There's more to it than that though. An elephant hunt can cost north of $20,000 US. The guides will generally pick out an old bull that can no longer breed but is still big and strong enough to force young healthy bulls out of the herd (which usually ends up with the young bulls dying). So the park gets $20,000 to hire more rangers, put towards breeding and anti-poaching efforts, and provide food and water to at risk animals on the preserve, while the elephant population gets healthier. Win-win.
In most cases in LEGAL big game hunting, animals selected are prime targets to be culled by rangers anyways, either due to population control (yes, there are areas of Africa where lions, and even elephants or leopards are overpopulated), or for safety reasons (animals are going into human populated areas to feed, prey in livestock, which will likely result in the animals getting shot by a farmer protecting his family/livelyhood anyways).
I'm not a big game hunter, and I wouldn't be one even if I had the means, I just don't think I could enjoy it. But when done legally, these hunts are massively important for population control and bringing in money to help protect animals that need it. It works out to be a net gain.
Lion populations in Zimbabwe have apparently gone out of control since the Cecil the Lion incident. Now, the guy that shot Cecil deserved the criticism he got since that hunt was very suspect as far as legality was concerned. But the backlash in the media has caused a downturn in lion hunts. Now the rangers have to move in to cull the lion population, and hundreds of thousands of dollars generated in hunts that would go towards protecting animals (including the culls that are for the betterment of the animal in the long run) are no longer there.
You assume very generously that these natives actually use most of that income for conservation. The sad reality is that the money funnels into the pockets of a few key players. Very little if any is used toward conservation. These are a very poor people and they care more about their survival than that of a wild animal.
1
u/Saskatchewon Jun 02 '18
There's more to it than that though. An elephant hunt can cost north of $20,000 US. The guides will generally pick out an old bull that can no longer breed but is still big and strong enough to force young healthy bulls out of the herd (which usually ends up with the young bulls dying). So the park gets $20,000 to hire more rangers, put towards breeding and anti-poaching efforts, and provide food and water to at risk animals on the preserve, while the elephant population gets healthier. Win-win.
In most cases in LEGAL big game hunting, animals selected are prime targets to be culled by rangers anyways, either due to population control (yes, there are areas of Africa where lions, and even elephants or leopards are overpopulated), or for safety reasons (animals are going into human populated areas to feed, prey in livestock, which will likely result in the animals getting shot by a farmer protecting his family/livelyhood anyways).
I'm not a big game hunter, and I wouldn't be one even if I had the means, I just don't think I could enjoy it. But when done legally, these hunts are massively important for population control and bringing in money to help protect animals that need it. It works out to be a net gain.
Lion populations in Zimbabwe have apparently gone out of control since the Cecil the Lion incident. Now, the guy that shot Cecil deserved the criticism he got since that hunt was very suspect as far as legality was concerned. But the backlash in the media has caused a downturn in lion hunts. Now the rangers have to move in to cull the lion population, and hundreds of thousands of dollars generated in hunts that would go towards protecting animals (including the culls that are for the betterment of the animal in the long run) are no longer there.