So you want to shoot an African elephant or leopard and import it into the US...

DavidBrown said:
I came across this on the web and thought that it might be of interest to some here. It sickens me that anyone would want to shoot an African elephant or leopard for the fun of it, but obviously some do. I know that the argument is made that sport hunting is needed to sustain conservation funding. Perhaps this is true, but I wish that it were not.

http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/web...sgov/www.international.fws.gov/pdf/salaet.pdf
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David, I was so morbidly fascinated by your link that I googled on this:-

Hunting Mountain Nyala in Africa and Mountain Nyala Safaris in Africa

The logistics of getting a viable population of live mountain nyala out of Ethiopia, certainly into Europe, would be appalling. Yet apparently as long as the right boxes get ticked you can Bring 'Em Back Dead.

Ho hum.
 
It cost money to protect habitat and the animals which need it. The people of these countries have lived off and with these animals for centuries. Why not continue the sustainable utilisation. It is easy for someone who lives in the US, England or Australia to say they should stop. The Elephant is one of the best examples. The people there have Elephants raiding and destroying their crops the need to survive and also killing the people. I have forgotten the exact figures, but a country with 50,000 elephants increasing at 10% or 5,000 a year at the same time as habitat is being lost, needs to manage their Elephants. They either reduce their poaching controls so more Elephants are killed, tusks hacked out and the rest wasted or they offer legal hunting quotas which provide jobs and incomes as well as the meat for the local villages, in the areas with large Elephants populations.
 
Monty said:
It cost money to protect habitat and the animals which need it. The people of these countries have lived off and with these animals for centuries. Why not continue the sustainable utilisation.
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Monty, if sustainable utilization were a reality I coud see the merits of your argument. There is a resurgent poaching movement against elephants AND a huge illegal bush meat black market for them. Against this back drop I don't see that there is any sustainable utilization of elephants going on.

For a time there may have been when the ivory ban was working and places like Zimbabwe had competent wildlife management programs. South Africa, Namibia, and Botswana still have large elephant populations and competent wildlife management, so maybe elephant sports hunting DOES actually work there and provide a verifiably sustainable revenue for habitat and wildlife conservation. In that case I would agree with the argument, BUT only if there is transparent, verifiable proof that the benefits of legal hunting aren't being swamped by poaching and black market meat hunting.

The control of problem elephants that raid crops and kill people is a wildlife management issue that should not be mixed in with sports hunting. There are of course sometimes when individual animals need to be killed, just as wildlife authorities anywhere would manage individual animals that pose a real threat to human health and safety.
 
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I have two issues with trophy hunting.

First, how do you let rich people from North America and Western Europe shoot animals whilst not allowing the same right to the local population. I suppose you could say "because they pay more" but somehow it doesn't seem right to me.

Secondly, trophy hunters go for alpha males. Elephant bulls with impressive tusks, lions with big manes, deer and antelope with fine heads. The animals that nature would select to breed hunters select to kill.
 
Humans are already manipulating nature and will continue to do so. Would it not be wise to manage wildlife so that they can still exist in light of human development. Especially in a way that promotes wildlife sustainability and efficient use of wildlife products.

There is no reason why locals can participate - wildlife agencies can limit/regulate permits however they wish. Also managed harvest can decrease the influence of black markets by creating a legal way to hunt. This will decrease market prices and provide a source of revenue to wildlife agencies that enforce wildlife laws.

It may not end the problems to poaching and bush meat, but it is a start and a decent economical solution.
 
gerenuk said:
Humans are already manipulating nature and will continue to do so. Would it not be wise to manage wildlife so that they can still exist in light of human development. Especially in a way that promotes wildlife sustainability and efficient use of wildlife products.

There is no reason why locals can participate - wildlife agencies can limit/regulate permits however they wish. Also managed harvest can decrease the influence of black markets by creating a legal way to hunt. This will decrease market prices and provide a source of revenue to wildlife agencies that enforce wildlife laws.

It may not end the problems to poaching and bush meat, but it is a start and a decent economical solution.
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"Management" is definitely the key. With poaching and bush meat hunting rampant sport hunting is just a drop in the bucket and a distraction until the other problems are actually managed.
 
gerenuk said:
Sport hunting is certainly not a distraction at all, but part of the solution.
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As currently configured sport hunting is not going to help elephant populations unless the poaching and bush meat problems are taken care of. There may be regional exceptions to this problem (South Africa and Namibia?), but places where it has traditionally been part of the conservation solution like Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe are currently dealing with massive poaching problems that would make me question the value of it at the present time.
http://www.huntingreport.com/hunting_article_details.cfm?id=2150

Ian points out another valid problem for sport hunting of lions also, which is that males are being hunted at unsustainable rates in some places (e.g., Zambia) which is disrupting the social structure of the prides there in a way that destabilizes the population.
http://www.sportsafield.com/content/new-thinking-african-lion

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0005941

Sport hunting definitely is of value for some species in some places, but it needs to be very carefully managed and monitored. This isn't getting done in many places which makes it more of a problem than a solution in those areas.
 
