Trophy Hunting Is Like The Fossil Fuel Industry

Trophy hunting is like the fossil fuel industry. They’re both messy, unsustainable, in need of an alternative approach and, ultimately, fail to deliver on their promises.

Trophy hunting is a colonial construct with an anachronistic view on the environment. While it has served certain interests, its failures to effectively deliver on wider conservation promises and its negative impacts outweigh any benefits it accrues. It’s time to search for more effective and sustainable alternatives.

Despite being entrenched in conservation programmes, doubts around trophy hunting started a long time back. Some argue that distaste for sport killing began when Theodore Roosevelt returned from East Africa in 1909 with his hunting bag of over 500 trophies, including 17 lions, 11 elephants and 20 rhino.

Back then, indiscriminate hunting had already placed many of the continent’s charismatic species under threat. Today, and with many of these same species still facing the same plight, the question now is whether trophy hunting has any role to play in securing their future in protected areas across the continent.

And the challenge comes against the backdrop of an industry that is increasingly defined by poor regulation, perverse practices, corruption and a lack of transparency, and has its participants, the wealthy collectors of animal heads and horns, going after a dwindling gene pool that everyone else is trying to secure. And this is not to mention what may in the end be one of the most telling factors; data in the USA and other countries showing a decrease in the number of young hunters, along with increasing opposition to hunting from the general populace.

Few have been as forthright in their questioning as Dan Ashe, a former Director of the US Fish & Wildlife Service. “The argument that we need to hunt endangered animals, to conserve them, is old and tired,” he said earlier this year. Ashe went on to highlight a fundamental issue of concern: if hunting of endangered species is not permitted as a conservation option in the USA, why should it be promoted as such across Africa? “If elephants were native to the US they would not be hunted. And neither would lions, rhinos, or leopards,” he pointed out.

His sentiments are shared by a growing number involved in conservation. Among them is Dereck Joubert, a renowned wildlife film-maker and CEO of the Big Cat Initiative who says that “the case for hunting gets thinner every time it’s tested”.

Typically, the wildlife research community have tended to avoid the arguments that swirl around trophy hunting, sticking instead to their specific scientific endeavours. However, whatever support they give, mostly comes with strongly worded caveats that hunting must be ‘well-regulated’, ‘transparent’ and make definitive ‘contributions’ to protection.

These are hardly ringing endorsements, but they defer to the thinking that in a vacuum of alternative solutions to replace trophy hunting as a land-use option for conservation, they have little choice but to accept or tolerate it.

Some however are beginning to speak out. Dr Andrew Loveridge is well-known for his long-standing research of lions in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe, which included Cecil who was killed by the infamous Minnesotan dentist, Walter Palmer. In his recently released book, Lion Hearted, Dr Loveridge, while not dissing hunting entirely, puts it rather bluntly. “In reality, hunting greatly undervalues African wildlife. That is not to say that people do not become rich through hunting. They do. But little of the financial gain filters down to covering costs of conserving wildlife.”

And research in Zambia, Zimbabwe and Tanzania by leading carnivore experts have fingered unsustainable trophy hunting as a primary reason for declining predator populations.

There are also questions being asked of researchers funded by the likes of organizations such as Safari Club International (SCI) who more than any other outcome, want the hunting arenas kept open. In a report published in the USA by the US Congress Committee on Natural Resources (June 13th, 2016), the authors warn about the pitfalls of soliciting information and data from hunting organizations. “Indeed, a recent assessment of lion population status across Africa found no scientific merit in any of the SCI-funded “surveys” that had been conducted in various range states.” In the Summary, the report concludes that while in some areas hunting is managed well, “Even in countries with better execution of wildlife conservation plans, significant questions remain about whether or not trophy hunting is sustainable.”

And the position of governments is also beginning to shift. We still see institutional backing in certain quarters, the European Union and some African countries for example, but the fact that countries such as the USA, France, Netherlands and Australia have begun to scrutinize the efficacy of legislation and procedures for specific African countries, and the impacts of hunting on certain species is a significant change.

