District, which holds about 70,000. These large numbers of elephants have become a menace, as they interact with people, and constantly destroy crops and property and put human life in danger.
In view of this situation, there is need for Convention on International Trade in the Endangered Species - CITES - to listen to Botswana and allow the country to cull its elephants. The need to protect elephants should be balanced against the need to preserve the environment and crops and safeguard human life. We would be losing on three fronts while gaining on one front only. It is like scoring once and conceding three own goals. A delicate balance should be struck between protecting the country's elephant population, the environment, crops and human life. Otherwise, protecting elephants and forgetting the other aspects is a counter-productive move with absolutely no benefit.
Mmegi/The Reporter (Gaborone)
In the recent past, the lives of ordinary villagers in Botswana have been endangered due to elephants and other wildlife. A Bobirwa woman has just lost her life after being trampled upon by an elephant. That is not the only life that has been lost due to animals that are part of Botswana's ecosystem. However, the fatalities have not armed our leaders with enough courage to be more vocal about the dangers posed by wildlife to people.
Government should be warned against the dangers of becoming too obsessed with conservation at the expense of human life. It is Botswana's government and those responsible for wildlife management that should be in the frontline when articulating what the country needs to do with its wildlife. One hopes that such people are competent enough to measure up to the task. Otherwise doubts will emerge on the extent to which they are in touch with reality when Batswana continue to die because of wild animals.
Animals have not only been a source of menace to human life. They have also led to environmental degradation and soil erosion. At another level, they have impoverished Batswana by eating their crops and destroying their fields.
Currently Botswana has over 150, 000 elephants. The herd has swelled because of a crackdown on poaching and a moratorium on culling. The largest herd is found in the Chobe District, which holds about 70,000. These large numbers of elephants have become a menace, as they interact with people, and constantly destroy crops and property and put human life in danger.
In view of this situation, there is need for Convention on International Trade in the Endangered Species - CITES - to listen to Botswana and allow the country to cull its elephants. The need to protect elephants should be balanced against the need to preserve the environment and crops and safeguard human life. We would be losing on three fronts while gaining on one front only. It is like scoring once and conceding three own goals. A delicate balance should be struck between protecting the country's elephant population, the environment, crops and human life. Otherwise, protecting elephants and forgetting the other aspects is a counter-productive move with absolutely no benefit.
El Tejon
Member
150K elephants just in Botswana?
I need new ivory pistol grips.
I need new ivory pistol grips.
Nathanael_Greene
Member
Wow. I had no idea.
Crosshair
Member
Settles that question, 375 H&H it is.
Think of the money the locals could earn through legal, regulated ivory trade.
/I'll let my friend carry the 577 T-Rex.
Think of the money the locals could earn through legal, regulated ivory trade./I'll let my friend carry the 577 T-Rex.
Cosmoline
Member
This highlights the absurdity of the anti-hunting movement. But there's so much emotion and money invested in keeping the ivory trade shut down I doubt we'll ever see a change.
NRA4LIFE
Member
A simple search revealed that the population increased from 130K to 151K in only 2 years, estimated between 2003 and 2005. That's a staggering 8% a year approximately. I'm guessing they could cull 8000-10000 a year and have the population stable. I'm no game management expert but these numbers seem almost unbelievable to me. What we'd give to have that problem here with Elk.
Art Eatman
Moderator In Memoriam
Thanks. Worth a sticky.
OP
OP
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As El Tejon has mentioned that is just Botswana. Most of southern Africa is experiencing the same problems with elephant over population. Zimbabwe and South Africa are screaming for elephant population reduction programs before it is to late.
There are more elephants in Africa today than there have been in recent history. Yet to watch any of your popular "wilderness shows" they always start out with a statement on how the poor elephant is hanging on by a thread and that hunters are largely responsible for this travesty.
Hunters are THE primary reason that there are any elephants left on the planet. We as a group pay the tab for the elephant and most other wildlife as well.
Two examples. Kenya banned any and all sport hunting back in the 70's (?) I think it was about 1978 or so. In any case there are fewer than 17,000 elephants left in all of Kenya down from over 100,000 at the time of the hunting ban. The moment that elephant were no longer being forcibly protected in hunting concessions by safari companies who have an obvious and deeply vest interest in keeping the herd healthy. They were immediately and violently wiped out by government backed poaching squads. The same government by the way that was and still is highly praised for stopping hunting by various anti hunting groups. IDIOTS......