Sport hunting is only a problem because it isn't being managed well. But that's not a reason to dismiss it altogether.
 
gerenuk said:
Sport hunting is only a problem because it isn't being managed well. But that's not a reason to dismiss it altogether.
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I agree to an extent, but it is not a solution to conservation problems if it goes awry and makes problems worse like making lion social structure collapse. It is one thread in a very complicated tapestry of conservation. At this stage no helpful solution should go unexamined, including the potential role of sport hunting, but it needs to be monitored carefully and halted if it doesn't work.
 
DavidBrown said:
I agree to an extent, but it is not a solution to conservation problems if it goes awry and makes problems worse like making lion social structure collapse.
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I'm with Gerenuk on this one. While I don't appreciate sports hunting at all, if it is managed well it is a part of the solution - because the local community derives real benefits from the sports hunting (financial and material) they generally will actively prevent poaching and bushmeat trapping because they know it will affect their community adversely.

It's the management that's the key. It worked well in Zimbabwe until Uncle Bobby screwed things up bigtime. Now I'm hearing mixed reports from the country about the status of their wildlife.

If all the big male lions are being taken out of one area, then that's bad management.

To dismiss sport hunting as a part of the solution due to mismanagement is to dismiss zoos being able to help save an endangered species because there are lots of bad zoos out there that do absolutely nothing for conservation.

:p

Hix
 
Hix said:
I'm with Gerenuk on this one. While I don't appreciate sports hunting at all, if it is managed well it is a part of the solution - because the local community derives real benefits from the sports hunting (financial and material) they generally will actively prevent poaching and bushmeat trapping because they know it will affect their community adversely.

It's the management that's the key. It worked well in Zimbabwe until Uncle Bobby screwed things up bigtime. Now I'm hearing mixed reports from the country about the status of their wildlife.

If all the big male lions are being taken out of one area, then that's bad management.

To dismiss sport hunting as a part of the solution due to mismanagement is to dismiss zoos being able to help save an endangered species because there are lots of bad zoos out there that do absolutely nothing for conservation.

:p

Hix
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It sounds like we all have agreement on the basic principle here. The challenge is monitoring and management. Mismanagement is as bad as poaching in terms of negative effect on wildlife populations.
 
Call me a hippy, but I've always thought sport hunting should be fine with one proviso - that you not use anything the animal hasn't got. If tough guys want to take on a lion on foot with their teeth and fingernails I have no objections.

Sitting in a fast jeep 100m away and firing with a scoped rifle? Sorry hunting fans, but grow some testicular fortitude. You'll never have 1% of the machismo contained in that trophy on the wall.

Seriously - whilst "sport" hunting might have an economic case behind it, But I will never respect the pathetic sacks of human feebleness that get their jollies that way.
 
CGSwans said:
Call me a hippy, but I've always thought sport hunting should be fine with one proviso - that you not use anything the animal hasn't got. If tough guys want to take on a lion on foot with their teeth and fingernails I have no objections.

Sitting in a fast jeep 100m away and firing with a scoped rifle? Sorry hunting fans, but grow some testicular fortitude. You'll never have 1% of the machismo contained in that trophy on the wall.

Seriously - whilst "sport" hunting might have an economic case behind it, But I will never respect the pathetic sacks of human feebleness that get their jollies that way.
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I have never had a problem with a guy going out with a gun, who knows what he's doing, shooting something for the pot that belongs to a non-endangered species.

Nor do I have a problem with someone dealing with an animal that's damaged his livelihood once too often (although if it was something rare I'd like to think a non-lethal method could be used).

Finally, some animals need culling. Arguably sports hunting can play a role here, but the problem -again - is that hunters take impressive specimens, not the runts, sick or diseased animals.

The absence of wolves and lynx, the reafforestation of large parts of the country and (IMO) a generally more benign attitude to wildlife has resulted in serious deer overpopulation in many parts of the UK. Red hind numbers, and those of the non-native Reeves' muntjac, need big reductions, but it's hard to imagine sports hunters being interested in these.
 
