PHASA distances itself from Captive-bred Lion Hunting

[KWALATA SAFARIS]

Where would these hunts take place in North west? This would be interesting.

My best always

 

[BRICKBURN]

Where would these hunts take place in North west? This would be interesting.

My best always

From Youtube.

 

[Royal27]

I believe that's the point to try and change the current nature of these hunts to a more acceptable and morally defence able fit.

I still don't get the "morally defensible" part of the argument (and remember, I have no personal interest in hunting a captive bred lion).

Morals are personal. All hunting, period, is morally indefensible to many people. So where is the line drawn and who decides what is defensible and what isn't? Now if we want to talk about what is "generally acceptable" then I get it. And we also need to add all of the other "cute" animals to the no hunting/breeding list, which I don't agree with at all.

But, if we are looking at this purely from a "moral" standpoint with conservation in mind then I'll stand by my original remark that captive bred farming of all animals should be condemned - beef, chicken, you name it. There is no conservation value there. And heck, I can take it further and say that all hunting should be outlawed because it creates an "imbalance" that causes a "moral" issue where we now have to take care of animals that should be taken care of naturally the way it occured for millions of years.

Don't believe the above, but making a point. But let's face it, ALL captive bred animals are raised to be slaughtered for some kind of human consumption. Can and should we try and make sure those animals are as comfortable and healthy as possible while they are alive? yes. Should we stop raising them? Not in my opinion.

 

[Roy Sparks]

Yup the " moral " thing in hunting seems to be disappearing with each new generation as time goes by but the consoling part is that it becomes increasingly easier to swallow bullshit and even digest it.

That's part of the package - hope the guys selling it at least provide some courtesy indigestion tonic.

 

[Roy Sparks]

Would USA guides and outfitters in" general " be in support of the type of hunting we are discussing if it were to be suggested that it be conducted in the USA or Canada for that matter ?

For instance hunting captive bred and raised brown bear that are bred somewhere at a facility and transported anywhere to another facility to be shot.

 

[LivingTheDream]

There will always be a moral argument in hunting. Some say crossbows shouldn't be allowed. Some say hounds shouldn't be allowed. In fighting amongst each other about the ethics of our hunting methods is what is killing us. This is why SCI and DSC were caught flat footed, we spend too much time debating amongst ourselves.

Remember before you post this is a public forum, antis can read what we say, they will use it against us. We obsess about hunting, spending thousands of hours on scouting, preparation, and conservation, they spend their time thinking about to destroy us.

 

[KWALATA SAFARIS]

I still don't get the "morally defensible" part of the argument (and remember, I have no personal interest in hunting a captive bred lion).

Morals are personal. All hunting, period, is morally indefensible to many people. So where is the line drawn and who decides what is defensible and what isn't? Now if we want to talk about what is "generally acceptable" then I get it. And we also need to add all of the other "cute" animals to the no hunting/breeding list, which I don't agree with at all.

But, if we are looking at this purely from a "moral" standpoint with conservation in mind then I'll stand by my original remark that captive bred farming of all animals should be condemned - beef, chicken, you name it. There is no conservation value there. And heck, I can take it further and say that all hunting should be outlawed because it creates an "imbalance" that causes a "moral" issue where we now have to take care of animals that should be taken care of naturally the way it occured for millions of years.

Don't believe the above, but making a point. But let's face it, ALL captive bred animals are raised to be slaughtered for some kind of human consumption. Can and should we try and make sure those animals are as comfortable and healthy as possible while they are alive? yes. Should we stop raising them? Not in my opinion.

Royal extremely long question and analogy with a smile answer.
Remember I speak 4 languages so sometimes expressing in writing could be slightly more complicated as you might think, thinking in three languages and writing in one...

So to simplify, I simply canot do or condone something or an act or be part of an action that I canot defend with moral conviction.

Thereby defined as

1. 
   Moral conviction is a subjective assessment that one's attitude about a specific issue or situation. is associated with one's core moralbeliefs and fundamental sense of right or wrong.

Now I will go as far as to say and as explained earlier that this industry in its current state cannot be defended by myself with moral conviction.

