Explosive report reveals a ‘battle’ at global wildlife watchdog over its trophy hunting position
An explosive report by an ethics committee for a global wildlife watchdog reveals a “battle” over its position on trophy hunting.
The 2017 report, which has received renewed interest recently, was written by the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) World Commission on Environmental Law (WCEL) Ethics Specialist Group (ESG). In a recent clarification on WCEL ESG’s findings, the IUCN refers to it as an “opinion”. It explores “the ethical acceptability of trophy hunting according to current IUCN statutes”. Namely, it looked at whether admitting pro- and anti-trophy hunting groups as members of the IUCN aligns with its ethical position.
The IUCN WCEL ESG concluded it does not.
The IUCN
IUCN is one of the world’s most influential organisations in the field of conservation policy and practice. As its website explains, it is “a membership Union uniquely composed of both government and civil society organisations”. The global community entrusts it with helping to set standards that safeguard the natural world. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) also does the same.
The IUCN says it “does not have a position on trophy hunting”. But the organisation’s Species Survival Commission (SSC) has created “guiding principles” on the use of trophy hunting as “a tool” for conservation. The SSC Sustainable Use and Livelihoods Specialist Group (SULi) has also created a briefing paper on the issue which uses a number of case studies to present the argument that:
while there is considerable poor practice in trophy hunting and a strong need for reform, well managed trophy hunting can – and does – positively contribute to conservation and local livelihoods in the face of intense competing pressures on wildlife habitat and widespread poaching
In a policy statement on the ‘sustainable use of wild living resources’, the IUCN further states:
Read on...
Support us and go ad-freeBoth consumptive [such as trophy hunting] and non-consumptive use of biological diversity are fundamental to the economies, cultures, and well-being of all nations and peoples.
As such, the IUCN currently accepts both pro- and anti-trophy hunting organisations as members. And these members help formulate IUCN policy. IUCN SSC SULi chair Dilys Roe told The Canary in April that:
IUCN policy is based on decisions made at its World Conservation Congresses by IUCN Members
The SSC and the WCEL are made up of experts in their respective fields offering their knowledge and services to the IUCN on a voluntary basis.
The report
The WCEL ESG looked at whether having these groups as members is compatible with the organisation’s objectives and ethics. The IUCN Secretariat asked it to do so in 2017, in response to the application of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW). The WCL ESG report highlights that the IUCN’s overarching objectives are:
to influence, encourage and assist societies throughout the world to conserve the integrity and diversity of nature and to ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically sustainable.
Furthermore, it discusses the variety of resolutions passed by the IUCN that relate to its ethical guidance. These include Resolution 3.022, which recognises the Earth Charter as “an ethical guide for IUCN policy”, and Resolution 004, which established the Ethics Mechanism.
Both the Earth Charter and the IUCN’s Biosphere Ethics Initiative (highlighted in the Ethics Mechanism) place a high importance on the integrity and diversity of life and champion a relationship between the Earth / biosphere and humans that involves love, compassion, respect, and solidarity. They also call for a precautionary approach to environmental protection when faced with scientific uncertainty.
The WCEL ESG report touches on the non-consensus and dispute over trophy hunting’s impact on conservation and its validity as a ‘sustainable use’ of wildlife. For example, it links to an article that it says provides “evidence that trophy hunting causes populations of African lions to decline”. It links to another that it says shows “as little as 3% of the income for trophy hunting actually reaches local communities” in Zimbabwe. But it primarily concerns itself with the ethical dimension of the IUCN’s implicit position on trophy hunting, shown through its membership practice and published materials on the subject.
The report also notes that, according to the IUCN’s own criteria, the “objectives and track record” of potential members have to “embody” to a “substantial extent” the same overarching objectives as the IUCN.
“Prima facie inconsistent with IUCN’s objectives”
On the IUCN materials and the objectives of pro-trophy hunting organisations, WCEL ESG asserts:
the ‘Guiding Principles’ and ‘Briefing Paper’ are insufficient to serve as a guide for a decision on the eligibility of organizations supporting trophy hunting. Instead, the objectives of such organizations are prima facie inconsistent with IUCN’s objectives.
It concludes:
Trophy hunting is not consistent with “sustainable use”. And even if it were, “sustainable use” is not the sole criterion for the decision on eligibility of organizations seeking IUCN membership.
