Conservation & Hunting

[Kenneth McMillan]

We all know that hunting is a great tool for conservation. This article is from the telegraph haven't read it all. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/comment/the-ethics-of-trophy-hunting/. You will have to register to read it.

 

[Aegis]

I answered the poll "undecided," because there was no option to say that the article was pretty well balanced. Although the author freely admitted that they were vegetarian and personally did not like the idea of killing animals, she also did a decent job presenting both sides of the debate, down to admitting that despite her own personal feelings, she would tolerate managed hunting as a means to save a species.

That said, the big point I think she missed came early in the article, with this passage:

"Why is the hunting of some animals (birds, deer) vilified so much less than others (lions, giraffes)? Why do meat-eaters turn a blind eye to the horrors of factory farming, but spew fury over the death of an animal that’s spent its life in the wild. Is it merely because lions are better-looking than pigs? Or, more obviously, because lions (and now giraffes) are endangered, and pigs are in abundance. The real question, though, is whether the (largely unpopular) notion from some that trophy hunting - not canned hunting, an entirely different matter - is actually good, not bad, for the fate of endangered safari animals."

She fails to recognize the reason why "pigs are in abundance" versus the relative scarcity of other animals such as lions and giraffes. People who are okay with killing domesticated livestock for food simply because they are abundant are failing to see the connection between the killing and the abundance. It is an obvious truth that pigs (and cows and chickens) are nowhere near endangered, and the reason is that they are in demand by human beings as food. They have value, and they are farmed and raised in great numbers so that we will never run out. Hunting gives wild animals (African or otherwise) value...a reason for human beings to make sure that they never run out.

I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but that's my $0.02...