How can I ethically and or morally (another personal) justify shooting a lion that has been out of a pen for 96 hours (optimistically speaking).

Herein lies my problem and PHASA's problem whether Joe soap agrees with me or not, I know what is right and what is wrong.

Or is it all about the money? So disregard how I feel when all is said and done and I'm standing next to a cat that was fed up to 96 hours ago.

There is a better solution to this current system,
yes.....it'll push prices up,
yes.....less lions will be shot,
yes.....it'll be better,
yes.....the market will adjust.

SAPA is working on it as we speak.

As simple as that.

Remember by being quite and not confronting issues within our own industry and issues we have in our own industry and sorting them out we are giving the anti's even more power.

An anti hunter can not take away my ability to hunt, it is my right....as it is his to be gay, straight, bi, vegetarian or a democrat......

We should not pussy foot around subjects because of them, they should not intimidate us, yes we disagree..... Why? because humans are individualists, disagreeing is good it is constructive as we are all (hunters) all striving to protect and nurture our natural heritage, for future generations.

If an action or industry is not in a good state it is up to us to clean it no one else.

My best always

 

[LivingTheDream]

So we can talk about bear and we can talk about moose and then we can talk about sheep and every other species.

Here is the deal, I'm only going to pay so much to hunt certain species period. 20k for a bear, I will never hunt one, 20k for a moose, no. 50k for a sheep, no chance. So if Lions are 50k sure someone will hunt them, it won't be me. The thing is I love to hunt, I don't care about record books, I don't care if they are even male, any animal I take through a hunt is a trophy to me. I get a wonderful dinner and usually a wonderful and memorable experience. So if something gets expensive or they say you can't hunt a certain way, or ban hunting something, I will just go hunt something else.

The reason I say this, is I would have been one of the guys that wouldn't necessarily of cared about Africa Hunting if it wasn't for a captive breed Lion hunt. I never thought about hunting Africa, looked at prices a couple of times and just didn't think I could pull it off. I got a phone call from a PH and it opened my eyes to an amazing place and made me aware of the issues the animals in Africa are facing. Now I'm just one guy, but there are others like me, anytime we ban hunting for anything or anywhere we as a community lose.

 

[KWALATA SAFARIS]

From Youtube.

Adding the word wild does not make it true, I saw Clayton fletcher, I saw Casper both two we'll know lion facilitators in South Africa.

I can not defend chasing a lioness with a truck until she trees with MORAL CONVICTION.
I don't think I need to say more.

My best always

 

[KWALATA SAFARIS]

So we can talk about bear and we can talk about moose and then we can talk about sheep and every other species.

Here is the deal, I'm only going to pay so much to hunt certain species period. 20k for a bear, I will never hunt one, 20k for a moose, no. 50k for a sheep, no chance. So if Lions are 50k sure someone will hunt them, it won't be me. The thing is I love to hunt, I don't care about record books, I don't care if they are even male, any animal I take through a hunt is a trophy to me. I get a wonderful dinner and usually a wonderful and memorable experience. So if something gets expensive or they say you can't hunt a certain way, or ban hunting something, I will just go hunt something else.

The reason I say this, is I would have been one of the guys that wouldn't necessarily of cared about Africa Hunting if it wasn't for a captive breed Lion hunt. I never thought about hunting Africa, looked at prices a couple of times and just didn't think I could pull it off. I got a phone call from a PH and it opened my eyes to an amazing place and made me aware of the issues the animals in Africa are facing. Now I'm just one guy, but there are others like me, anytime we ban hunting for anything or anywhere we as a community lose.

There has been no ban whatsoever. I do hear you and understand.

 

[Royal27]

So to simplify, I simply canot do or condone something or an act or be part of an action that I canot defend with moral conviction.

TOTALLY AGREE!!!

I think we are speaking past each other here to some extent.

My point is that we just need to be careful about how broadly this might go. I've stated in the past that I'm not one of the "it is legal so we have to support it" guys, but we still have to be careful, realizing that other's moral convictions may preclude hunting altogether.