The critical question is whether trophy hunting as it is practiced by individuals and promoted by certain hunting organizations may be consistent with IUCN’s general objectives… This is clearly not the case. Any other view would threaten IUCN’s credibility for providing moral and ethical leadership in conservation policies. It would certainly undermine the many efforts of IUCN members to promote a just and sustainable world.
The WCEL ESG chair Klaus Bosselmann also told The Canary that the “battle” on this issue is essentially between WCEL and SSC. He added:
The IUCN Council has continued to approve applications from both, pro- and anti-hunting organisations which by implication means that IUCN continues to support trophy hunting.
Response
SSC SULi responded to the report. It accused the report of containing “a number of inaccuracies, misunderstandings, use of “straw men”, selective use of references, and generalisations”. It also reiterated its briefing paper position, that “well-managed hunting programmes” can benefit wildlife and communities. Furthermore, it said [p20]:
Despite IUCN’s fundamental rationale as a nature conservation organisation, the basic thesis of this document is that IUCN should reject the use of trophy hunting to achieve conservation on the basis of an unclear and subjective ethical analysis, which considers an undefined quality of this hunting intrinsically wrong regardless of its outcomes for conservation, and which does not consider the experiences, cultures and wishes of those countries where hunting is taking place.
You can read SULi’s full comments here, along with WCEL ESG’s reaction to them. It took issue with SULi’s “tone and highly opinionated (rather than reasoned) approach and stress[ed] that an ethical discourse is about finding normative and ethical truths based on mutual respect”.
The Canary approached the IUCN Council for comment. It responded by directing us to the report’s supporting materials and a recent statement on the matter. That statement reads:
On 27 September 2019, a 2017 opinion by the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law (WCEL) Ethics Specialist Group was reposted in the news section of the IUCN website, and was misconstrued as a new IUCN report by many. The document is not a new IUCN report, but in fact one of several positions presented to the IUCN Council in November 2017 for its deliberations on the admission of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) as an IUCN Member. Having considered all facts presented as well as IUCN’s Policy Statement on Sustainable Use of Wild Living Resources, IUCN Council recommended admitting IFAW as an IUCN Member at the November 2017 meeting.
The 2017 WCEL Ethics Specialist Group opinion does not therefore reflect IUCN’s overall position; it aimed to assist IUCN Council in its deliberations.
Ethical questions
Meanwhile, one pro-trophy hunting organisation is quite open about what it achieves while in a position of influence at wildlife watchdogs. Conservation Force (CF) – a trophy hunting advocacy group – is an IUCN member and has official observer status at CITES. It has charitable status and brands itself as “A Force for Wildlife Conservation”. Its website contains a bio for its president John Jackson, who says CF contributes “one million dollars each year for on the ground conservation in range countries”. One section titled “CITES expert” explains that Jackson attended “”CITES CoP [Conference of the Parties] 8 through 17” and served on “on dozens of CITES Working Groups”. Among the list of his “Leadership, Successes and Achievements” in this CITES section are:
Lead the defeat of the Kenya proposal to list all African Lion on Appendix 1 of CITES [Appendix I of CITES “lists species that are the most endangered”].
Successfully spearheaded the downlisting of the Canadian Wood Bison from endangered.
Successfully defeated multiple efforts to stop white rhino hunting [the last male Northern white rhino, Sudan, died in 2018. The species is critically endangered; white rhino species overall are listed as near threatened]
The Canary contacted CF for comment. None had been received at the time of publication.
This report argues that the involvement of such groups or linked individuals in IUCN raises ethical questions. It’s difficult to see how WCEL ESG is wrong.
Featured image via Wikimedia – Behn LIEU SONG
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I propose that Trophy hunters should be dumped naked, with no gadgets, shoes, or tools, no food, or water, in the reserves they like to hunt in, and then be left to fend for themselves against their most desired prey, using only their hands, feet, and teeth. Not one of them have the courage to face a big cat or large creature in the Wild with only their soft human bodies to defend themselves with, and let them use their excuses on the creatures they wanted to kill, maybe the creatures will understand?
As these people have a deep desire to cause pain, suffering, and death to innocent creatures, and a deep love of destruction at everyone else’s expense, they MUST be made an example of, and removed from the human gene-pool. They are human beings who are not fit to hold that title, they are creatures who are FAR more worthy of the fate they choose for their ‘trophies’.
