We recently followed the controversy over the shooting of “Cecil the Lion” by an American dentist Walter Palmer from Minnesota. What was most striking was the complete disconnect in how such kills are seen by hunters versus the public at large, as shown by the subsequent controversy of a Idaho hunter taunting animal advocates. A new such controversy has emerged after a German hunter celebrated the killing of one of the largest elephant ever seen In Zimbabwe at the Gonarezhou National Park. The magnificent animal was estimated to be 40 and 60 years old with tusks that almost touch the ground and weigh 120lb. Again, the difference in how this killing is viewed is fascinating. Hunters celebrated the kill while many in the public were appalled that this hunter would pay tens of thousands of dollars to travel to Africa and shot such a beautiful and inspiring animal.
The elephant was shot on October 8th in a hunter who paid $60,000 (£39,000) for a permit to conduct a 21-day game hunt including the Big Five of elephants, leopards, lions, buffalo and rhinoceros. He then proudly posed next to the dead elephant. Many are appalled by the fact that this is considered a triumph to possess an animal by killing it. Some believe that this is the largest elephant killed in decades.
Anthony Kaschula, who operates a photographic safari firm in Gonarezhou, posted pictures of the hunt on Facebook, and objected that “individual elephants such as these should be accorded their true value as a National Heritage and should be off limits to hunting.”
Louis Muller, chairman of the Zimbabwe Professional Hunters & Guides Association, said the hunter had only realised how large the “tusker” was once he had been shot.
These legal hunts are adding to the decline in elephant populations that have been decimated by poaching and, as discussed recently, cyanide poisoning.
I think part of what drives the desire for trophy hunters is this instinctive need to prove yourself, to pit yourself against a top predator and win. They say that’s the addictive nature of it. But we’re not in the days of a puny man fighting a cave lion with a stone tipped spear, or fighting off a grizzly bear with a knife and your wits. Warriors would proudly display claws, teeth, and furs as proof of their prowess, and there must be a genetic drive for this still. A predator’s pelt was so valuable, because you risked your life to get it, and it made your village safer.
But it’s different now. We now have the advantage with firearms, drones, guides, binoculars, scopes, etc, we don’t need the furs for warmth, it wastes the life because we can’t eat the meat, and unless the animal was a danger to humans, there is just no need. Plus most of the hunters don’t do their own tracking. This is different from our ancient past, when the men of a tribe would work together and take down a huge predator threatening their families, and bask in the accolades.
For me, killing an animal has to serve a purpose – self defense or the defense of others, or food. There are many people who do believe that as long as an animal is not endangered, and it is legal to hunt, there is no reason not to, and it injects money into conservation programs. In fact, I have an article on hunting and ecology. But as I’ve said, this removes the best specimens, without the benefit of food or protection, and the money, while it does good, also is a driver for the abuse of the system.
Kimberly:
“I don’t recall anyone including all hunters in the disparagement of trophy hunters.”
Here you go:
“Hunters celebrated the kill”
“Asking killers why they enjoy killing, typically elicits the answer of , “I don’t enjoy killing. It’s the whole experience, the skills required, the hunt, enjoying the outdoors, you just don’t understand.” Follow up with, “Most people enjoy the outdoors, hiking, looking for wildlife, photographing wildlife, but only a few people have the mental framework needed to enjoy killing.” I have found that that exchange at least plants a seed in the minds of killers, that what they are doing is unacceptable. One doesn’t make friends with comments like that, but friendship with killers isn’t desirable in any case.”
“No car, no house, yacht or bling, gets the juices flowing like blood sport.”
Bam Bam – unless I am mistaken, it sounds like we agree, that you oppose trophy hunting but not subsistence hunting. So, no argument from me.