There has also been a shift in Africa. Botswana stopped all trophy hunting in 2013, and more recently the Tanzanian government has begun to question the role and impacts of its trophy hunting industry. And in South Africa, tourism coalition groups from around the world have mobilised against trophy hunting in some of the private reserves bordering the Kruger National Park.

In essence, the nub of the debate boils down to hunters needing to justify their sport. And they do this by proffering that the best way to protect species in Africa is to kill them. In the process, they claim hunting deals with poaching in protected areas, and that money trickles down to protect species and habitat as well as uplifting rural communities.

Photographic tourism is a far more effective and sustainable way of achieving all these objectives, and it happens without the collateral damage that comes with killing the gene pool. This stance by no means suggests that every component of the so-called non-consumptive tourism sector is in good order. Far from it, as we only need to look at the madness during the Great Migration crossings in the Masai Mara, the over-crowding at predator sightings in other parks and reserves, and the cruelty of the cub-petting sectors as examples to see that.

However, in the longer term, trophy hunting may well be inconsistent with what conservationists are trying to achieve. Driven by the passionate demands of those involved in the killing, the activity is defined through the constant search for the best trophies. Because of this, the hunting lobby will always promote their own interests over and above the long-term interests of the species and its habitat.

Part of the problem is that conservation of protected areas gets defined through a two-option lens promoting the notion that if certain regions don’t have trophy hunting, they are then doomed to be lost forever. We should no longer be obstructed by this narrow logic; as sure as wind and solar have proved to be viable and sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels, there are other options to protecting habitat and species. We have just not put our minds to it yet.

In the end, using trophy hunting as an indicator of conservation success is a mismeasurement of what we are trying to achieve. It’s much like using growth domestic product (GDP) as an indicator of human well-being across the planet. Both are crude and short-sighted tools that tell a fraction of the story while concealing the damage.

We all agree that Africa is in urgent need of greater funding at various levels, and in the face of declining populations and biodiversity, better ways of caring for the environment. As was eventually the case with fossil fuels, if undertaken as a collaborative process by the wider conservation, scientific, ecotourism, governmental and donor communities, alternatives to trophy hunting can be found.

And we should not expect immediate changes or results. Transitions are a process requiring significant adaptive challenges by all stakeholders and at various levels.


Source: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opi...trophy-hunting-is-unsustainable/#.Wwa55EiFPIV

Peter Flack posted an article in reply to this article above: Hunting Facts Vs Animal Rights Fiction: https://www.africahunting.com/threads/hunting-facts-vs-animal-rights-fiction.43503/.

Thanks for sharing!

The first sentence of this article screams of a college sophomore trying to impress the TA grading his English paper.

I cant speak to trophy hunting endangered species, doe this happen? But I can specifically site the roll hunting has played in my home state of KY!
When I was a teen, a thousand years ago we only hunted rabbit and squirrel. There were no deer turkey and elk! now thanks to our fish and wildlife Dept, that is solely
funded through licence fee's (they receive no state funding) we have a growing population with more permits for all three species being allotted every year. Now I am not the smartest
in the world, but isn't that the definition of sustainability? There is no reasoning with Libtard's!!!!!

Just another progressive & photo tour operator. No facts just argument.

The irony is that far more species are being wiped out by deforestation to produce meat free products than are being wiped out by managed hunting. Why dont they jump all over that? Left wing people don't want facts they're only interested in emotional charged crap that'll get similar idiots to agree because it kinda makes sense to them at face value, doesn't matter what part of the world you're in they're all the same.

We have groups in Australia fighting against the commercial dog food business in kangaroo because we're driving them to extinction. They even made a documentary about it and we recently had a greens politician travel to Europe to tell other countries leaders to stop importing it. Never mind the fact we have 50,000,000 kangaroos in Australia. And yes that number is correct 50 million roos, there's only 25 million people for reference.

And I've heard all about the roos going extinct lately as people hear I'm going to Australia

To me hunting, including trophy hunting, is similar to agriculture and the forestry I industries, at it pertains to sustainable use of natural resources. Especially comparing hunting in Africa to those very well managed industries in North America. And I don't only mean the Game Farms but most all managed hunting .

