Anger over £116,000 trophy hunting holidays for tourists to shoot leopards
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/trophy-hunt-leopards-animal-welfare-b2757840.html
Posted by Kunphen
Anger over £116,000 trophy hunting holidays for tourists to shoot leopards
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/trophy-hunt-leopards-animal-welfare-b2757840.html
Posted by Kunphen
10 Comments
As much as this stuff sucks and I hate the people who do this, this is one of the few ways nature reserves can make money
If some disgusting twat wants to waste his money doing this then its ok as long as it pays for wildlife preservation
Right? It’s x amount to hunt a leopard, which needs culling? So you have helped the local economy and paid for game keeps for protection from poachers. Win ~ win!
I wish we could get more of that anger over British wildlife decline People will fume over the plight of large charismatic mammals, some of which aren’t even endangered, and then go home and have no idea that there’s a whole bunch of species in their own country that are crying out for help. But said species aren’t large fluffy mammals so nobody gives a shit about them.
If only we could get some of this outrage over the billions of animals killed in horrible conditions due to factory farming.
If the trophy hunting is happening in Southern Africa, then I believe that is very much okay.
Namibia, Botswana and South Africa have a strong track record of using the money collected from trophy hunting in both wildlife conservation and community development. Indeed, Botswana is now suffering from an overpopulation of Elephants.
When it comes to lions and leopards, they often target elderly cats who would have died from predation by Hyena packs anyway or Lions from some of those breeding farms that ended up not growing up right(which is a whole other issue).
I hate it when people feign outrage over trophy hunting when in reality, the places where trophy hunting bans are in place like Eastern Africa, illegal poachers run rampant and because tourism does not bring in enough revenue, human-wildlife conflicts are the norm and a lot of wildlife corridors are vanishing at a rapid pace.
The same people who will cry that Leopards and Lions are being killed by trophy hunters are often doing so based on envy, not because they desire conservation. Envy that they do not have such money to spend.
Because they are always silent when entire ecosystems are turned into farmland by locals because they do not see the value of conserving those animals over the need to eat as what is happening in Uganda today.
I can see why they are angry, it does seem to be pretty expensive
I knew a guy who worked on reserves in Zimbabwe, and if an animal needed culling they would have some rich westerner pay to make the shot. Sometimes animals do need culling, they get old or sick and start encroaching on villages or their local numbers become a problem.
One time they had a big cat like a leopard to cull and the American paying to make the kill only wounded it, and it ran off. So a wounded animal is a big risk to people so they had to hunt it all day. They track it to a dead termite nest and find the bottom is freshly disturbed. One of the local wardens goes to look in the hole and the cat jumps out, but the man rolls back and throws it off himself using his rifle. The cat lands on the American and rips all the skin from his arms.
The poachers were the most dangerous part of the job. They would come in armed like soldiers, with AK-47 and the like and kill the park reserve staff. They had to have a policy where if park staff saw someone they didn’t know, they would shout for them to drop their weapon and hands in the air – and fire immediately if they didn’t. Park reserve staff were armed with a mix of old WW2 Webley service revolvers, Bren guns as well as AK-47.
He had a lot of interesting stories. When they had to cull a rogue elephant the whole village came out. They skinned one side, rolled it over and skinned the other. Then they cut up the meat and everyone had some. Nothing went to waste.
It’s refreshing to see the comments here. People are now much more aware of the reality on the ground. Five years ago there would have just been outrage and nothing else.
I worked in conservation for many years and sadly hunting is a necessary evil as it generates such important profits for reserves/NPs. I’m well regulated countries (which most of Southern Africa is), only animals with no further value to the preservation of the species (not a nice term, I know) will be hunted.
For those indignant in their outrage, I can suggest a few good local charities (don’t give to these useless western charities with insane overheads) you can donate to, as that’s the only realistic way to stop hunting. In most places tourism is at or close to being at max capacity without damaging the local ecosystem, so there’s not a huge amount of scope for extra revenue there (and tourism is much lower margin than donations and hunting, albeit of more benefit to the local workforce).
Like it or loathe it this is how a huge chunk of conservation in Africa is funded. As for the mindset of the person paying I will never understand. But if it ain’t broke don’t fix it
Simple question needs to be asked, what does this has to do with the UK? Why does our government have any right to say a thing about how another country is being ran?
If the country the hunts are being carried within allows it, then so be it.
Just screams colonialism thinking we have the right to dictate to another country, whose even cheer leading this ban? I’ll assume it’s a white liberal that preaches about their privileges.