It’s hard to understand considering innocent animals are killed in the process, but apparently trophy hunting can actually ‘protect’ certain species.
Trophy hunting, where people hunt animals such as lions, rhinos or elephants, has caused great debate over the years – especially when Cecil the lion was illegally killed.
Cecil’s killing caused some hunters to reevaluate their positions on the issue, according to National Geographic, while other hunters chipped in to say the killing of certain, individual animals can actually ‘help the wider population’.
Tanzania claims to have made $75million (£57.1million) between 2008 and 2011 from hunting permits (60 per cent of those were purchased by hunters from the US), according to an article in the Metro.
That money was then used to fund conservation projects which aim to help the local wildlife. The country now has the ‘highest African lion population in the world’, which they claim is an ‘indirect result of allowing trophy hunting’ to take place there.
In 2015, the Dallas Safari Club auctioned off a permit to shoot a black rhino and the proceeds were used for conservation.
The club said in a statement:
Lawful, ethical, vigilant hunters play an important role in public acceptance of sustainable hunting as a vital tool for modern wildlife conservation and management.
Club president Ben Carter told National Geographic that regulated trophy hunting is a ‘tool wildlife managers use to keep animal populations healthy and strong’, by ‘removing counterproductive individuals’ from a herd, populations ‘can actually grow’.
There are often protests against it and plenty of debate and opinion – with hateful comments proving too much for one trophy hunter, who it was claimed took her own life ‘following online abuse from anti-hunters’.
Melania Capitan was found dead alongside a suicide note at her home on a farm in Huesca, Spain.
It is claimed the 27-year-old had received more than 3,000 hurtful comments online from animal rights activists who said she should receive a ‘beating’ or a ‘bullet in the forehead’.
The president of the Spanish Federation of Hunting has now filed a criminal complaint, labelling the ‘attacks from the animalists’ as the reason for Melania’s death.
Ricky Gervais has actively spoken out against hunting and regularly posts about it on social media. He says the fact hunters pose for photos with the carcasses was ‘even more troubling’.
He has previously stated:
I’m anti-hunter. There’s no need for it.
I’m anti-people who go out and see what they can do with a crossbow and a giraffe’s head, because there’s something wrong with them.
Why the selfie? I don’t get annoyed about a lion eating an antelope because that’s what it does, but what they don’t do is eat an antelope – for a laugh – and then take a selfie with it, and try and get their own shop.
I know there’s an argument for it, but I just can’t agree with it – we should let nature be nature. What are your thoughts?
