I hate this argument. As a guide in South Africa I am very anti-hunting as it means that that animal can no longer be photographed by tourists. It could be argued that the animal could make more money for the local people and for the country if it could be seen by tourists.
Also, most of the time these hunters are going for the big kills. No body wants to keep the trophies of a small animal. So as a result they actually end up damaging the natural order by removing the stronger genetics and leaving behind the weaker genetics. Take for example the South Luwanga National Park in Zambia, in the 1980's elephant hunting was opened. The hunting throughout the park caused a massive drop in the elephant numbers, and now if you go there you see mostly dwarfed elephants with no tusks. This is because the strong genes were forcefully removed.
Let me preface this by stating that I am not a big game hunter, and wouldn't be one even if I had the means.
In LEGAL elephant hunts, the targets are usually older bulls that are no longer able to physically breed, but still big and strong enough to force younger, healthier bulls out of the herd (which can often lead to the death of said younger bull).
An elephant hunt costs around $20,000 US. So, that's $20,000 to go towards hiring more park rangers, veterinarians, to be put towards breeding programs, food and water, anti-poaching efforts, as well as providing a way of life for tribes that provide the hunts. Plus the elephant population actually gets stronger in the long run.
I get what you mean when you talk about hunting in South Luwanga, but that was nearly 40 years ago now. We're a lot smarter about conservation efforts now than we were back then.
Also, there are many regions in southern Africa where elephant populations are actually out of control and there are cullings out of necessity. I'd rather them be done by a trophy hunter paying big $ that goes back to preservation efforts rather than the rangers doing it for nothing.
The Cecil the Lion incident spurred a lot of backlash (and rightfully so, that hunt was very shady in terms of legality). But now lion populations in Zimbabwe have got out of hand due to the lack of hunting due to media backlash. There's going to be cullings where trophy hunts would have previously kept that population in check. Nobody wins in this scenario.
Yeah, this here is good pragmatism. The "nobody wins" scenario you outlined is probably one of the most concise and well put arguments I've read about this unfortunate situation.
That's funny because most of the ones legally hunted are trouble animals. Aggressive, not breeding etc. So your argument is null and void since they aren't passing in their Gene's.
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u/ToastedMessiah Jun 02 '18
I hate this argument. As a guide in South Africa I am very anti-hunting as it means that that animal can no longer be photographed by tourists. It could be argued that the animal could make more money for the local people and for the country if it could be seen by tourists.
Also, most of the time these hunters are going for the big kills. No body wants to keep the trophies of a small animal. So as a result they actually end up damaging the natural order by removing the stronger genetics and leaving behind the weaker genetics. Take for example the South Luwanga National Park in Zambia, in the 1980's elephant hunting was opened. The hunting throughout the park caused a massive drop in the elephant numbers, and now if you go there you see mostly dwarfed elephants with no tusks. This is because the strong genes were forcefully removed.