ActionBob said:

And I've heard all about the roos going extinct lately as people hear I'm going to Australia

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What are you doing down in Aus?

It's only the urbanites who know kangaroos only from tv shows that are concerned for them. I challenge anyone to go out in rural australia at first light and not see mobs of them! Given that it's illegal to hunt kangaroos without a commercial license or damage control permit you can tell those concerned I think they might just survive

As a hunter and a petroleum engineer that has spent a 30+year career in the fossil fuel industry and even longer hunting, I am offended by this article. Makes me want to get in my car and drive to the airport, fly to Africa and go hunt something.

JPbowhunter said:

What are you doing down in Aus?

It's only the urbanites who know kangaroos only from tv shows that are concerned for them. I challenge anyone to go out in rural australia at first light and not see mobs of them! Given that it's illegal to hunt kangaroos without a commercial license or damage control permit you can tell those concerned I think they might just survive

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Buff hunting

Power Hungry? A rebuttal to Ian Michler’s article “Like the fossil fuel industry, trophy hunting is unsustainable”. By Karen Seginak

Dear Mr. Michler,

I recently read your article suggesting that trophy hunting (TH) is unsustainable and comparable to the fossil fuel industry. Your criticisms are directed towards the African continent, a place where approximately 60% of the residents currently have no electricity from any source, and yet you describe both fossil fuels and TH as being “anachronistic views on the environment”. Interesting, albeit inapplicable.

Let me preface all that I am about to say that as a hunter, wildlife biologist, photographer, angler and traveler, I participate in a variety of outdoor activities and I contribute to conservation in a blend of ways. I am deeply concerned about doing all that we can to properly manage wildlife and wildlands around the globe, and firmly believe that we should all be committed to doing what we can to help all flora and fauna thrive on into perpetuity.

Therefore, I will never condone the elimination of any conservation stakeholder group that does positively contribute to these goals. TH does do that, whether it suits your own personal ideals or not, Mr. Michler. To suggest ending an effective practice based upon your personal preferences makes me question whether you are truly interested in conservation or is it more about getting your own way?

So, let’s look a little further at some things you express in your article. You mention that the anti-hunting sentiment possibly started in the early 1900’s, when Theodore Roosevelt killed an enormous number of trophies whilst on safari in East Africa. Perhaps. Although there are some interesting things to add here. The early 1900’s were a vastly different period than current times. Indiscriminate hunting did indeed threaten “charismatic” species “back then” as you say.

Unregulated hunting threatened much more than simply the charismatic species back then, and these animals were not killed as trophies either. Many were killed to feed people, to make lands more suitable for human occupation, to make money via market hunting, or simply out of fear and misunderstanding. These sorts of indiscriminate killings still continue, particularly on the African continent, but it’s imperative to mention who is currently responsible.

It is the poachers, illegal wildlife traffickers, those affected by human-wildlife conflict, the illegal bushmeat trade, and the anti-hunters as well. Anti-hunters seem to have little to no understanding of how their desire to see no animals killed by legal hunters so often results in actions that cause many more animals to be killed due to land conversion, a depletion of resources or intolerance and resulting persecution.

Your one-sided portrayal of Theodore Roosevelt as a greedy killer also fails to tell the full story. Due to his firsthand experience with unregulated killing and witnessing the resulting decimation of wildlife, he went on to do great things for conservation and became known as the “conservationist president”. He realized full well that hunting needed to be regulated to be sustainable, and that habitat is the key to maintaining healthy populations of all species. During his presidency, he went on to designate approximately 230 million acres of public lands for conservation purposes, in the form of national forests, wildlife refuges, game preserves, parks and monuments.

And hunters continue his legacy today, leading efforts to create and conserve wildlife habitat on both public and private lands. Additionally, along with fellow hunter George Bird Grinnell, he joined forces with even more hunters to develop the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation, which is widely considered one of the most successful wildlife management models in the world, along with that of South Africa’s. Both models include regulated hunting as one of their basic tenets and major funding sources.

You mention that there is a decrease in the number of young hunters in the USA and other countries. True, but just as comparing wildlife population numbers with those of times gone by can be misleading, so is viewing this trend without perspective. The USA population has become increasingly urban, with over 80% of citizens now living in urban or suburban areas.