Alicia – very true about elephants. They are long lived, intelligent, very social animals with strong family ties. I had the privilege to interact with 2 very sweet elephants owned by an animal trainer we know. He let his elephants out to roam free in the box canyon behind his property. They played with him like huge dogs. flopping over for tummy rubs and playing with him with their trunks. And they were very polite when I fed them carrots, not moving a toe beyond where he told them to stand, saving my feet from sure destruction. They stayed right with him and had a much better life than any zoo animal stuck in a barren corral with one or two boring toys, although not as good as a free and wild life. But since he bought them from an elderly lady very concerned about where they would end up, then they could not have had a better fate.
Paul:
“Karen – those mice should be easy to catch.” Oh yes. I gleefully await the next time I find a gopher snake that needs to be moved. I know just where to carry it. Unfortunately, the weather is turning, so I may not find one in time. I don’t use poison – that’s like land mines among non targets like our pets and wildlife. But I’m putting traps out, too. They’re like round grey cotton balls with little paws, kind of like that Blueberry girl in Willy Wonka. I just did my own unintentional mouse study proving the efficacy of this as a weight gainer. Meanwhile, my beloved retired TB is losing weight while I wait for replacements. Stupid mice.
I find myself becoming like Bill Murray in Caddyshack, completely sympathetic with his insane mutterings and over the top warfare on that gopher.
bam bam:
“You differentiate between mere hunters and hunters that are deemed to be trophy hunters, claiming that the mere hunters serve to remove the sick, old, meek and foolish, thereby strengthening the herd.”
Not at all. Trophy hunters remove the best specimens as trophies. But those who hunt for meat are also going to choose healthy animals. Hunters don’t shoot sick deer, at least not on purpose. And if faced between a small rack and a huge one, they’ll go big every time, even if they are filling the freezer.
If I failed to express this cogently, only predators strengthen the herds, because by definition they pull down the easiest animals to catch – the old, the young, the sick, the injured, and the foolish. I have often said that wolves should not be seen as competition for hunters in elk and other deer herds. They work to strengthen the herds while hunters must remove only healthy animals. Who wants to eat a sick deer riddled with parasites or one with a gangrenous wound? Wolves do.
But hunters hunt for meat. Only vegans and vegetarians can object to hunting without hypocrisy. An accurate shot provides meat that was organically grown (as long as the habitat and natural water sources are uncontaminated), the animal lived wild and free, and never knew what hit it, as opposed to the horrors of the slaughterhouse. The meat is healthier, leaner, and more humanely raised and harvested than the meat you buy in the grocery stores. No farrowing cages, veal stalls, filthy feed lots, antibiotics, GMO feed, Omega 6 heavy inflammatory grain fed meat, and no stress hormones in the meat or poultry from crowded living conditions or the long line to the pneumatic gun. No converting vast acreage to GMO corn (damn Monsanto) grown with massive amounts of pesticides and herbicides to feed the cattle in feed lots. No jaded workers mistreating the animals when they think no one’s looking. And just like the home gardener and bee keeper takes pride in putting their own food on the table, a hunter takes pride in putting meat, poultry, and fish (because I’ve never yet met a hunter who didn’t also like to fish) in the freezer. Lots of people raise their own meat – raising a steer, a hog, chickens, or rabbits, to do exactly that – provide their own food that they know was raised sustainably and humanely. Or they buy hog shares or sides of beef from local producers.
This homesteader mentality – of independence and providing your own food, is becoming more popular. See his article on the wildly popular artisanal blacksmith in San Francisco who also throws intimate gourmet dinner parties with hogs he’s hunted or mushrooms he foraged. (http://www.readperiodicals.com/201410/3444713531.html)
“Man, in the form of a predator, hunting down elephants and lions, is doing Mother Nature no favors. These animals are being decimated and they are in desperate need of our protection from those who do not comprehend their importance and value in the world. Confusing this fact with making remarks about having food on one’s plate or the need for self-preservation is off track.” Yes, I agree with part of what you say. I personally prefer that we do not trophy hunt lions and elephants at all. If the population gets out of control, or if there is a man eater, then it should be put down. But I don’t think trophy hunters should take care of it, because once money is involved, there is the incentive for poaching, or exaggerating the need to cull an animal. Around here, if a mountain lion shows aggression for humans, it’s shot. But it’s hunt is not sold to a trophy hunter. Either the authorities or an armed person just takes care of it. There is the contradictory argument that the massive fees from trophy hunting inject a large stream of revenue into conservation, as well as the local economy (and sometimes the pockets of poachers.) That would be a serious revenue loss that needs to be addressed, because as the commercials say, there are kids starving in Africa. It’s hard for them to turn down the cash. And it’s hard for preserves and parks to turn down the cash. We can’t just dry up revenue, feel great about it, and then not bother to find out how that will impact the people who live there. Find a replacement for the revenue – increase ecotourism, photo safaris, and find other ways to make the animals more valuable alive than dead.
