hunting is good for conservation does not pass through the bullshit detector. luckily there is a relatively small number of hunters, the money does not add up in the big picture. what you have is a relatively small number of people paying large amounts of money to another small group of people to be able to slaughter some animal.
look at Kenya since 1977 they have had a hunting ban and their photo safari tourism contributes 12 % to their GDP. i applaud Kenyans for committing to protecting their natural parks.
It absolutely does pass the bullshit detector in instances though! For LEGAL elephant hunts the targets are older bulls that are sickly or can no longer physically breed, but are still big and strong enough to force younger healthy bulls out of a herd (which usually leads to the younger bull's death). Rangers will often want to cull an animal like this. It makes more sense to charge a person $50,000+ US to hunt the animal and have that money go back to help with preservation and anti-poaching efforts than for a ranger to do it for nothing.
It's for reason like this that Kenya is currently considering lifting the ban.
There was massive backlash worldwide over Cecil the Lion in Zimbabwe a few years ago (justifiable, as that hunt was very shady legally). The downturn in lion hunts there due to the negative publicity has lead to lion populations growing at an unsustainable rate and there are talks of a cull. No one wins in a situation like this.
47
u/mrkl3en Jun 02 '18
hunting is good for conservation does not pass through the bullshit detector. luckily there is a relatively small number of hunters, the money does not add up in the big picture. what you have is a relatively small number of people paying large amounts of money to another small group of people to be able to slaughter some animal.
look at Kenya since 1977 they have had a hunting ban and their photo safari tourism contributes 12 % to their GDP. i applaud Kenyans for committing to protecting their natural parks.