Posted on 11/22/2013 9:06:16 AM PST by Kaslin
Hunting show hostess Melissa Bachman recently shot a lion in Africa, posted the triumphant picture on Facebook and now ABC (among many other enlightened parties) are all over her. An ABC World News segment shows New York-based Lana Zak petting a tame and cuddly cub on location in a South African zoo, while purring that: “lions like these are beloved in Africa.”
Maybe by some of Zak’s yuppie counterparts in places like Capetown and Nairobi. But not by Africans who live among wild ones. Lions are certainly beloved in Hollywood, the Upper East Side, Georgetown, etc. It’s a different story in the African bush.
Ask hunters who’ve been on Safari what happens when they whack out a lion or leopard or elephant. Sure, in Hollywood, Manhattan, London and Paris they moan and wail. But in the immediate vicinity of this form of pest-control the locals REJOICE! There’s a "Lion Dance" a "Leopard Dance" an "Elephant Dance." “Let’s celebrate!” cheer the locals. “A pest is dead!”
Go ahead and call them crazy because they rejoice when a menace to their livelihood and lives is gone. We wouldn’t understand. We only rejoice like that when our team scores a touch down.
Imagine the bug-spray man coming to your house: "Tell ya what," he says. "I’ll give ya 100 bucks for every roach I kill, $200 for any rats and a cool 500 semolions for a whack at the raccoon messing up your attic."
You’d be dancing the Watusi too. And the The Twist and The Hustle and The Bump and the Boot-Scootin’ Boogie. You’d also make sure to have a few of these creatures around for his next visit.
Turns out that those yahoo hunters who visit Africa from flyover America (Bachman hails from Minnesota) are much more “culturally sensitive” than most Greenies on a Starbucks counter in Manhattan or Georgetown. Here’s Paul Funston of South Africa’s Endangered Wildlife Trust: "The real solution to preserving lions lies in giving the local people incentives to tolerate lions on their land."
“To tolerate,” got that, Greenies-Weenies? In brief, given their fondness for the flesh of African natives’ cattle (and that of the natives themselves) Mr Funston infers that, among rural Africans, lions are normally considered intolerable. But this comes from a person actually familiar with the views of rural Africans. (i.e. not the type of person ABC saw fit to showcase on their show.)
And you’d be amazed at the tolerance the $20 to $100,000 (what it costs a tourist hunter in total fees to shoot an African Lion) generates in a country like Tanzania where annual per-capita income runs around $500.
"Welcome Mr Bwana hunter! I know of a real BIG Simba, sir (or madam!) Let me lead to him, most gracious Bwana hunter sir!" Far from being "threatened" (as a whole) by legal foreign hunters lions have, in these “yahoos” and “troglodytes,” their greatest champions.
In 2001 Botswana banned sport hunting for lions. In 2002 "animal-control" officers in Botswana killed more lions (because of cattle and human depredations) than sport hunters had killed the year before — and those had brought in a cool $30--50,000 in foreign exchange each from Melissa Bachman-type hunters.
In California, where animal rightists got cougar hunting banned in 1990, government "animal-control officers"(supported by hunter license fees) have killed more "problem" cougars than hunters themselves ever killed when they were allowed to hunt. And this was apparently fine with the same greenies who lobbied to end cougar hunting.
In brief, for humans to thrive a certain number of animals must die. They’ll either be killed by people like Melissa Bachman with smiles on their face or by government drones punching a clock and frowning. Either way the animals are just as dead. Hunters will pay out the wazoo for the privilege and take out the beast in a blaze of glory, then honor his memory with a dinner party or rug. The government performs a sordid (and expensive to taxpayers) execution then dumps them in a mass grave, like Fidel or Che Guevara’s execution victims.
"Wealthy trophy hunters, many from out of state, will pay for the pleasure of shooting a lion so they can hang mountain lions over their mantelpieces." Thus ran, word for word, the “scientifically- based” campaign to ban cougar hunting in California backed by the Sierra Club.
So now more "problem" (eating Californians' pets, and starting on the Californians themselves) lions are killed in California by frowning (taxpayer- and hunting license fee-salaried) wildlife officers than were killed previously by (tax-and hunting license-paying) hunters! But at least none get hung over a mantelpiece. Instead, they're dumped in an incinerator. Yippee! Happy now, Greenies? "The Puritan hates fox-hunting,not because it brings pain to the fox, but because it brings pleasure to the hunter." "Puritanism: the haunting fear that someone somewhere may be enjoying himself."
- Lord McCauley
- H.L. Mencken
If it was all legal, then detractors need to STFU
The same thing happened in California when hunting mountain lions was banned in a ballot Proposition 117 supported by only four urban counties.
LOL, next paragraph.
Why was this even a national news item considering they only cover a handful of stories any given day?
I proclaim the hunter lady Not Guilty.
and she shot a Gun! The Horrors!</progressive mocking
distraction
From the article:
In 2001 Botswana banned sport hunting for lions. In 2002 "animal-control" officers in Botswana killed more lions (because of cattle and human depredations) than sport hunters had killed the year before...At least the "animal-control" officers weren't "killing for fun", so it's OK, right?
There is also hunting for depredation of livestock, vegetation management, wildlife management, and disease management. People who kill for fun will pay you to get those things done.
Big game backlash: Protests against celebrity hunter Melissa Bachman mount
Ditto here
> How conservative and Christian!!!!
Well Christians did sacrifice goats for thousands of years for the purpose of a tonement but this is clearly only publicized for political objectives; namely that of gun control and taking a stab at the conservatives who are usually Christian otherwise the story and the photographs never would have been publicized. The MSM acting on behalf of the Left expects the very reaction that you gave them. BTW Bachman is also one of the senators that wanted Congress to investigate the Muslim infiltration into the White House and the impact it would have on national security; the fruits which are becoming increasingly evident in international affairs (Benghazi, PJarrwtt’s secret meetingswith Iranian officials, Muslim Brotherhood takeover in Egypt, andthe urrent influx of Muslims through our porous Southern borders posing as immigrants on tour buses). This is another reason the Left demonizes her.
BTW I don’t condone shooting animals for sport either.
Have to say it, but hunting satisfies an basic human need to hunt and kill.
Deny it all you want but it is part of the human condition without which we would all perish from this earth as we almost did when we were hunted and killed...
Its nothing to be ashamed of.
Liberals oppose hunting by anyone who enjoys hunting. So long as you do it as part of your government job as a game warden they don’t care...assuming the game warden hates their job.
I’m sure this was legal. But was the lion preying on livestock? Was it stalking humans or frequenting human settlements? Was it so seriously ill (e.g. injuries, rabies) that it had to be destroyed. Was Melissa going to eat the lion? If none of the above, then what was the point in shooting it?
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