“Environmentalist” vs. “Conservationist.”
When you have X land and that land can healthily support Y lions and you have Y + 1 lions the pride has to be culled by 1.
Enviro:
Why kill such a magnificent animal. (Meanwhile Y + 1 goes to Y + 20 and then all the lions starve.)
Conservation:
2 Options:
1) Park rangers kill a a lion
2) Hunter pays the $50,000 License fee, hires 20 locals for a couple of weeks for wages exceeding their normal salaries for a year and injects about $150,000 into the local economy.
It is pretty hypocritical for any American to critique wild life management in Africa. Our track record is horrible. We virtually wiped out every grey wolf in the lower 48 and tried to kill every mountain lion and bear but were less successful. It’s not for trying though. If the wolf population was at pre Colombian levels to you think feral pigs would be running loose everywhere?
Personally, I'd rather the hunter paying the bribe take the risk that the bribe taker will also want the reward for identifying a poacher and end up shot by the anti-poaching patrols.
Of course, the prevailing theory is that if people have plenty of money they should also have exceptions without any risks because, well, they have plenty of money. As far as the 50k going to protecting lions, it's Africa and the but that 50k won't almost all vanish into the pockets of politicians and connected folks, yeah, gotcha.
It's a nice theory, but unfortunately, reality doesn't dance to that theoretical tune in Africa.
There was a study I believe by the Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation which found around 3 percent of hunting revenues went back into conservation. If countries can prove that their populations are being maintained sustainably there are exemptions already available that allow for trophy hunting under the Endangered Species Act.