Urbanization limits hunting interest both in terms of land conversion and also in ease of access to hunting areas as urban sprawl continues. Africa fights many wildlife challenges due primarily to land conversion also – but from rapidly expanding rural populations in addition to urban ones, as only about 40% of Africans currently live in urban areas.

That brings me to your claim of the increase in opposition to hunting from the general populace. Just who is the “general populace”? In America, it is the urbanites, whom I feel should not rule the rural areas with their opinions. In Africa, it’s the rural dwellers, who often are not even asked their opinion or else are overruled by the urbanites, hailing from both within continent and abroad.

You mention two people who state that the arguments for TH are “old and tired” or “thinning”. The first of these men is Dan Ashe, former director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. His quote you include in your article is in direct opposition to one of his from December of 2015, when the announcement was made to halt the import of lion trophies into the USA.

Dan had this to say in an official USFWS statement – “Sustainable trophy hunting as part of a well-managed conservation program can and does contribute to the survival of the species in the wild, providing real incentives to oppose poaching and conserve lion populations”. Very interesting. Perhaps you can explain this double speak?

Or at least reflect upon the hazards of selectively quoting people? You also state that Dan says the hunting of certain species of certain population levels would not happen if they occurred in America, then why should we approve of it in Africa? Well, because Africa is a much different place than America, with different challenges to wildlife, different funding opportunities, and different law enforcement realities, just for starters, really. And the second man you mention is Dereck Joubert. You use his quote to illustrate that anti-TH sentiments are shared by a growing number involved in conservation. In the vast majority of anti-TH/pro photo safari pieces I read, Mr. Joubert is the one person quoted. N=1 is not, by any means, a “growing number”.

Next, you state that the scientific community supports TH with caveats that it must be well-regulated, transparent and make definitive contributions to protection. I, as well as many others, would readily suggest that the same caveats hold true to any nonhunting businesses who commodify wildlife as well. But I would use the word conservation instead of protection, as a defining feature of conservation is wise use, not a completely hands-off approach.

You also state that Dr. Loveridge criticizes TH by saying that little of the financial gain filters down to covering costs of conserving wildlife. I’m uncertain how anyone concerned about conservation or familiar with the TH industry could make such a statement in good conscience. The hunting safari industry has many examples of rewilding formerly abused lands, increasing existing wildlife populations on already intact lands, and curbing poaching rates, not to mention benefits conferred to local communities as well, both mandatory ones in many situations as well as voluntary ones.

The anti-hunting proponents either have little to no actual examples of such successes – or are often reaping the benefits of such efforts by the hunting industry and completely failing to recognize those who make their businesses possible by providing the wildlife, both currently and historically. And when an anti-hunter criticizes the TH industry for lack of transparency and not enough money trickling down, I always look for evidence that such critics meet these criteria themselves or are superior in doing so. I’m typically disappointed in what I find.

The website for your own safari company, Ian, mentions nothing about how much of your profits you contribute to conservation. And that is true of many such non-hunting tourism websites I look at. I often, however, hear the claim that photo safaris generate much more money than TH safaris do, are able to charge more per night for accommodations, and thousands of people can enjoy viewing even just one iconic animal vs. one trophy hunter killing that animal.

Such claims sound like photo safaris should be quite lucrative and should potentially generate much money for conservation. If so, why aren’t these operators shouting from the rooftops about their contributions instead of bragging about their luxurious accommodations and authentic “Africana” they offer the discerning traveler?

You state that TH depletes gene pools. I’d like to hear a further, plausible explanation of that. TH typically occurs at rates of take in the single digit percentages of a population annually. When appropriate habitat is available, reproduction and recruitment rates are adequate, and no significant additional causes of fatalities occur, this low of a percentage is not even enough to hardly put a dent in most populations, let alone “deplete gene pools”.

TH focuses on males, with older males the most preferred. These animals have already had a chance to pass on their genes and are sometimes killed by younger males seeking dominance or territoriality and its subsequent breeding rights, depending upon the species.