The next example is the black buck of India. They are nearly extinct in their home range. India stopped all hunting also back in the 60's or 70's. If the animal has no intrinsic value to the native it will be destroyed. Period. the highest population of black buck antelope on the planet is in the state of Texas where they were imported exclusively for sport hunting.
How many times does history have to repeat itself before the leftist, emotionalist movement gets the big picture. You can rub their noses in their self proclaimed piles of intellectual crap and they will come up claiming it was a rose time and time again. THEY ARE responsible for the mass decimation of many species of wildlife due exclusively to their anti hunting propaganda and total and complete ignorance of wildlife and nature in general.
There are more elephants in Africa today than there have been in recent history. Yet to watch any of your popular "wilderness shows" they always start out with a statement on how the poor elephant is hanging on by a thread and that hunters are largely responsible for this travesty.
Hunters are THE primary reason that there are any elephants left on the planet. We as a group pay the tab for the elephant and most other wildlife as well.
Two examples. Kenya banned any and all sport hunting back in the 70's (?) I think it was about 1978 or so. In any case there are fewer than 17,000 elephants left in all of Kenya down from over 100,000 at the time of the hunting ban. The moment that elephant were no longer being forcibly protected in hunting concessions by safari companies who have an obvious and deeply vest interest in keeping the herd healthy. They were immediately and violently wiped out by government backed poaching squads. The same government by the way that was and still is highly praised for stopping hunting by various anti hunting groups. IDIOTS......
The next example is the black buck of India. They are nearly extinct in their home range. India stopped all hunting also back in the 60's or 70's. If the animal has no intrinsic value to the native it will be destroyed. Period. the highest population of black buck antelope on the planet is in the state of Texas where they were imported exclusively for sport hunting.
How many times does history have to repeat itself before the leftist, emotionalist movement gets the big picture. You can rub their noses in their self proclaimed piles of intellectual crap and they will come up claiming it was a rose time and time again. THEY ARE responsible for the mass decimation of many species of wildlife due exclusively to their anti hunting propaganda and total and complete ignorance of wildlife and nature in general.
I certainly don't want any of the magnificent animals of the continents wiped out...sound game management is what they need...it woks well here provided the people who know their job set the rules right...and the ignorant dipstix keep their politically & practically wrong ideas out of it...hunters and animals would both benefit...
Byron Quick
Moderator In Memoriam
Concur with John. I'm not aware of Buddhist sects that wear masks for the purpose of not killing insects.
Jains not only wear the masks but carry brooms and gently sweep the area they are about to walk so as to avoid stepping on insects that are not seen.
Some Buddhist sects often avoid eating red meat. Others distinguish between the consumer and the person who actually slaughters the animal. In these sects, butchers are viewed as people who acquire karmic debt for the good of the community as a whole. These societies view warriors in the same manner. The pacifism promulgated by Buddhism is usually exposed as nothing but empty talk if one examines the military actions of the host societies. Many, if not all, of these ostensibly pacifistic societies have amassed impressive body counts during the same historic periods that pacifism has been touted.
Jains not only wear the masks but carry brooms and gently sweep the area they are about to walk so as to avoid stepping on insects that are not seen.
Some Buddhist sects often avoid eating red meat. Others distinguish between the consumer and the person who actually slaughters the animal. In these sects, butchers are viewed as people who acquire karmic debt for the good of the community as a whole. These societies view warriors in the same manner. The pacifism promulgated by Buddhism is usually exposed as nothing but empty talk if one examines the military actions of the host societies. Many, if not all, of these ostensibly pacifistic societies have amassed impressive body counts during the same historic periods that pacifism has been touted.
ldasr
Member
Common Sense
I believe in conservation and preservation within reason.The real problem is the lack of common sense. It's just not around anymore. You see the lack of it every day and everywhere.
I believe in conservation and preservation within reason.The real problem is the lack of common sense. It's just not around anymore. You see the lack of it every day and everywhere.
it is the nature of life to fill up any available space....and then keep on expanding.