IanRRobinson said:
I have never had a problem with a guy going out with a gun, who knows what he's doing, shooting something for the pot that belongs to a non-endangered species.

Nor do I have a problem with someone dealing with an animal that's damaged his livelihood once too often (although if it was something rare I'd like to think a non-lethal method could be used).

Finally, some animals need culling. Arguably sports hunting can play a role here, but the problem -again - is that hunters take impressive specimens, not the runts, sick or diseased animals.

The absence of wolves and lynx, the reafforestation of large parts of the country and (IMO) a generally more benign attitude to wildlife has resulted in serious deer overpopulation in many parts of the UK. Red hind numbers, and those of the non-native Reeves' muntjac, need big reductions, but it's hard to imagine sports hunters being interested in these.
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I have no problem with shooting for subsistence, culling or in times of imminent danger to humans. Just don't pose with your kill like you think you've proved your manhood.
 
CGSwans said:
Call me a hippy, but I've always thought sport hunting should be fine with one proviso - that you not use anything the animal hasn't got. If tough guys want to take on a lion on foot with their teeth and fingernails I have no objections.
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Exactly!

No matter what you say about the money going back to conservation - I DONT UNDERSTAND IT! What is the joy in killing a magnificent wild animal?
I really don´t get it. And I probably never will, because I am not able to talk to these people without hurting them physically.
I understand when local people kill an antelope for meat but why would an American want to kill an Elephant?
 
First of all I think this is a brilliant thread as it is creating an interesting disscussion.

But you are talking about radically different ideas because a gun is being fired to kill an animal it may be for 3 reasons.

1. Trophy Hunting - When an animal is being killed for sport!

Despite never being a big fan of it personally as a conservation tool it can be invaluable. The pro's are that pressure is put on reserve managers to stock bigger, more impressive animals. This means that if a species is rare, but impressive the least likely of conservations will enter captive breeding programmes. This is highlighted by the Sable anterlope who is being bred to be released on to hunting reserves and has shown a good population rise in certain areas.

The con's is the flipside of that exact same concept: pressure is put on reserve managers to stock bigger, more impressive animals. Hunting male lions under the age of 5 is sustainable, however 5 year old males don't have as impressive manes. By killing the head of the pride, a younger less competitve male will take over and kill the cubs (infanticide), lowering the numbers (it's a famous paper that I can find the link to if anyone wants?)

On a seperate note, hunting reserves make up more land than national parks in South Africa (read in to that what you will?)

2. Poaching - The illegal taking of animal and this obviously can be done for a number of reasons. This could be from surviving to ultimate greed, there is no hard and fast answer. This example is one that I always think off. There are a lot of profitable west african fisheries, however these countries sell their rights to the fisheries in turn for a profit (which is meant to go to the people of that country, but that varies to say the least). These fishing methods are aggresive and efficent and mean the locals are left without fish, a key source of protein and so go to the forest for bushmeat. Without bushmeat they would have no protein. (I can try find this paper on request, but haven't seen it in ages?). Its an interesting conundrum.

3. Culling - generally as part of a mangament plan to lower the number of individuals of a species. The deer example was given earlier. Which is a good one as it shows that culling can be basically expressed as fillingin the niche of a large predator as deer browse seedling and shrubs and leave mainly bracken, this is poor for small mammals, etc.
 
While I see little appeal in the shooting of animals itself. I can see and have seen the benefits hunting reserves bring.
For example they provide important links between seperated national parks. Enabling a more natural flow, interchange and dispersal of populations.
If hunting was stopped, the land is almost certainly to be used for agriculture, possibly mineral extraction, not turned into non-shooting reserves. Outside of the national parks and game reserves there is often surprisingly little wildlife. In drier regions vast areas of land and more importantly water supplies are dominated entirely by goat or cattle farming.
 
gerenuk said:
Humans are already manipulating nature and will continue to do so. Would it not be wise to manage wildlife so that they can still exist in light of human development. Especially in a way that promotes wildlife sustainability and efficient use of wildlife products.

There is no reason why locals can participate - wildlife agencies can limit/regulate permits however they wish. Also managed harvest can decrease the influence of black markets by creating a legal way to hunt. This will decrease market prices and provide a source of revenue to wildlife agencies that enforce wildlife laws.

It may not end the problems to poaching and bush meat, but it is a start and a decent economical solution.
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I'm interested to know whether in the US hunting groups own and manage land, and whether this involves predator "management". One of the reasons that British wildlife enthusiasts take such a sceptical view of sports hunters is the past and present activities of gamekeepers, which led to the near extermination of many raptors in the 19th centuries.
 
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