Posted on 11/19/2017 9:04:37 AM PST by Simon Green
Back in 2016 the internet momentarily lost its collective mind over the killing of Cecil the lion, and by extension all trophy and big game hunting in Africa. Companies such as Delta Air Lines responded by changing their policies to prohibit using their airliners to bring trophies into the US, and President Obama issued an executive order to stop the importation of some African trophies.
What impact did that have?
To the surprise of virtually no true conservationists, the lack of funding going into the wildlife preserves has caused them to take drastic measures such as slaughtering lions. The feel-good-ism of opposing managed big game hunts means they now don’t have the resources they need to help maintain their existing populations. Hunters (and specifically trophy hunters) provide the funding to keep these places operating. The removal of tagged older animals from herds — specifically elderly elephants who become destructive and would keep the overall population of the herd low — is a necessary part of responsible conservation.
But the anti-gun and anti-hunting crowd doesn’t can’t see beyond the ends of their hoplophobic probiscises (probosci?). And they don’t really give a damn. Killing animals for any reason is inherently evil and they won’t even consider any evidence to the contrary, especially when it doesn’t fit nicely into a five-word sound byte.
President Trump made statements last week indicating that he would be reversing the Obama decision, but he’s now reversed his statements on reversing the decision. So it appears there won’t be any decision by Trump any time soon to un-do yet another Obama era executive order which accomplishes the exact opposite of what it was ostensibly intended (save animals). And, by the way, also negatively impacts gun owners.
I’m glad he reversed the lifting of the ban. It’s an example of some of his appointees run amuck promoting their personal, selfish interests.
So, is it now open season on African and Indian elephants? How about rhino horns? PETA heads and sea sheapard types will say yes. Do these assclowns EVER look at the details? Nah. #factsdontmatter.
You obviously did not read the article.
I have taught my son that the first “legal” deer he sees needs to go in the freezer...
But, I have nothing against “trophy” hunters...
I’m with you...don’t see much of an upside to encouraging these killings...but lots of downside.
I read either that article or a similar one. There’s an argument that the money from hunting would be used to protect elephants. I don’t buy that argument. If the results of slaughter are legal, more people will want to acquire them, and with greater demand poachers will be further incentivized. There should be NO recreational hunting of big game that is not abundant.
Good, I think their are far more animals that need to be shot than these beautiful creatures
Whatever you read is leftist bile.
First, the ban on importation of trophies and ivory has increased the price, thereby making poaching more lucrative.
Second, big game hunting provides the money necessary to protect these animals from poachers while employing and feeding locals.
Hunting saved more species than any government or animal-rights group have ever saved. We put our money into managing the game and ensuring there will be a healthy population for decades to come.
Did you know that whitetail deer were almost extinct in the US around 1900? Hunters saved them from extinction by hunting.
The regions of Africa that have allowed big game hunting are the ones where elephants and other species are abundant and healthy. The regions that do not allow hunting are ruled by the poachers, who pay off gov't officials and hunt the species to extinction.
What a control freak Obama was. Not only did he work hard to control what you could with guns in this country, he went out of his way to try to control what you could do in other countries. I don’t think I’ve ever agreed with him on a single issue in 8 years, unlike some in this thread.
As one that has been there, and done that, I think we need to look at facts, not emotions. What happens when trophies can’t be imported into the US? In regulated hunting, each PH (guide) has his own area that he can hunt, it is his, and he also polices it for poaching, therefore him having sport hunters is a net gain for animals.
He has on quota 3 elephants, 2 lions, 7 leopard, and 15 cape buffalo. If he can’t sell them to US clients, he advertises and goes to events that cater to Spain, Italy, Germany, and the Arab states. He sells the hunts to them, they shoot the quota, and there is no change in numbers of animals. It does nothing but make someone who grew up and lives on concrete a good feeling because, by God, they kept an American from doing something they enjoy! Net result to elephant population....0. Like all liberal ideas, if they don’t like it and participate in it, then it sure as hell ought to be illegal.
I know nothing about what you state, so I can’t disagree with your facts. I’m quite sure it’s political suicide to lift the ban. Every Republican would have to run against gross pictures of dead giraffes and elephants.