We won't ever have the numbers of buffalo we used to, nor the number of elephants, and really, we cannot, because the space for them to live in just isn't there any more.
What needs to be done is look at the space available, and keep hunting/poaching/accidental due to man/accidental due to nature deaths at a level where that population is maintained.
Obviously enough elephants are NOT being hit by lighting, falling off cliffs, or whatever.
Is the answer to go out and give birth control to the elephants? Of course not.
I'd also say no to lifting the ban on ivory, because then poachers will arrive, either there, or elsewhere where there is less control and just fake the paperwork. Ivory pound for pound is very convenient to harvest. The whole elephant is not.
What they need to do is start elephant hunts...even if the ivory gets destroyed at the end.
People will pay BIG DOLLARS to hunt elephants. Not only will just the hunting tag fee infuse the government with money, the hunter will stay at local hotels, pay cab drivers, and pay a mess of locals at his camp. Once the elephant is killed, the hunter cannot have it all butchered and send to via airmail to his home, so the locals traditionally feast.
Another aspect about this is it keeps the locals happy. People get mad when the animals trample their crops (or their wives!), but don't really give a rat's behind if some animal gets poached. Hell, it may even 'trickle down' to them as the poacher has a little pocket change and buys drinks and maybe a new shirt at local establishements. But that is nothing compared to the income the locals receive when some rich american or european comes to town for an elephant hunt. All you need to do is convice the locals that each elephant a poacher kills is one less hunt an american can go on, and they haev a real incentive to turn in poachers. This allows more exact control of said elephant population.
Of course I am preaching to the choir
We won't ever have the numbers of buffalo we used to, nor the number of elephants, and really, we cannot, because the space for them to live in just isn't there any more.
What needs to be done is look at the space available, and keep hunting/poaching/accidental due to man/accidental due to nature deaths at a level where that population is maintained.
Obviously enough elephants are NOT being hit by lighting, falling off cliffs, or whatever.
Is the answer to go out and give birth control to the elephants? Of course not.
I'd also say no to lifting the ban on ivory, because then poachers will arrive, either there, or elsewhere where there is less control and just fake the paperwork. Ivory pound for pound is very convenient to harvest. The whole elephant is not.
What they need to do is start elephant hunts...even if the ivory gets destroyed at the end.
People will pay BIG DOLLARS to hunt elephants. Not only will just the hunting tag fee infuse the government with money, the hunter will stay at local hotels, pay cab drivers, and pay a mess of locals at his camp. Once the elephant is killed, the hunter cannot have it all butchered and send to via airmail to his home, so the locals traditionally feast.
Another aspect about this is it keeps the locals happy. People get mad when the animals trample their crops (or their wives!), but don't really give a rat's behind if some animal gets poached. Hell, it may even 'trickle down' to them as the poacher has a little pocket change and buys drinks and maybe a new shirt at local establishements. But that is nothing compared to the income the locals receive when some rich american or european comes to town for an elephant hunt. All you need to do is convice the locals that each elephant a poacher kills is one less hunt an american can go on, and they haev a real incentive to turn in poachers. This allows more exact control of said elephant population.
Of course I am preaching to the choir
Poprivit
Member
Elephant population control
I hunted the Chobe area of Botswana for elephant in 1998. Took a nice one with tusks weighing 43 and 46 lbs. He was over 45 years old. I saw thousands of elephants while I was there - everything from the hip-high mototos to the big one I took. Botswana's elephants are not on the CITIES list and I was able to bring the trophies back without any trouble.
The older elephants eat all the food and sometimes push the little ones away and keep them from eating. I agree on the number of elephants over there. One interesting point, though. Our PH said that his allotment for the year was only 26 elephant. Sure won't cut the heard much.
We brought a truck load of villiagers out to the carcass and they cut it up right quick. (Got a few cuts of their own in the process.) All the meat was taken and used. They were VERY happy to get the meat as they have no way of getting meat other than by using snares and traps. (They own no guns.)
I'm going back in April 2008 for Cape Buffalo. The villiagers will get that meat too.
BTW - I'm not rich. I save every other dime I make, have no kids and my wife makes as much money as I. I shoot a Ruger Magnum in .458 Lott with Hornady 500-gr. soft points. Recoil? Yeah, a tad. The bruises go away in a few weeks though.
