You'd need a high ceiling or have to declaw the cat.
Posted on 04/21/2022 4:28:23 AM PDT by Kaslin
I’m ready to make a lot of you mad, and I’m ok with that….
I’m not against hunting, it helps control animal populations that otherwise would grow too large and starve a lot of them. It also feeds people. I’m not even really “against” what I’m going to talk about here, I’m just saying that I simply do not get it. I’m talking about trophy hunting.
I get that in a lot of cases trophy hunting helps support the animals and keeps populations alive – an animal that provides incomes to tribes and/or governments will be protected and less likely to go extinct. I get all of that.
What I don’t get is the desire to kill an animal so you can say you did. So you can take a picture next to its dead body. So you can mount its head on your wall.
I will never understand the mentality of watching television, seeing some majestic creature in Africa and thinking, “My God, such a beautiful creature – I must kill one.” More than that, you have to drop a huge sum of money for the privilege.
What brought this up? This story from the UK Daily Mail about a man who paid $50,000 to kill a rare big tusker elephant. The weirdo, in my opinion, said after, “You know, there's more to it than shooting a bull, taking a photograph, becoming a hero and all this other nonsense.”
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
We could go back and forth on this all day but my understanding is that the 1989 worldwide ban on ivory led to a rebound in elephant populations but the 2008 sell off of poached stockpiles (effects of the legal ivory sale) actually expanded the black market for ivory and led to more elephant poaching in Africa.
Thanks, sounds like the author of this article should have done more research...
“He bagged the critter, it turned into a festival of sorts. The villagers butchered the carcass, the government took the Ivory, the villages returned to safety and my buddy kept the feet. It took 5 years before the US would allow him to import the trophies due to a blanket ban on hunting trophies Obama instituted.”
And the villagers probably praised him to the sky for taking care of the problem AND supplying all the free meat, hide and bones.
The tens of thousands of dollars he paid for the permit went a long way in helping to protect the various endangered species from poachers, the biggest threat to wildlife in Africa.
Yep. I’d quote that recent meme to Mssr. Hunter (I presume he’s French): We don’t need any whiny little wannabe bosses, either, yet here you are.
So trophy hunters prefer smaller tusks ? The loss of mature males has a profound effect on the entire herd. Elephants with large tusks are increasingly rare precisely because of heavy poaching, making them even more valuable to trophy hunters.
“o, you are misunderstanding reality.
Those old elephants with the biggest tusks have already passed their genes along.
They are going to die very shortly.
Banning legal ivory has made black market ivory much more expensive and lucrative for poachers.
Government mandated control of everything does not work well. It needs the feedback loops the market brings.
Remember: every animal and every human dies, and there is nothing you can do to prevent it.
All we can do is work to manage it, and only humans are capable of the management.
Nature does a much worse job. “
Exactly... Real world cause and effect. Many environmental concepts do the exact opposite of what they are designed to do in real world application with cause and effect. Aside from the fact that the cost of taking one legally permitted animal will fund much of the policing needed to prevent a hundred illegally poached animals from being taken. And fund improvements to an area for the better survival of the species in whole to prevent total extinction.
This reality has been successful for many many years now around the world. It started here with the Duck Stamp. One of the most successful environmental protection programs ever, and it set the model for most around the world. Hunters and hunting actually prevented many many species from going extinct. Without the funding from hunting they would have...
Just like here in the US where hunting permits are the lifeblood of state fish and game departments.
The money these African countries charge for permits goes far in the fight against professional poachers. The desire for animal parts, in China especially, is high due to their beliefs that rhino horn has special/magical properties, or elephant parts are special in their healing properties.
As long as the Chinese and others demand these things there will be professional poachers and African States will have to pay more to protect the wildlife.
“The tens of thousands of dollars he paid for the permit went a long way in helping to protect the various endangered species from poachers, the biggest threat to wildlife in Africa.”
Absolutely... The environmentalists talk the talk, but they never do come up with the true funding needed. The hunters do. And it benefits and protects not only the one species being hunted, but many other species also.
You'd need a high ceiling or have to declaw the cat.
““Who wouldn’t want a trophy giraffe?”
I know a guy who used to go on African (safari) hunts.
His thing was bow hunting Giraffe as well as other critters.”
I recall watching a documentary on some African bushman tribe. They hunted giraffes with a very small bow and arrow.
The arrow tip was dipped in Curare. The giraffe, once shot, would eventually fall over and then be butchered.
Imagine my surprise when I was just being put under for a leg operation when the anesthesiologist was — just about — to inject into my IV drip a bright yellow liquid.
I asked (through my gas mask) “What’s that?”
The anesthesiologist replied: “Curare”
I had a very large reaction!
“It’s ok, the anesthesiologist said, it’s just a relaxant agent — you’ll be fine...”
‘All animals die.’
humans are animals; so it’s not immoral killing them as well, right...?
“Just like here in the US where hunting permits are the lifeblood of state fish and game departments.
The money these African countries charge for permits goes far in the fight against professional poachers.”
Absolutely again... There is a huge difference between LEGAL and ILLEGAL hunting. Legal hunting is extremely beneficial to fund and prevent extinction from illegal hunting. These poorer countries cannot fund it without the legal hunting to pay for it.
“humans are animals; so it’s not immoral killing them as well, right...?”
But contrary to popular irrational perspective, animals are not human...
Too many people look at wildlife and think Bamby or Yogi and BooBoo. They don’t realize that ANY species, if left to it’s own, will overpopulate their feeding grounds and the species as a whole suffers.
At one time, here in Virginia, deer were like hens teeth. There just weren’t any East of the Blue Ridge mountains. Hunting deer was completely banned in our area.
The deer herds slowly recovered.
Then the herds recovered enough for limited hunting, two deer per season bucks only. Then the herds exploded.
In Buckingham county Virginia there were so many deer there wasn’t sufficient food. The size of the individual animals suffered. I went hunting there one year and bagged a four pointer. It wasn’t much bigger than a decent hound dog.
The state allowed Buckingham to run a pilot doe season of two days at the end of buck season. It was so successful in thinning the herds that all counties have a doe season. Plus deer seasons for bow and black powder.
The deer herds are thriving.
Bear season is relatively new in Virginia as well. Same story as the deer. Bear numbers are way up in Virginia. All thanks to the people who buy the hunting permits.
As for the mounted heads. I like one or two. Too many just turns me off.
“Thanks, sounds like the author of this article should have done more research...”
Yeah, probably had a bad reaction to the movie Bamby. Still, a so called author should know to do some research.
Exactly right, in certain circumstances.
Very few people have ever argued otherwise, because those who did so would not protect themselves or innocent others.
“Absolutely... The environmentalists talk the talk, but they never do come up with the true funding needed. The hunters do. And it benefits and protects not only the one species being hunted, but many other species also.”
I have found that environmentalists have a great disconnect from reality. Throw a million dollars and a few regulations into the pot and on to the next problem.
Meanwhile the everyday hunter is the one who does the most for the environment.
But the environmentalists will never admit it.
How is it the life blood ? Even the WWF admits there are relatively rare situations where locals see the benefits of trophy hunting but much more common is a situation like Botswana where tourism actually went up when hunting was banned. If farmers don’t like the elephants, if it is just that there are too many of them, and hunting is a good job opportunity, then create more innovative and humane population control methods.
This is the most ridiculous argument ever. Every study I have seen shows trophy hunting revenues make up a very small percentage of total tourism revenues in Africa. And foreign trophy hunters are like .1% of total tourists.
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