And I disagree that our pro-subsistence hunting are off the mark. As stated, we were addressing the general anti-hunting remarks. Non hunters often have misconceptions.
PCS, I kind of doubt that. I think it’s more like your daydream. Most hunters would not even say such a thing.
Frank – oh, ye of little faith.
Paul C.Shulte, are you telling us you are a big game hunter? It this your “hobby”?
FrankGa – big game hunting is my passion, my obsession. It is well beyond the hobby stage.
Paul C
I have no interest in choosing your hobbies or anything else, for that matter. My point was simple: if people have extra nervous energy, which needs to be dispelled in some manner, they shouldn’t be using it to kill helpless, innocent animals to fuel some strange and psychotic urge to terminate the life of another living creature. I’m not referencing food. I’m not alluding to the need to protect oneself from harm. Civilized human beings, with a moral compass, get that. Those without it, don’t.
You humans on Earth are blessed with creatures of beauty such as lions, tigers, bears and elephants. If your hobby is to kill them off of the face of the Earth then you show your mindset. Or mindless set.
Turnabout is fair play. The lion shooters should have to go head to head with an adult lion. But the shooter should be without knife, gun or selfie.
I fail to comprehend why otherwise allegedly normal, productive and functional human beings seek to kill animals for kicks, as a form of recreation and a sick release. Please, people, seek help. There is something quite troubling about this particular fetish. Too much time on your hands? Volunteer your time at a food pantry, visit the elderly holed up and lonely in those nursing facilities, teach an underprivileged kid math or English, pitch in and assist Habitat for Humanity, but for the sake of all that is good and decent, address your addiction to hunting and killing helpless animals.
bam bam – I won’t pick your hobbies if you don’t pick mine.
I don’t know if any of you know where the money goes that is collected for hunting licenses. In the state I live in the state uses some of that money (collected through the sale of hunting licenses) to buy a lot of land that was set aside so it could not be developed. Where I live there is no Sunday hunting. However everyone else can use the land on Sunday but the people who paid for it. When hunting is properly regulated(like here in the U.S.). Animal populations increase. There are an estimated 5000 Black Bears in my home state. 50 years ago there wasn’t even 500. This year the state has extended the Bear season an extra 2 to 3 weeks to keep the population under control. There are an estimated 100,000 White tail deer in my state. Back in the 1950’s there may not have been 10,000. I live in a small densely populated Eastern state.Private organizations like The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation take private money and purchase land that can’t be developed and use it for future Elk management. This is not for hunting only. Hikers, bird watchers and anyone else can go on these properties and enjoy it. DU(Ducks Unlimited) does the same thing. This organization generally buys marshlands. However if you want to go fishing or canoeing kayaking you have access to these properties. Poaching doesn’t work. It screws up everything. Does anyone know who Cecil the lion was named after? How about Cecil Rhodes! The founder of Rhodesia. There is a lot more here than meets the eye. Everything in life has an upside and a downside.
The casual cruelty to a relatively intelligent mammal, the elephant, is disgusting. We’ve probably all seen the stories of the elephant meetings of long-lost friends and relatives when circus elephants meet after retirement. We know that elephants have a more complex social structure than do deer and cattle, for example. We have read stories over the decades that demonstrate elephants’ intelligence.