I hunted the Chobe area of Botswana for elephant in 1998. Took a nice one with tusks weighing 43 and 46 lbs. He was over 45 years old. I saw thousands of elephants while I was there - everything from the hip-high mototos to the big one I took. Botswana's elephants are not on the CITIES list and I was able to bring the trophies back without any trouble.
The older elephants eat all the food and sometimes push the little ones away and keep them from eating. I agree on the number of elephants over there. One interesting point, though. Our PH said that his allotment for the year was only 26 elephant. Sure won't cut the heard much.
We brought a truck load of villiagers out to the carcass and they cut it up right quick. (Got a few cuts of their own in the process.) All the meat was taken and used. They were VERY happy to get the meat as they have no way of getting meat other than by using snares and traps. (They own no guns.)
I'm going back in April 2008 for Cape Buffalo. The villiagers will get that meat too.
BTW - I'm not rich. I save every other dime I make, have no kids and my wife makes as much money as I. I shoot a Ruger Magnum in .458 Lott with Hornady 500-gr. soft points. Recoil? Yeah, a tad. The bruises go away in a few weeks though.
Charshooter
Member
I'm not sure it it Marxist ideology, rather it is New Age hippie thinking mixed with feminism. Many of these people are very middle-class what in Europe is called Bourgeoisie, not the working-class mentality. Here is one difference, if someone uses PC language, they are more likely to be Bourgeoisie thinkers than Marxist. You might not either one, but the marxist folks are more concerned with labor and income distribution than animal rights and other soft-and-fuzzy thinking.
In India the Black Buck is being protected, and the populations have shown an increase over the years particluarly in areas where the Bishnoi population is high.
Poaching is still very widespread in India, and more so amongst the affluent. Who do it more for snob value than anything else.
However it might still be the case that Texas has the largest population of Black Bucks. One must also keep in mind that there are probably more Tigers kept as pets in the US, than they are in the wild. But concluding that the only way to keep the Tiger going is to keep them as pets would be a little out of whack.
I used to hunt, but no longer do. Not for any moral reasons, but I find it simpler to buy meat off someone who shot a 300 lb boar and only has a 200 lb freezer...
And I dont want to wake up early and go stomping around the French country side on a cold winter day. But that is me.
Coming back to the point, yes a balance between conservation and culling needs to be achieved, though how that might come about is beyond my limited intelligence.
Poaching is still very widespread in India, and more so amongst the affluent. Who do it more for snob value than anything else.
However it might still be the case that Texas has the largest population of Black Bucks. One must also keep in mind that there are probably more Tigers kept as pets in the US, than they are in the wild. But concluding that the only way to keep the Tiger going is to keep them as pets would be a little out of whack.
I used to hunt, but no longer do. Not for any moral reasons, but I find it simpler to buy meat off someone who shot a 300 lb boar and only has a 200 lb freezer...
And I dont want to wake up early and go stomping around the French country side on a cold winter day. But that is me.
Coming back to the point, yes a balance between conservation and culling needs to be achieved, though how that might come about is beyond my limited intelligence.
pdowg881
Member
I think it's funny when the peta types say hunting is so evil and mean. I then explain to them the process by which meat is "harvested" in a slaughterhouse. Now which do you think is more humane?
Roebuck
Member
Thank you for an interesting thread H&H Hunter. I have spent a lot of time in Africa, in many countries within Africa. In Mali, I found out the meaning of the phrase, "Not got a pot to P*ss in". In Tanzania, I saw what appeared to be Grandma, Mom and a three year old girl at the roadside, beating big rocks with an iron bar to make a pile of little rocks. No little rocks, no money, equals no eat. In Uganda, most folks have a hole in the ground as a toilet and typhoid and HIV is rife. One in three. Same in Kenya, Angola and in RSA. where the Government choose to deny the problem exists. Forget about self sufficient, the sufficient does not exist in most rural locations, places. Hunting does bring in much needed Dollars, Euros, Pounds, etc. I hunt in Africa on an annual basis. Where I went last year (and where I am going again on 5 June this year) if the farmers' wives club did not provide weekly medical clinics for the black population, they would flat have no medical assistance at all. The whole community exists around farming (white) of which hunting is a big part, providing work for trackers, skinners and taxidermists, who in turn provide more jobs for the locals. I have no doubt that where hunting is permitted, the local and the animal population is better off (other that the ones that get shot).