Does the captive bred lion hunting industry need to be cleaned up? Absolutely. Are there other areas of the industry that need to be cleaned up as well? Absolutely. We should never be satisfied with the status quo, and I'm glad that you aren't.

 

[PHOENIX PHIL]

Would USA guides and outfitters in" general " be in support of the type of hunting we are discussing if it were to be suggested that it be conducted in the USA or Canada for that matter ?

For instance hunting captive bred and raised brown bear that are bred somewhere at a facility and transported anywhere to another facility to be shot.

There are high fence operations here in the U.S. for deer and elk and for extremely large antlered versions thereof. The elk in some cases are even on relatively small ranches and pretty much desensitized to humans. Heard of the same with whitetail deer. Heard of? Hell I had a guy stand in the HartzView booth in Dallas and tell me how after the show was over he was going to shoot a deer in a small area and then go and tell everyone he knew that he got it on a real hunt. Basically all I could think about this person is that he's an idiot. He's chasing other people's opinion, wanting to show off and it's quite pathetic to watch a grown man act this way. Furthermore the guy will never be happy, because there will always be someone out there who got an even larger animal than he and perhaps on a true hunt.

Do I intend on ever going to one of these outfits? No I don't. As the years go by I've learned really to not give a crap about what others think of my trophies. They are mine and so are the memories. While it's nice to receive compliments from fellow hunters and share those experience with them, it's not necessary for me to be happy about my hunts. And for those that may try to "out do" me, they can bugger off, they've not figured out what hunting is all about in my opinion.

But back to the topic of this thread and the hunting of raised lions. Can this type of hunting be a true hunt? I think so. Most of these hunts from what I know are walk and stalk, The lion knows the hunter is approaching and is a threat, and as such the lions quite frequently charge and on occasion draw blood from the hunters. That seems to me to be at least as much a fair chase hunt and maybe more so than sitting in a blind and shooting a lion off of bait where the only thought that seems to be in the cat's mind is how lucky he was to come across this abandoned kill.

Can the breeders of the lions for RSA hunts contribute to the conservation of the African lion? Again I think so, but changes are required to ensure this is the case.

 

[LivingTheDream]

There has been no ban whatsoever. I do hear you and understand.

Jaco, sorry I should have been more clear there hasn't been a ban to this particular topic but I have seen bear hunts with hounds banned, wolf hunts banned, and what took place in Botswana and Zambia. I think if anyone thinks that there way of hunting or what there hunting is safe because it makes sense from a conservation perspective, I have seen it in my short lifetime they are wrong.

 

[Roy Sparks]

Royal extremely long question and analogy with a smile answer.
Remember I speak 4 languages so sometimes expressing in writing could be slightly more complicated as you might think, thinking in three languages and writing in one...

So to simplify, I simply canot do or condone something or an act or be part of an action that I canot defend with moral conviction.

Thereby defined as

1. 
   Moral conviction is a subjective assessment that one's attitude about a specific issue or situation. is associated with one's core moralbeliefs and fundamental sense of right or wrong.

Now I will go as far as to say and as explained earlier that this industry in its current state cannot be defended by myself with moral conviction.

How can I ethically and or morally (another personal) justify shooting a lion that has been out of a pen for 96 hours (optimistically speaking).

Herein lies my problem and PHASA's problem whether Joe soap agrees with me or not, I know what is right and what is wrong.

Or is it all about the money? So disregard how I feel when all is said and done and I'm standing next to a cat that was fed up to 96 hours ago.

There is a better solution to this current system,
yes.....it'll push prices up,
yes.....less lions will be shot,
yes.....it'll be better,
yes.....the market will adjust.

SAPA is working on it as we speak.

As simple as that.

Remember by being quite and not confronting issues within our own industry and issues we have in our own industry and sorting them out we are giving the anti's even more power.

An anti hunter can not take away my ability to hunt, it is my right....as it is his to be gay, straight, bi, vegetarian or a democrat......

We should not pussy foot around subjects because of them, they should not intimidate us, yes we disagree..... Why? because humans are individualists, disagreeing is good it is constructive as we are all (hunters) all striving to protect and nurture our natural heritage, for future generations.