I guess you have never been overseas. Trust me, most third world countries have no resources to waste on game management. People are starving. If there is no money in game management from hunters there is zero effort to protect those herds from being dinner for the locals.
An elephant is a slow moving target.
As this article mentioned that when the big game hunting industry was shut down, the herd was slaughtered as there was no money to feed them and care for them any more.
Having a pride of starving lions in your backyard is kinda the opposite problem as the aforementioned elephant issue
While you emotionally “can’t buy it”, reality does not care about your feelings.
Nor does it care about the dwindling exotic animal herds due to man’s lack of stewardship.
Read this, it does a better job explaining what hunting does for animals than I can.
Here is what a wildlife conservationist in Zimbabwe, Trevor Lane, told me about the big game trophy hunting industry:
Lane runs the Bhejane Trust, a charity dedicated to preserving the black rhino in parks including Hwange. “I’m a great fan of Prince William, but he’s got it completely wrong on trophy hunting,” he tells me. “Not only does it provide a large chunk of our national park budget, but it gives local people a vested interest in preserving wildlife.”
Take elephants — one of the big five species most favoured by trophy hunters (the others being lion, leopard, Cape buffalo, and rhino). To a squeamish urban Westerner, it might seem a monumental tragedy when — as happened in Zimbabwe in October — a massive bull elephant gets shot by some fat German trophy hunter. To a starving African villager, though, it’s a lifeline.
“Suppose you’re a subsistence farmer and you’ve got $200 of crops which have to last you the whole year. Well that elephant can destroy them in one night. So that elephant has really no value to you, except as poached ivory — which will get you imprisoned for nine years, if you’re not shot on the spot — or as meat. Unless, of course, a professional game hunter comes along and tells you that that elephant is worth $10,000 to your community. Then suddenly, you’ve got a reason not to kill it.’
Here is Alexander N. Songworna, director of wildlife for the Tanzanian Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, pleading with the New York Times’s readership not to meddle with his country’s game industry:
In Tanzania, lions are hunted under a 21-day safari package. Hunters pay $9,800 in government fees for the opportunity. An average of about 200 lions are shot a year, generating about $1,960,000 in revenue. Money is also spent on camp fees, wages, local goods and transportation. And hunters almost always come to hunt more than one species, though the lion is often the most coveted trophy sought. All told, trophy hunting generated roughly $75 million for Tanzania’s economy from 2008 to 2011.
The same is true in Namibia, where permits to shoot black rhino raise $350,000 each – money that goes towards ensuring that there will still be black rhinos for future generations of Gervaises to gawp at and weep tears over.
Sure, big game hunting is not for the squeamish, but if you understand how local economies work, then you’ll understand that the best – indeed, only – way to preserve African wildlife is to give local people and governments an incentive to manage it sensibly and properly, rather than simply to eat or poach it to extinction.
For far too long we have run this country based on how the perception of the willful uninformed will feel about things.
That is why all democracies fail, and why this is supposed to be a republic, NOT a democracy.
Democracies are run by the perception of fools, in Republics you elect the wise to lead. Seriously, AL Frankin?!
In democracies elect those who will use government to give us what we want. As most people are evil, we end up limiting good by law.
In Republics the focus is on raising to power rightious men to lead. Not popular men, good men of integrity.
If good men do not lead, evil men will dictate.
That is why all democracies fail.
It’s up to those countries and their game management to handle the situation. That doesn’t mean the hunters should be allowed to bring their trophies back to the US.
I can't imagine how a democracy can succeed without a successful middle class that provides opportunity and a bridge between the haves and have-nots.
When I was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, it was different from today. Our neighborhood included lawyers, doctors, tradesmen, truck drivers, teachers and salesmen. The kids went to school together and played together. We had neighborhood and community activities together. Without that, how do we come together as a nation?
More complicated than that. More so the tragedy of the commons.
It has become blatantly apparent that far too many people learned nothing whatsoever from our little experiment with prohibition.
You are not going to sell the vast majority of US citizens on Trophy hunting.
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