But I thought we had to kill them
in order to save them.
I can guarantee you this. If you were a cattlman in Africa, you’d lose some cattle to lions. If you can book hunts for $30000, you leave them alone. If the hunting stops, you kill them all.
I have hunted Africa. I remember seeing numerous cheetahs in Namibia, my PH said they are quite common, but I interjected that the US wouldn’t allow us to import them. His words, were, of course, so our hunters from Germany and Spain kill them. Only the US thinks they are extinct. Us not importing them, due to the laws of supply and demand, just lets someone else hunt them.
As one that grew up on a farm/cattle ranch, is there more game on the land of people that hunt, or on those that don’t give a damn about hunting. I can answer that one!