Roebuck.
Roebuck.
OP
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I want to make something PERFECTLY clear not only are all elephants on the CITES list they are on the appendix II list in Botswana.
However there is an exemption to the normal import procedures for several countries. Botswana being one of them.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From the USFWS web site
What permits do I need for African
elephant trophies taken in Botswana,
Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe?
The populations of elephants from these
four countries are listed in Appendix II
to allow for trade in certain products
only, one of which is the noncommercial
export of personal sport-hunted trophies.
Thus, an import permit is not required
even though the African elephant is still
listed as threatened under the Act.
Under a special rule, the Service must
ensure that each country has an ivory
quota for the year of export and
determine that the import of a sporthunted
trophy will enhance the survival
of the species. We have made these
findings for Botswana, Namibia, South
Africa, and Zimbabwe. They will remain
in effect until we find, based on new
information, that the conditions of the
special rule are no longer met and we
have published a notice of any change in
the Federal Register. Except for
information specific to import permits,
all other information in this fact sheet
applies to the import of trophies from
these four countries.
So no the reporter is not lying. Poprivit was mistaken in his statement about Botswana not being on the CITES.
However there is an exemption to the normal import procedures for several countries. Botswana being one of them.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From the USFWS web site
What permits do I need for African
elephant trophies taken in Botswana,
Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe?
The populations of elephants from these
four countries are listed in Appendix II
to allow for trade in certain products
only, one of which is the noncommercial
export of personal sport-hunted trophies.
Thus, an import permit is not required
even though the African elephant is still
listed as threatened under the Act.
Under a special rule, the Service must
ensure that each country has an ivory
quota for the year of export and
determine that the import of a sporthunted
trophy will enhance the survival
of the species. We have made these
findings for Botswana, Namibia, South
Africa, and Zimbabwe. They will remain
in effect until we find, based on new
information, that the conditions of the
special rule are no longer met and we
have published a notice of any change in
the Federal Register. Except for
information specific to import permits,
all other information in this fact sheet
applies to the import of trophies from
these four countries.
So no the reporter is not lying. Poprivit was mistaken in his statement about Botswana not being on the CITES.
Hmm I looked into it, looks like the reporter in the first post is wrong. CITES only governs the international trade of species specified, has absolutely nothing to do with domestic culling due to overpopulation.
Found a website with info http://www.american.edu/TED/elephbot.htm about why he was allowed to hunt and import the trophy.
See, CITES did not ban population culling.
It's government bureacracy and screwups that have allowed the population to increase and affect the humans.
Found a website with info http://www.american.edu/TED/elephbot.htm about why he was allowed to hunt and import the trophy.
See, CITES did not ban population culling.
It's government bureacracy and screwups that have allowed the population to increase and affect the humans.
Troutman
member
<<Interesting facts on African hunting, just what PETA doesn't want to hear! >>
Besides this......look at this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itswGWddk2A&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlQlJrgZwOk
This is even better:
PETA and Terrorism
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG812QpZsuQ
Besides this......look at this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itswGWddk2A&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlQlJrgZwOk
This is even better:
PETA and Terrorism
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG812QpZsuQ
Last edited:
OP
OP
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2003
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American animal rights groups destroying African wildlife by the thousands!
An extract from the Game Rangers Assoc. of Africa news letter
Dr. Laurence Frank, from the University of California, Berkeley and the Wildlife Conservation Society, has studied predators in Kenya for 37 years.
He runs the Living With Lions project, working on lion conservation outside of national parks. He is not a big game hunter.
Once internationally famous for its magnificent wildlife, Kenya is in a conservation crisis, due largely to the cynical and corrupt influence of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, the US Humane Society and other animal rights groups which spend millions to prevent rational conservation policies that would benefit both wildlife and impoverished rural Africans.
Seventy percent of Kenya’s wildlife has died in the last thirty years, strangled slowly in snares and sold as cheap, unidentified meat. Even animals in national parks are in serious decline due to poaching and habitat destruction on their boundaries. Lions are being speared and poisoned into extinction.
