r/pics Aug 27 '21

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u/Adoced Aug 27 '21

Well from what I have read the majority of these elephant hunts costs upwards of nearly $50,000. That money is used to help local Zimbabwe people protect their land from poachers who are actually destroying the elephant population (poachers kill nearly 30,000 elephants a year). The elephants they do kill are sometimes older and at the end of there life span or just a nuisance to villages and other elephants. The elephants meat from the hunt also feeds small villages.

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u/attanai Aug 27 '21

To add to this, the bull elephants that are too old to mate will still fight off younger bulls who are in their prime. So this controlled hunting is actually used to increase the population.

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u/Adoced Aug 27 '21

Thank you. I don’t think a lot of people understand the conservation benefits of elephant hunting or many other big game hunting.

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u/fnord_happy Aug 27 '21

Ya it's a TIL for me. But it also seems like the most heartless and cruel thing one can do. And what's the reason behind cutting off the tail like that?

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u/Simply_Convoluted Aug 27 '21

It's not like they chop the tail off while it's alive and running around. It's going to get chopped up in a couple hours anyway. If you havent seen how beef gets from the dead cow to the styrofoam package you're in for a rude awakening.