If an action or industry is not in a good state it is up to us to clean it no one else.

My best always

Nice Jaco.

 

[Roy Sparks]

There are high fence operations here in the U.S. for deer and elk and for extremely large antlered versions thereof. The elk in some cases are even on relatively small ranches and pretty much desensitized to humans. Heard of the same with whitetail deer. Heard of? Hell I had a guy stand in the HartzView booth in Dallas and tell me how after the show was over he was going to shoot a deer in a small area and then go and tell everyone he knew that he got it on a real hunt. Basically all I could think about this person is that he's an idiot. He's chasing other people's opinion, wanting to show off and it's quite pathetic to watch a grown man act this way. Furthermore the guy will never be happy, because there will always be someone out there who got an even larger animal than he and perhaps on a true hunt.

Do I intend on ever going to one of these outfits? No I don't. As the years go by I've learned really to not give a crap about what others think of my trophies. They are mine and so are the memories. While it's nice to receive compliments from fellow hunters and share those experience with them, it's not necessary for me to be happy about my hunts. And for those that may try to "out do" me, they can bugger off, they've not figured out what hunting is all about in my opinion.

But back to the topic of this thread and the hunting of raised lions. Can this type of hunting be a true hunt? I think so. Most of these hunts from what I know are walk and stalk, The lion knows the hunter is approaching and is a threat, and as such the lions quite frequently charge and on occasion draw blood from the hunters. That seems to me to be at least as much a fair chase hunt and maybe more so than sitting in a blind and shooting a lion off of bait where the only thought that seems to be in the cat's mind is how lucky he was to come across this abandoned kill.

Can the breeders of the lions for RSA hunts contribute to the conservation of the African lion? Again I think so, but changes are required to ensure this is the case.

Phil for me fair chase is not determined by how the animal behaves in this case a lion being able to harm its pursuer , as you made mention of. Fair chase to me is an undetermined outcome of success for the hunter i.e. a fair chance that the hunter may have to go home empty handed because the animal ( lion ) in this case managed to elude the hunter. It is quite a defensible statement to make that under normal circumstances in South Africa the hunters are normally always successful on their lion hunts. So based on averages , in my opinion that is not fair chase hunting. Especially where in most circumstances the lion is killed within 3 days. No sir that is not fair chase however anyone wishes to argue. The facilities where lions are shot here in SA are there to contain them so they cannot escape. The outcome is inevitable in most instances and that is not my idea of fair chase.

 

[PHOENIX PHIL]

Phil for me fair chase is not determined by how the animal behaves in this case a lion being able to harm its pursuer , as you made mention of. Fair chase to me is an undetermined outcome of success for the hunter i.e. a fair chance that the hunter may have to go home empty handed because the animal ( lion ) in this case managed to elude the hunter. It is quite a defensible statement to make that under normal circumstances in South Africa the hunters are normally always successful on their lion hunts. So based on averages , in my opinion that is not fair chase hunting. Especially where in most circumstances the lion is killed within 3 days. No sir that is not fair chase however anyone wishes to argue. The facilities where lions are shot here in SA are there to contain them so they cannot escape. The outcome is inevitable in most instances and that is not my idea of fair chase.

Not actually meaning to argue with you, it's more of how do different hunters view fair chase. A couple of hopefully thought provoking questions regarding fair chase:

1) If I just wanted to take an impala, any impala trophy size or otherwise, is there any doubt I will get one regardless of the African country? I presume that you'll agree that under this scenario, I'll get my impala. Is that fair chase?

2) I watched a lion hunt on one of the shows sometime ago. Can't remember exactly which show, but the hunt was in either Zim or Tanz. Bait was put out and sure enough a lion came in. The hunting party showed up for the evening hunt to find the lion beat them to the bait. The lion clearly saw the humans, but held his ground. The hunter took the lion with a frontal shot, the head of the cat just sunk to the ground, he was dead. Now that cat had he chosen to, could've bailed out and lived, but for whatever reason stayed. Is that fair chase? If on a RSA lion hunt on a large property that has plenty of cover for a lion to sneak away through and hide in, has been given more than a few days to acclimate to his new environment and if the lion after being bumped a couple of times decides to hold his ground or even charge and is subsequently taken by the hunter, is that much different than the scenario I just described of the wild lion hunt?