In that same period, South Africa and Namibia saw an immense increase in wildlife numbers, as over ten thousand ranches found that wildlife for trophy hunting is more profitable than cattle. Wildlife in Zimbabwe quadrupled with the growth of hunting on large conservancies, until Mugabe’s ‘land reform’ resulted in most of it being snared. Wildlife continues to flourish in Tanzania, Botswana, and Zambia, where hunting contributes significantly to national economies.
Sentimental love of animals is a luxury affordable by comfortable westerners, but meaningless to the world’s poor and hungry. With ever-increasing human numbers, wildlife in Africa is doomed unless it produces income for rural people. That is not possible in Kenya because retrogressive policies, bought by tragically naive American animal lovers, ensure that rural people resent wildlife instead of profiting from it.
For rural Kenyans, wildlife is an unmitigated nuisance: lions kill precious livestock, wildebeest and zebra compete with cattle for grazing, elephants and buffalo destroy crops and occasionally kill people. While tourism brings wealth to hotels and tour companies, virtually nothing reaches the rural people who bear the costs of living with wildlife. Telling a Masai herdsman that he should cherish wildlife is like telling an urban American that he should cherish muggers and murderers.
Although unpalatable to many urban westerners, carefully regulated trophy hunting is the one avenue through which wildlife can bring serious money to rural Africans. Foreigners pay over two hundred million dollars for hunting safaris elsewhere in Africa, taking old males with impressive horns, tusks or manes, animals that are no longer of importance to the population (as any man my age knows all too well). In North America, Europe, and southern Africa, carefully managed hunting has greatly increased wildlife populations because people value them.
Tanzania has set aside over 100,000 square miles of wilderness for hunting.
It has more wildlife than any country in Africa, and half the world’s remaining lions. In Botswana, a very few male lions are shot every year, earning $65,000 each for the rural community in which the lion was taken, and half that amount for the national conservation agency. The community profit would pay for 350 cattle taken by lions, or support teachers, nurses or wildlife rangers. Lions and all the associated wildlife are a source of income, to be valued and protected.
In Kenya, that lion is only a cattle-killing nuisance, to be poisoned and left to rot in the sun. A rural community would earn far more from a single old male impala shot as a trophy than a poacher earns from snaring an entire breeding herd of females and young for bushmeat.
Kenya shut down legal hunting in 1977, when the world was outraged by hunters’ reports of industrial scale poaching of elephants for ivory, abetted by high government officials. The ban silenced the hunters and the elephant slaughter continued. In the absence of the hunters’ anti-poaching patrols, bushmeat snaring exploded. Vast regions of this country that teemed with large mammals thirty years ago are now barren of any animal bigger than a rabbit.
In spite of plummeting wildlife numbers, that failed policy has been maintained by foreign animal rights groups. Whenever real conservationists try to reform Kenyan policy to reverse the decline in wildlife, these groups launch disinformation campaigns in the local press, relying on racial resentment combined with outright fabrication: “Rich white foreigners want to kill all the animals in our national parks; only rich whites will profit from hunting”. They hire mobs to disrupt public policy meetings and fill the press with nonsensical claims that hunters would indiscriminately slaughter all game.
It is widely believed that these groups rely heavily on bribery, spending huge sums to buy sympathetic media coverage for their propaganda, and to buy influence at the highest levels of government. In a young democracy struggling against entrenched corruption, large scale bribery by westerners is stunningly irresponsible.
Worst of all, these ideologues apparently do not seem to care that millions of animals die wretchedly in snares, so long as none are shot for profit.
They boast to their American supporters that their donations prevent hunting in Kenya, never telling them that, as a result, there is little wildlife left, either.
An extract from the Game Rangers Assoc. of Africa news letter
Dr. Laurence Frank, from the University of California, Berkeley and the Wildlife Conservation Society, has studied predators in Kenya for 37 years.
He runs the Living With Lions project, working on lion conservation outside of national parks. He is not a big game hunter.
Once internationally famous for its magnificent wildlife, Kenya is in a conservation crisis, due largely to the cynical and corrupt influence of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, the US Humane Society and other animal rights groups which spend millions to prevent rational conservation policies that would benefit both wildlife and impoverished rural Africans.