I make no apologies for what I have written, those who derive pleasure from the suffering and death of innocent people and creatures are fit for nothing but death. Let their bodies at least be useful as a natural fertilizer, let them never enjoy the protections afforded to the Civilized people of our world, and let them die by the claws and teeth of those that they desired to end.
Trophy hunting is nothing but a disaster capitalist excuse for creating misery and death, and sends utterly the wrong message to others, as if money can replace the things we destroy. Trophy hunters of course love to paint themselves as decent caring humans, but they are the scum of our species, and deserve no outlet for their evil desires. They are the coldest, meanest-spirited entities in existence bar none, and are also likely to harbour the same desires towards humans, because at heart they are true living demons.
All those who hate trophy hunting as much as I do, should give no quarter, bend no ear, and never give sustenance, help, or support in any form to these scum. Trophy hunters are not people hunting to exist or subsist, they are in it for fun, and as such are the purest form of evil.
Every creature on Earth is a unique, never-to-be-repeated phenomena. Like us they are individuals, like us they have only one existence, and like us they are quite capable of a whole range of emotions (which we almost always ignore so we don’t feel guilty about killing and eating them).
Too many people look at creatures in this World as identical, mass-produced commodities, rather than the unique, individual creatures they are (us too). Too many people think ‘oh well there’s more where they came from’, when in fact no there isn’t, when you kill, you haven’t just killed that one, but a potential infinite number of descendants that could have existed, but now will not.
Everything that lives is unique and individual, even ‘genetically identical’ creatures are still individual and unique, and the same is even true of things which are quantum-linked, it is the law of The Universe, and there is simply no way to change that as everything occupies its own ‘personal’ time and space.
Therefore we must conclude that life is precious, and we should be caring for it, not needlessly destroying it. Some may argue that the opposite is true, that it is all worthless, and of no consequence, but they are idiots who really should end their own existence if they feel that way about it all, rather than trying to punish existence for their existence.
Shaolin12. Please read this and try not to get too upset. South African farmers raise 20 million wild animals on their ranches for hunting. Far from a capitalist disaster, the ranches have re-wilded 40 million acres BACK into indigenous habitat, where billions of non-hunted indigenous animals, birds, reptiles, insects, plants and trees can now thrive. It’s a wonderful conservation story, but kept out of the press by the opinion of people like you. Would you prefer to have no hunters and see all this land, six times the size of the National reserves, ploughed up again for farming and all the wildlife shot as pests or competitors for grazing like elsewhere in Africa?
And what of the 100,000 jobs it provides (SA govt. figure, Parliament, 2016) ? More capitalist disaster? The SA Govt is committed to adding another 10 million acres in order to allow PDI (previously disadvantaged individuals, under apartheid) to enter the wildlife ranching industry and thus participate in the country’s bounty.
I understand you don’t like the ideas of shooting endangered animals, but NONE of these 20 million animals are endangered or listed by CITES – their numbers are increasing all the time. In truth, they are 100,000 tons of organic free-range venison every year, no different to Scottish deer. And there ARE plenty more where they came from – the farms can raise as many as you want.
All this work (and £124 billion invested in stock and improvements) has been done by farmers, supported by hunting. Farmers are not cold hearted sadists or demons – they are farmers. None of the animals are “needlessly destroyed” – what the trophy hunter doesn’t use gets used by others – and the meat distributed in rural areas is much appreciated.
Farmed wildlife belongs to the farmer and it is valued and looked after. Where there is no hunting and no eco-tourism, wildlife is worthless and left to poachers or poisoners. You love the sight of an elephant, but it is a dangerous five ton garden slug to a rural African.
Thankfully, most of your outrage is inside your own head. Just don’t sign any pointless animal-killing bans on trophy hunting thought up by animal rights campaigners – simply ignore the antis and the hunters and let them get on with conserving plenty of wildlife in order to hunt some of it. If you stop the hunting, the land will fall to the plough and you will have killed millions of wild animals with your kindness. Its seems counter-intuitive, I know, but hunters (and I am not one – I simply research sustainable consumption in rural Africa) and hunting wild animals really DOES help conservation.
Wow, this needs a response!
“Please read this and try not to get too upset.”
Yeah I have, and sorry, but I am furious, as you clearly wanted me to be. 😉
Seriously, your post is full to the gunnels with falsity, dishonesty, and out-right lies.
You blame me and people like me for news in Africa not getting out because somehow my opinion about Trophy-Hunters prevents news from appearing, what utter nonsense.