I hope you don't take this as me challenging you, but as intended to be a continuation of the discussion. While I have no issue with RSA lion hunting when done properly, I really don't know whether I would go on such a hunt. Money precludes me from doing a wild lion hunt for sure. This really doesn't bother me anymore than I can't afford to have a Ferrari in my driveway. Besides that I have far more interest in a leopard hunt.

But the subject should interest all of us hunters regardless of whether we want to hunt lion or not and we all have to arrive at some conviction on the matter. Those convictions in the end are really just opinions based somewhat in objective evidence but are also highly subjective such as in the case of what is considered fair chase. There's no sense in arguing if someone's subjective opinion is right or wrong, it's just their opinion and you're not likely to change it. But discussing differing opinions I find valuable and worthwhile.

 

[Roy Sparks]

Not actually meaning to argue with you, it's more of how do different hunters view fair chase. A couple of hopefully thought provoking questions regarding fair chase:

1) If I just wanted to take an impala, any impala trophy size or otherwise, is there any doubt I will get one regardless of the African country? I presume that you'll agree that under this scenario, I'll get my impala. Is that fair chase?

2) I watched a lion hunt on one of the shows sometime ago. Can't remember exactly which show, but the hunt was in either Zim or Tanz. Bait was put out and sure enough a lion came in. The hunting party showed up for the evening hunt to find the lion beat them to the bait. The lion clearly saw the humans, but held his ground. The hunter took the lion with a frontal shot, the head of the cat just sunk to the ground, he was dead. Now that cat had he chosen to, could've bailed out and lived, but for whatever reason stayed. Is that fair chase? If on a RSA lion hunt on a large property that has plenty of cover for a lion to sneak away through and hide in, has been given more than a few days to acclimate to his new environment and if the lion after being bumped a couple of times decides to hold his ground or even charge and is subsequently taken by the hunter, is that much different than the scenario I just described of the wild lion hunt?

I hope you don't take this as me challenging you, but as intended to be a continuation of the discussion. While I have no issue with RSA lion hunting when done properly, I really don't know whether I would go on such a hunt. Money precludes me from doing a wild lion hunt for sure. This really doesn't bother me anymore than I can't afford to have a Ferrari in my driveway. Besides that I have far more interest in a leopard hunt.

But the subject should interest all of us hunters regardless of whether we want to hunt lion or not and we all have to arrive at some conviction on the matter. Those convictions in the end are really just opinions based somewhat in objective evidence but are also highly subjective such as in the case of what is considered fair chase. There's no sense in arguing if someone's subjective opinion is right or wrong, it's just their opinion and you're not likely to change it. But discussing differing opinions I find valuable and worthwhile.

Yes Phil good points you make.

However in the South African scenario the lion has no choice , no chance. It is transported to a predetermined place to wait its fate. It would be born and raised behind fences and die within fences , no choice , no chance. With wild lions free roaming , some hunts you get lucky and sometimes the lion gets lucky coz there are few if any restrictions.

I reckon I might be happy if a hunter really wanted a South African lion so badly for a trophy , let the dang thing go on a wild piece of ground on 10 000 hectares " fenced " if you so wish , provide him a camp and meals and let him take his rifle without PH and trackers and let him hunt his lion. That at least would be approaching a more even scenario. He can call in for pickup assistance if he gets his lion down.

 

[LivingTheDream]

Roy,

I think you might be on to something. If there were lions in a 10000 hectacre area, no tracker/no PH I am sure guys would sign up for this hunt.

Could the guys be allowed to cull an animal or two for bait? Could they build blinds? Could they hunt with artificial light?

This would be a whole different type of safari.

 

[BRICKBURN]

You have to have that PH along at least as a drinking partner in Camp.
Oh yeah, back up is kinda handy too.

 

[LivingTheDream]

Definitely realize this couldn't be done under the current law, was more playing devil advocate and wondering how I would go about doing it.

Also the drinking buddy is definitely a plus.