Seventy percent of Kenya’s wildlife has died in the last thirty years, strangled slowly in snares and sold as cheap, unidentified meat. Even animals in national parks are in serious decline due to poaching and habitat destruction on their boundaries. Lions are being speared and poisoned into extinction.
In that same period, South Africa and Namibia saw an immense increase in wildlife numbers, as over ten thousand ranches found that wildlife for trophy hunting is more profitable than cattle. Wildlife in Zimbabwe quadrupled with the growth of hunting on large conservancies, until Mugabe’s ‘land reform’ resulted in most of it being snared. Wildlife continues to flourish in Tanzania, Botswana, and Zambia, where hunting contributes significantly to national economies.
Sentimental love of animals is a luxury affordable by comfortable westerners, but meaningless to the world’s poor and hungry. With ever-increasing human numbers, wildlife in Africa is doomed unless it produces income for rural people. That is not possible in Kenya because retrogressive policies, bought by tragically naive American animal lovers, ensure that rural people resent wildlife instead of profiting from it.
For rural Kenyans, wildlife is an unmitigated nuisance: lions kill precious livestock, wildebeest and zebra compete with cattle for grazing, elephants and buffalo destroy crops and occasionally kill people. While tourism brings wealth to hotels and tour companies, virtually nothing reaches the rural people who bear the costs of living with wildlife. Telling a Masai herdsman that he should cherish wildlife is like telling an urban American that he should cherish muggers and murderers.
Although unpalatable to many urban westerners, carefully regulated trophy hunting is the one avenue through which wildlife can bring serious money to rural Africans. Foreigners pay over two hundred million dollars for hunting safaris elsewhere in Africa, taking old males with impressive horns, tusks or manes, animals that are no longer of importance to the population (as any man my age knows all too well). In North America, Europe, and southern Africa, carefully managed hunting has greatly increased wildlife populations because people value them.
Tanzania has set aside over 100,000 square miles of wilderness for hunting.
It has more wildlife than any country in Africa, and half the world’s remaining lions. In Botswana, a very few male lions are shot every year, earning $65,000 each for the rural community in which the lion was taken, and half that amount for the national conservation agency. The community profit would pay for 350 cattle taken by lions, or support teachers, nurses or wildlife rangers. Lions and all the associated wildlife are a source of income, to be valued and protected.
In Kenya, that lion is only a cattle-killing nuisance, to be poisoned and left to rot in the sun. A rural community would earn far more from a single old male impala shot as a trophy than a poacher earns from snaring an entire breeding herd of females and young for bushmeat.
Kenya shut down legal hunting in 1977, when the world was outraged by hunters’ reports of industrial scale poaching of elephants for ivory, abetted by high government officials. The ban silenced the hunters and the elephant slaughter continued. In the absence of the hunters’ anti-poaching patrols, bushmeat snaring exploded. Vast regions of this country that teemed with large mammals thirty years ago are now barren of any animal bigger than a rabbit.
In spite of plummeting wildlife numbers, that failed policy has been maintained by foreign animal rights groups. Whenever real conservationists try to reform Kenyan policy to reverse the decline in wildlife, these groups launch disinformation campaigns in the local press, relying on racial resentment combined with outright fabrication: “Rich white foreigners want to kill all the animals in our national parks; only rich whites will profit from hunting”. They hire mobs to disrupt public policy meetings and fill the press with nonsensical claims that hunters would indiscriminately slaughter all game.
It is widely believed that these groups rely heavily on bribery, spending huge sums to buy sympathetic media coverage for their propaganda, and to buy influence at the highest levels of government. In a young democracy struggling against entrenched corruption, large scale bribery by westerners is stunningly irresponsible.
Worst of all, these ideologues apparently do not seem to care that millions of animals die wretchedly in snares, so long as none are shot for profit.
They boast to their American supporters that their donations prevent hunting in Kenya, never telling them that, as a result, there is little wildlife left, either.
one-shot-one
Member
ok not the high road, but i can not resist:
DUH! you mean the touchy/feely bambi lovers do more harm than good?
where have i heard that before? OH YEAH, right here on THR.
sorry, Sarcasm /off
DUH! you mean the touchy/feely bambi lovers do more harm than good?
where have i heard that before? OH YEAH, right here on THR.
sorry, Sarcasm /off
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