Here you are posting on a NEWS website in response to an opinion piece by me, that had nothing whatsoever to do with ecology, farming, climate-change, news censorship, or Africa. My post was about how much I hate Trophy-Hunting. Your response is all about trying to make Trophy-hunting as respectable as farming, using deceit and conflation to try and put words I never spoke into my mouth, and to try and discredit something which you don’t even address, and yet I am supposed to be preventing ‘good conservation news’ with an opinion … you are fucking deluded. If it’s not making the headlines, it is not my opinion or the opinion of others that is causing that, but something FACTUAL, like there’s something very dodgy about those figures and claims you are making perhaps?
You try to make out I consider farmers as cold-hearted and demons, when I never even went there, you try to make out that farmers are the same as Trophy-hunters, they are not. I have huge respect for farmers, going back to the dawn of farming, and I have respect for this Earth and the Life in it, but I have a gaping hole where respect for people like you should be, and that is your fault, not mine, respect is earnt, not demanded.
All through your post you make reference to things, or try to imply that I have said something I haven’t done. You knew this would be annoying, just as annoying as you would find it to be called a wife-beater and rapist on a public forum, so I have taken it upon myself to respond in kind, and see how you like it. The difference is I can genuinely call you out on your poor logic, and spurious claims.
Can you answer these simple questions without resorting to outright childishness?
1) Why does a Trophy-Hunter (not talking a normal hunter here) desire to kill defenceless animals? Particularly animals like Lions, Rhinoceros and other apex predators? Surely it is for no other reason than to massage their over-inflated and (psychiatric level) damaged egos?
2) If Trophy-Hunting is such a respectable pursuit, why are so many people adamantly set against it? Why can they recognise this as an abhorrent practice, but you can’t?
3) Why can’t you have a trophy hunt that involves all the elements of the hunt, without terrorising or killing the animal? Everyone involved gets to keep their new jobs, the Trophy-Hunters can track, pursue, and stalk their prey, even shoot their prey with a weapon that reacts like a real gun, but only the Trophy-Hunter hears and feels the gunshot and feels the rifle kick (or those tuned into the hunt via online or more local telemetry). In reality the prey would not be subjected to any projectile or sound of a weapon being discharged at it.
Further to this, the fake, but very realistic feeling weapon, could instead house a whole bunch of telemetry from simple shot confirmation (where the shot would have hit etc), to full in barrel video and sound to capture the whole hunt and ‘kill’. The Trophy-hunter would still get the benefit of ‘the Chase’, the animal, once ‘shot’ could take its superb dna into the wild, keeping its species stocked with healthy members, conservation would happen with no killing, and those behind the gun (from support through to web portals etc.) could make a virtual killing which could be part of a global championship, and a real killing financially from sponsorship and followers.
4) If Trophy-Hunters are not the sick people I claim they are, then how many could actually give up the real ‘kill’ for the sake of making Trophy-Hunting respectable and sustainable? If they are doing it for conservation, my idea is streets ahead by comparison, in that theoretically you could even allow hunting the ultimate prey – humans (rather like paint-balling, lazer tag, and soft-balling), but with the added bonus of being an event that could raise even more money.
Imagine the likes of Edward Michael Grylls OBE (Bear Grylls) offering to be ‘The Prey’, whilst teams of Trophy-Hunters attempt to hunt him, whilst raising huge revenues from advertising, pay-per-view etc, to help create more wealth and stability for conservation projects, including our own conservation.
I can even see Trophy-Hunters taking home replicas of the heads of the creatures they hunt. They would be fake but life-like, but still be wall-mountable, and bragging rights would still exist, but they would exist with a much better conscience, knowing they had done the work to get their ‘kill’, and got something to show for it, whilst actually, and genuinely helping nature.
I am willing to bet that those who came up with ‘Conservation Trophy-Hunting’ got paid a shed-load of cash or other benefits, yet here I am offering a solution for free that doesn’t destroy the existing system, changes just one tiny part of it, and expands on it to make more jobs and better conservation.
No one needs to loose a job with my idea, and granted there are those who would object on the grounds that we shouldn’t be hunting anything, but they are wrong, we are human, we need to change, but it doesn’t mean wiping out everything that makes us us, just pulling in the reigns a bit, that is all.
