Posted on 06/08/2007 4:17:56 AM PDT by rickdylan
Girl kills elephant with 83-lb bow
One of the more unusual stories I've seen on the archery forums recently...
“Nice little bit of hyperbole there. Hunting is not poaching. Hunting raises fees that are used to STOP poaching and to better manage the herd.”
Hunting is technically legalized poaching. The only difference is that hunters do not do it for money, but for ego and souvenirs.
You could even say that at least poachers do it to make a living. Hunters just do it for ego-boost. Killing a free roaming wild animal in its own natural habitat for no reason other than to gain an unhealthy dose of ego-boost is nothing to be proud of.
Hunting is harvesting a God-given renewable resource.
Hunting is stewardship and a neccessary part of proper management.
She probably had (read: BETTER HAVE HAD!) a license to cull an animal from a herd that’s gotten too large for its range. The meat will be used by the locals and the tusks, IIRC, will be destroyed.
You do know, don’t you, that meat does not naturally come in little, Styrofoam trays? Someone had to kill that critter you et fer dinner last night. Some of us, however, are willing to do their own killing rather than pay someone else to do the dirty work.
You’re saying that these yuppies with all the moral judgments wrt hunting have been putting out contracts on innocent chickens and pigs and what not??
Yup... They all turn into Tony Soprano right around supper time!
” Hunting is harvesting a God-given renewable resource.”
Look who is talking non-sense crap. Hunting for ego-boost is not “harvest.” Is that psycho hunter who just killed the elephant going to eat its meat? Where is the harvest? Ego-harvest you mean?
“Hunting is stewardship and a neccessary part of proper management.”
Nature takes care of itself. There is no need for a gun/bow welding recreation hunter(who is not elephant’s natural predator) to go and shoot/kill a free roaming wild elephant in its own habitat.
If they want to have that ego-boost, go raise elephants in their own ranch and kill them there.
“You do know, don’t you, that meat does not naturally come in little, Styrofoam trays? Someone had to kill that critter you et fer dinner last night. Some of us, however, are willing to do their own killing rather than pay someone else to do the dirty work.”
Wow, you should get the Nobel Prize for that critical thinking. Seriously, did that hunter kill the elephant for its meat? And who is talking about industrial meat industry. They raise their own animals and process them for food. They don’t go around hunting endangered animals for food. When is the Nobel commencement ceremony?
The locals get the meat from legally culled elephants. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to have my tux fitted. (Is a Real-Tree cummerbund over-the-top?)
This issue of hunting endangered wild animals like elephants, rhinos, tigers etc is not about private enterprise either. I’m an unapologetic pro-business, free-market guy and am hoping to make a living out of it.
Simply put, you cannot use property/resources that is not owned by you. For example, you can’t go to a zoo and steal panda cubs simply because you feel like it or you were commanded by God. The animals not owned by you are not your property and you can’t do anything about it, period.
Solution? Raise your own elephants and rhinos, inside your own compound, for their tusks and horns. Offer recreational hunting to hunters, in your own compound, and make money. No problem. But, don’t tell me it is free-enterprise to go around and kill wild animals in their natural habitat.
I guarantee that the meat was harvested by those who truely needed and appreciated it. The local vilage will eat very well for some time.
Elephants, like deer, if left to populate unmanaged will soon overpopulate the lands ability to support them and they will either die a slow painful death of starvation or disease.
That is your idea of management?
Slow wasteful deaths are superior to proper management? Just so you can feel smug and righteous and superior?
If poachers are not stopped by conservationist paid for by hunting, the populations can and are decimated by poaching.
Hunting prevents all of these.
The best way to protect an endangered species is to hunt and kill them which raises the neccessary funds to manage and protect them.
You watched way too much Bambi as a child and think that all hunters are sucking out the eyeballs of their victims in a sexual frenzy of bloodlust, when nothing could be farther from the truth.
This story is the picture of conservation and all you can do is snivel about them enjoying the thrill of a successful hunt.
Get a clue and an education and go kill and eat something before you proclaim your expertise over the internet from your crampped and darkened efficiency.
The habitat doesn’t belong to the elephants; it belongs to private individuals and governments in Africa. Those who manage their share of the habitat well allow hunting. Where hunting ISN’T allowed, the elephants are basically worthless, the habitat gets put to other uses, and the elephants die out.
It's a fine line.
(sometimes)
“Elephants, while they may be endangered as a whole, overpopulate some areas. The alternative to culling a few individuals in these areas, which is what this young lady did, is to allow the entire herd to starve. Grazers require predators to keep their numbers in check. Without predators, they overgraze and starve. Adult elephants have only one natural predator: H. Sapiens. Removing that one species from the environment would doom the elephants.”
Wow, that was quite a trip. Bow-welding, recreational hunters/tourists are NOT elephants’ “natural predators.” Elephants have no natural predators that hunt them down on a large scale. Besides, elephants have been living well before Homo sapiens. They reproduce really slowly, so no need to “thin” then down either.
“The habitat doesn’t belong to the elephants; it belongs to private individuals and governments in Africa.”
The state of private individuals and governments in Africa is miserable. Private individuals have a different concept of ownership, and the government has no real control over the land. Corruption/poverty/ignorance in the native population leads to recreational hunters and professional poachers to move in to exploit the resources that they do not own.
If the governments were not corrupt, these “hunting trips” wouldn’t exist in the first place and the hunters would get shot on sight.
“Those who manage their share of the habitat well allow hunting. Where hunting ISN’T allowed, the elephants are basically worthless, the habitat gets put to other uses, and the elephants die out.”
Normal safaris and tourism should do the same thing. Killing endangered wild animals for recreation and ego boost is sick.
I like to kill pink, squirming, baby mice with a hammer.
“I like to kill pink, squirming, baby mice with a hammer.”
Sounds fun. Your hunting trophy room must be full of mashed pink baby mice carcass.
If they reproduce so slowly, and thus there’s no need to “thin them down”, then why are conservation authorities culling their elephant herds?
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