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Anyone else watch the documentary about the various attitudes towards trophy hunting, conservation, livelihoods of the local people, and poaching in South Africa on BBC4 last night? Whichever way you look at it it is a highly emotive and complex controversy, but I was very disturbed by some aspects of it, particularly the footage of the dying wounded young bull elephant moaning/screaming in agony. I couldn’t understand why the “hunters” didn’t immediately follow up with a head shot to put him out of his agony.
Then suddenly I think I got it…….a bullet in the brain would have destroyed the trophy head for the paying guest to take back to the USA and hang in the hallway of his ranch. So he had to wait in agony for the hunter to walk round him and shoot him in the heart.
Sickening.
Surprisingly a head shot isn’t always best to guarantee an instant kill on many animals. Skull thickness, small brains etc.. especially in species which use their head to battle it out for boss of the herd. But regardless of this the shooting of any elephant is deplorable.
Plenty evidence building through studies of trophy hunting to ‘fund’ conservation that it is having a negative effect, as generally the best trophies are also pack, or herd leaders and they are taking out those with the strongest genetics and leaving the weaker or smaller animals to breed. The ways in which man meddles just never ends.
I’m in agreement. Hunting (not for food) is pretty sickening but you could argue that we have become so removed from the natural process of killing our prey that we’ve become squeamish. Conversely I dread to imagine the horrors that must play out in slaughter houses in industrialised nations. Butchered meat in its vacuum sealed packaging looks so appealing though and we ARE naturally omnivores with teeth especially evolved to chew on meat.
@garygary I totally agree. After a long time with thought but no action I recently changed my way of life to stop eating meat unless I’ve caught/killed it myself.
If I can choose the correct deer, and kill it quickly while it’s grazing totally free, I’ll take that any time over a supermarket steak. The process of shooting, butchering and freezing really drives home what you’re eating.
The great irony is that I am a target for the general public as a person in the countryside with a gun. They dont stop to think I do it because I hate the suffering factory farming inflicts both to the eaten animal as well as wild species (foxes, badgers etc) … Personally i think if you can’t kill it yourself then you shouldnt be eating it.
Plenty evidence building through studies of trophy hunting to ‘fund’ conservation that it is having a negative effect, as generally the best trophies are also pack, or herd leaders and they are taking out those with the strongest genetics and leaving the weaker or smaller animals to breed. The ways in which man meddles just never ends.
@old guy I despise trophy hunting, but it was my understanding ‘hunters’ typically killed animals that would otherwise be killed by the rangers themselves. If there are two elephant bulls vying for the same cows. Or there is an old bull who is no longer effectively mating and holding up the birth rate of the herd. Etc etc.
Have you got any links to any said studies I can read?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09gzjmv
Was part of r4 inside science, so I’d give it some credibility myself.
it was my understanding ‘hunters’ typically killed animals that would otherwise be killed by the rangers themselves. If there are two elephant bulls vying for the same cows. Or there is an old bull who is no longer effectively mating and holding up the birth rate of the herd. Etc etc.
@cammy That’s what I had been led to believe, yet in that footage it was a healthy young bull elephant he shot, so the Ranger with him screwed up in choosing the “wrong” sort of elephant (he admitted that afterwards), and by not immediately killing the injured elephant when his client failed to kill it with his first shot.
When the American “clients” were laughing a playing around with trying to shoot crocs in the pond at Mabula, I found their behaviour infantile and sickening. I’ve been to Mabula on game watching safaris, where the only shooting I did was with camera. It’s a beautiful private game reserve, and I had no idea that they were now geared up for trophy hunters. If that’s how trophy hunters behave, I shall not go there again.
You are right that old animals have to be culled, particularly elephants, because although they grow several sets of teeth in their lifetime, eventually all of them will grind down their teeth due to their getting soil and grit into the grass they eat. It’s a natural process but in the wild old elephants die a long lingering death through starvation, so culling old elephants is the kindest option. The same goes for old big cats who can no longer hunt, and eventually starve. As you say, this culling is normally done by highly trained Rangers, but the trend now is to sell the right to kill them to trophy hunters who will pay huge sums to do this. The argument is, if they are going to be culled anyway why not sell the right to trophy hunters which generates big income? The money so generated is meant to be ploughed back into conservation and to pay for anti poaching patrols where the poachers can earn big money themselves from illegal trade in ivory and rhino horns.
As the film showed the carnage done by poachers is much worse than that done by trophy hunters.
It’s easy to get moralistic, but as the documentary showed, the answers aren’t as simple and straightforward as it appears at first sight.
watching it on catch up now…I am 30 mins in to the documentary. And I have to say I am utterly appalled. I’ve not seen the elephant death yet and not sure I want to. But the crocodile. When the American shoots it from two meters in the head “oh yeah motherf*cker” then immediately talks of taxidermy. Just disgraceful.
How these guys can have so little empathy is beyond me.
I didn’t watch it because I don’t think I would have been able to. Feel sick when I hear about it, and hate photos about these trophy hunters, or any animal cruelty coming up on my Facebook feed.
Slightly off topic, I do wonder about fish. Many see to die a horrible death, just being dragged out of the water and left to suffocate, and no-one ever seems to bother about fish. It’s a serious comment, I just wonder sometimes why no one ever complains about the way fish are caught/killed, or am I missing something.
You wouldn’t know the difference between rabbit and chicken in many meals.
@jimmy Being exceptionally picky and limited in what I eat I can tell exactly what I am eating. The only way to not taste mystery meat is to spice it and I don’t eat spices.
Unfortunately my mum pandered to my every whim food wise and now as a fully grown adult I find it impossible to break my eating habits and struggle to find different food to eat. I won’t touch cheese, tomato, onion, garlic or any kind of spice or pepper so I am pretty sure it would be impossible to swap out rabbit for chicken without me knowing, the taste, texture and colour are totally different.
Slightly off topic, I do wonder about fish. Many see to die a horrible death, just being dragged out of the water and left to suffocate, and no-one ever seems to bother about fish. It’s a serious comment, I just wonder sometimes why no one ever complains about the way fish are caught/killed, or am I missing something.
@isac It’s something I’ve often wondered about. Like most living creatures fish have nerves, and when you see them gasping to breathe and convulsing, they certainly seem to be in distress.
Maybe because fish are such a valuable source of food it just suits us to “turn a blind eye”. I wonder if any research has ever been done on the distress we cause them? Could they be humanely killed? Electric shock or similar?
I’m talking about commercial fishing here. When I was a youngster we used to go sea angling, but we only caught enough to eat, other or undersize fish were thrown back in. Those we kept were quickly dispatched with a type of hammer known as a priest.
It’s something I’ve often wondered about. Like most living creatures fish have nerves, and when you see them gasping to breathe and convulsing, they certainly seem to be in distress.
@archer As far as I’m aware (aside from the urban myth that ‘fish don’t feel pain’) there is no scientific reason for us to treat fish so abysmally. I am no good as a fisherman and so seem not to be able to do it better myself… and therefore I don’t eat them.
Just finished watching the show. I personally marginally feel less pissed off with the Texan so called christian than the gun happy maniac with the crocs. At least the Texan truly feels some kind of emotion (presumably close to ‘gods creation’) when he kills them. Perhaps for him it’s what he was ‘meant to do’. But that’s small consolation from my POV. Either way, pretty f*cking abhorrent.
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