If a Trophy-Hunter (or a few) wants to try this idea out with me, I am certain we could prove that Disaster-capitalism is the failure it was always meant to be, and that our positive human traits can earn us more than disaster-capitalism ever could.
5) Lastly ask yourself this – Why do trophy hunters desire the beasts with the best DNA? and why do you think this is a good thing, when in fact it is subjecting future species to dna-based degradation and ultimate extinction through that mechanism? I ask because it seems completely contrary to nature’s own ‘survival of the fittest’ rules, and is therefore nothing but a recipe for long-term disaster.
You deliberately conflate Trophy-Hunting with Hunting, and Farming. Trophy-Hunting is by it’s very name a SPORT, not a necessity, not something widely accepted as important to life’s survival, but something completely unnecessary, and immoral. The people who are Trophy-Hunters, are sick people, and I mean sick in the psychiatric sense of sickness. Anyone who desires, and enjoys destroying, maiming and torturing animals is a very mentally sick person, and they almost certainly hold as dim an attitude towards humans as they do the rest of life.
You claim you are not a Trophy-Hunter, yet you argue exactly like one. Like a person trying to cover-up and hide what they really are by saying …’I’m not the thing you think my words are telling you I am’, but then turning around and spouting nothing but blind unquestioning acceptance of it.
I will now give you a real example of why Trophy-hunting, and those that support it in any way, are no better than …. yes we’ve got there already … Nazis.
You try to point out that Trophy-Hunting has all of these great beneficial side-effects, so what about the practice the Nazis carried out on (according to them) ‘sub-human’ Jews, Gays, Dissenters, Gypsies and so many other ‘inferior’ people? Yes I’m talking about all those Nazi medical advances, which many of us still benefit from today.
Do you think what they did was good? Do you think that just because there were some positives to come from this horrific treatment of people, that we should allow the global medical profession to pull people they consider inferior out of society so that they may subject them to all manner of horrors in the hope that a cure for this or that may occur?
If you do, you are at odds with most people on planet Earth, because whilst we may benefit from something that was out of our control, whilst we do have some control, most of Earth abhors what the Nazis did, particularly the medical stuff, and does not want to repeat it. Even the USA’s and UK’s efforts in the 1950’s and 1970’s to experiment on people has been widely condemned.
Now you may argue that animals are not humans, and I will point out that humans ARE animals, but as much as we may disagree on that, you cannot disagree with the facts. The facts are that we MUST change our destructive, self-destructive, and myopic behaviour. Throwing money at problems does not solve them, only facing them can hope to, and we need a more creative solution to conservation than giving twisted and mentally-sick Trophy-Hunters a badge of honour they most certainly do not deserve.
Trophy Hunting is a Disaster-Capitalist solution, much like the famed ‘hammer’ that seems to be mankind’s only solution to all problems. Mankind has a blood-lust which is well recorded in history, and is the most important reason why the World is nearing its end, and yet despite all of that, people like you keep supporting the destruction of us and this world, for no other reason than money, and like a true Disaster-Capitalist, you can only see destruction as a way to create, when history already proves all we get is more destruction, less variety, less diversity, more pollution, more death, more polarisation, and extinction.
Life thrives on this World because of its diversity, not due to a lack of it. Humans are arrogant to levels that beggar belief, narcissistic to the level that would shame Narcissus, egotistical and evil to a level that would make a real devil weep its heart out. I am not here ignoring mankind’s good traits, but sadly mankind’s good traits are not the traits in ascendancy. It is the very worst of our traits that Disaster-Capitalism promotes.
Disaster-Capitalism is clearly not what you think it is. For an excellent description of what it is, I recommend watching The Fifth Element, within which is a scene wherein the main protagonist extols the virtues of Disaster-Capitalism in an unforgettably simple yet profoundly memorable way. Disaster-Capitalism (also called Extreme-Capitalism) is the notion that more profit can be made from inducing misery, hardship, destruction and death, than a Meritocracy can. This is utterly false, as we have NEVER been given the opportunity to prove the opposite, even though we know that Love, Kindness, Empathy, Compassion, Passion, good works, and honesty can make Disaster-Capitalism look like the fucked-up idea of wealth creation that it truly is.
If anyone tells you Disaster-Capitalism is great, tell them to go boil their dumb heads, no one works at their best when forced, no one loves truly when under duress, respect is earnt, love is earnt, and the best of everything is to be had when we are all happily working towards the same things. Sure there is above-normal-profit in Disaster-Capitalism, but it would pale into yesteryear insignificance if we just did what we really need to do, and change to systems which nurture and create harmony in this world.