A long time ago I read an article on elephant behavior (maybe in Scientific American). The point that I’ve always remembered is the parallel that was drawn between the behavior of many fatherless young men and ‘rogue’ elephants. When male elephants survived into middle age and beyond, they acted as mentors, moderators, and punishers regarding the behavior of younger males. Human communities had more problems with roaming rogue male elephants when the mature males were killed in sport hunting or natural means.
While I am not a fan of hunting deer and other plentiful game that has no real predators left, I am not on the animal rights / activist side there at all. But the killing of elephants and the like makes me nauseated. Not only do I have absolute contempt for those hunters, I think some or many would hunt humans if it were allowed. Who knows, maybe some do.
Speaking of killers: “What we’ve published is an extensive look into how this program has operated historically, but specifically under President Obama. One of the most significant findings of this—and my colleague, Cora Currier, really dug deep into this—is we published for the first time the kill chain, what the bureaucracy of assassination looks like. And what you see is that all of these officials, including people like the treasury secretary, are part of signing off on all of this, where they have these secret meetings and they discuss who’s going to live and die around the world. And at the end of that process, it is the president of the United States who signs what amounts to a death warrant for whoever they’ve decided should die, based on what amounts to a parallel, secret judicial system in the United States that is not really subjected to any kind of judicial review, where the president acts sort of as emperor—issues an edict that you die.”
Jeremy Scahill interview on Democracy Now
Reblogged this on Exposing the Big Game.
barkingdog,
I found your lost comment here…
http://jonathanturley.org/2015/10/16/please-be-careful-as-passengers-may-have-shifted-during-flight-airbus-seeks-new-design-to-stack-passengers-on-planes/#comment-1499320
The elephant committed no crime…
The elephant was just going about his business…
The elephant never knew he had a bounty on his tusks…
Imagine if someone shot that hunter…
Going about his daily life…
Not knowing the bounty placed against him…
BLAMO!
Humans then cry murder!
However, the hunter will have a better chance of getting away…
… He’s armed and dangerous. The elephant he caught, not so much.
So, what price would human tusks get?
I agree with bam bam, we often see hunters who get defensive about hunting in general and get their hackles up when these trophy hunting posts appear. I don’t recall anyone including all hunters in the disparagement of trophy hunters. I don’t understand the point Sierra Rose is trying to make. Is she defending the lion killing dentist? If so, why? I cannot understand the killing of animals who are endangered.
Karen S
You differentiate between mere hunters and hunters that are deemed to be trophy hunters, claiming that the mere hunters serve to remove the sick, old, meek and foolish, thereby strengthening the herd. Why not allow Mother Nature to take its course by allowing survival of the fittest? Man, in the form of a predator, hunting down elephants and lions, is doing Mother Nature no favors. These animals are being decimated and they are in desperate need of our protection from those who do not comprehend their importance and value in the world. Confusing this fact with making remarks about having food on one’s plate or the need for self-preservation is off track.
bam bam – you are forgetting that man is an apex predator
Bam Bam:
We are addressing the comments like “hunters rejoiced”
Hunters everywhere are basically saying,”We are not affiliated with trophy hunters!”
Once an animal is worth a lot more money dead than alive, it is doomed.
I agree with DBQ, with the addition of other rodents. Mice squeezed inside my supplement drawers, ate $100 of weight gainer for my elderly Thoroughbred, pooped and peed all over the supplements they didn’t eat, and are now literally obese. They are so round they can’t run very fast, and now I see these sumo mice struggling to fit down their exits.
Karen – those mice should be easy to catch
To say that “hunters rejoice” is a bit of a misunderstanding.
Trophy hunters rejoice. People who hunt to feed their families often despise trophy hunters. I know I do. It’s not like they kill them in hand to hand combat, or track them with their own skills. This is one step down from the infamous canned hunt, paying guides and handlers and getting pampered by 5 star dining in luxurious safari “camps” until your guides lead you to the animal they have scouted and driven to you.
From an evolutionary perspective, trophy hunters remove the best individuals from the population, weakening the gene pool. Predators remove the sick, weak, old, foolish, strengthening the herds’ gene pool.