Sadly there will be many others, including yourself, that want to believe this is all just hippy-shit and Kum ba yah platitudes, but the sad fact is you are living in a delusion, whereby you think that Earth has far more resources, is in far better shape, and has a miraculous ability to provide, no matter how many of us there are, and no matter how much we demand from it.
Mankind can justify anything, including the extinction of this World and everything in it. The problem is that some of mankind (me included) does not want to justify the extinction of everything, nor do we want our World to devolve into a barren pointless wilderness, nor do we want fucking damaged human beings (Trophy-Hunters among the worst, if not actually the worst) killing whatever they fancy, just so they can brag, or claim they are somehow much closer to nature …. delusional bullshit.
There are approximately 7 billion humans on this planet, perhaps you have not noticed the importance of that number yet, but the facts are simple. If every one of those human beings demanded to eat meat every day, this planet is simply NOT big enough to provide that amount of meat. Meat doesn’t come from the sky, it needs water, it needs other creatures to make the meat we want, and the larger and more complex the animal we want to eat, the less we get for what we put in.
To give you an example of the stupidity being employed by mankind at present. We know that it is possible to use solar and wind energy to break water (H2O) into Hydrogen and Oxygen. We also know that we can then use those elements to provide energy for our devices, and energy for our bodies. Apart from the initial costs of creating those devices (windmills, solar panels, wave-generators, geothermal plants and others), the whole would pay for itself in short order. Why do we not do this? … because of human greed for money and power (power over other humans and every living thing). The excuse, as we are told often, as to why this isn’t a reality of a daily lives …. because you have to put in more energy than you get out … even though that energy (mostly coming from The Sun) is freely available.
Did you know that we can also create petrol and diesel from nothing but CO2, H2O, High pressure and high heat? Well we can, but we don’t. What has any of this to do with meat? Well it turns out that when it comes to things like beef, venison, pork, mutton, and I am sure a great many more larger creatures, we would rather waste even more energy and resources producing them, than what we get out, even though eating more healthily benefits ourselves, and more importantly the planet around us.
We are a stupid, myopic species, with only few that actually understand that. The rest will bleat like robots to say the same thing .. oh were all doomed anyway, so fuck it, eat what you want, waste what you want, because we are so fucking divine it doesn’t matter who or what suffers … oh, so long as it isn’t me in the cross-hairs.
I have taken a particularly derisory, mocking tone in this post towards you, and that is because I felt your comments were aimed personally at me, and wholly unwarranted, as you could have taken issue with me about the things I HAVE said about Trophy-Hunters. I know I am not being kind to them, and I am ignoring their humanity (only because they are ignoring it too). You however decided to attack with false conflations, false evidence, ill-thought out arguments, and downright personal rudeness (like you know what’s in my heart! … well you’ve gotten a better idea now I hope).
Farmers are not Trophy-Hunters, Trophy-Hunting is NOT Farming, wild animals are not Farm-stock, though free-range may be considered such. Education, Eco-Tourism, My suggestion (no doubt there are others who have the same or similar ideas, I am not taking that away from anyone), are solutions against the current form of Trophy-Hunting, and I do think my method of Trophy-Hunting may even help improve Trophy-Hunters humanity, mentality, standing and enjoyment.
My post was never about farming, you tried to subvert both the Main Article and my post to your needs, but you can’t even do that right, as it would have made more sense as a solo post aimed at the article, but you seemed to think it would be better to accuse me of ridiculous things, and things I never said.
Haha…can I have half an ounce of whatever you are on?
I made the point about farming because most of the trophies you see in the media are farmed animals, and the trophy hunters provide welcome extra income for farmers. The animals are sustainable. Not endangered.
Morally there’s no difference between putting an animal in your oven, wrapping its skin round your feet, covering your car seat with it or hanging bits of it on your wall.
I didn’t make the figures up – they are South African Government figures.
You clearly don’t understand hunting – trying to explain it to you would be like trying to describe a colour to a blind person.
As for your rants about Hitler and God knows what else – they are beneath contempt.
The fact is that the wildlife industry in SA provides 100,000 jobs and the government want to double it. If it upsets you, too bad. But trophy hunting provides employment for rural Africans and I care more about them than emotional hysterics.