Depending upon the mating system of the species in question, not all males may even ever get the chance to breed, no matter how long they live. Just because you are male does not guarantee that you will ever be a sire. And even amongst those that do get to procreate, usually their tenure as sires is limited to a brief span of time. And males only contribute half of the genetic material to their offspring anyway. Females, who are largely protected by TH, contribute the other half. In most species, females are more likely to reproduce than are males, even in the absence of TH.

Producing a true trophy quality animal requires time and appropriate habitat resources, plus a healthy age structure in a population. Your claim of TH depleting gene pools only makes sense if a hunting operator goes in and kills off every single male of trophy age or quality, leaving only subadult males incapable of breeding, and then returns to kill these animals when they are mature but have not bred yet – and that no new males enter the population by any other means. No one does this. If only for the very obvious, basic reason that they would not be able to stay in business for very long if they did, would they?

There are TH outfitters who have been quite successful for decades now in producing trophy animals. That, to me, does not fit the definition of unsustainable. So, quite frankly, your claim that searching for trophies leads to promoting one’s own interests over and above the long-term interests of the species and its habitat is sheer bunk.

You simply cannot consistently produce trophy quality animals without time, appropriately managed habitat and an appropriate prey base in the case of predator species. There is one surefire way of depleting the gene pool, however, and that is indiscriminate, unregulated killing of animals. Poaching, loss of habitat and the illegal bushmeat trade are unequivocally guilty of this. Why do you not crusade against such sure things like this as hard as you do against TH?

I’m also interested in hearing more about your claim that “photo tourism is a far more effective and sustainable way of achieving all of these objectives” (meaning curbing poaching, protecting habitat and up-lifting rural communities). This is confusing to me, as you then go on to say that there are alternatives to TH as a means of protecting habitat and species, but we “just haven’t put our minds to it yet”. Can you explain this?

You assert that photo tourism is superior but then you say we haven’t put our minds yet to achieving conservation goals. Are you saying that photo safaris have been mindless, ineffective pursuits thus far with no real results? I don’t, of course, agree with that, as I believe photo safaris do have their place in conservation, just as TH safaris do. You also assert as part of your analogy that wind and solar power have proven to be viable and sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels. Are you forgetting that wind and solar still require plenty of subsidization, are only appropriate in places with adequate resources, require new infrastructure to be built, and are so far unable to outcompete fossil fuels?

Hmm, maybe your analogy backfired a bit on you there, as there are similar concerns with proposing that all of Africa can be run on photo safaris or non-consumptive tourism alone. Kenya seems to have found this out the hard way and has begun re-evaluating that singular approach, and there are now murmurings that Botswana is seeing ill effects from banning TH on all but private lands as well. It seems that more realistic, workable approaches to conservation are going to require a variety of stakeholders.

Lastly, you state that all of Africa is in urgent need of greater funding at various levels. No doubt. Which begs the question – what are you prepared to do once you accomplish your goal of eliminating TH – a primary one of those funding sources? If funding is inadequate now, how will cutting out one source improve that scenario? Especially since many trophy hunters also pull multiple duty as tourists or philanthropic donors to rural communities, contributing to conservation in that way as well? How do you plan to ensure that conservation occurs on lands too marginal, remote or unphotogenic to realistically sustain photo tourism?

Continuing to host clients at already established, traditional tourist venues such as your own safari company does, will not achieve that goal. Remove the hunting operators from these such lands, and it’s no secret at all that they quickly get converted to uses largely incompatible with wildlife. I urge you, however, to try to take over one or more of the hunting concessions turned back into the government in places like Tanzania or Botswana, in large part due to the anti-hunting movement pushing its self-centered agenda.

Invest your money and labor in these places and show the world that your entirely non-consumptive model for wildlife conservation can work – in all situations, not just the ideal ones. Start with one concession, extend your model to others in a self-sustaining fashion for at least a few decades, and then I, as well as many others, will find it much easier to believe your convictions.

In the meantime, I’d suggest that if you are truly concerned about effective conservation on the African continent, one of the best things you could do is stop spreading damaging propaganda about the TH industry. You claim that “significant, adaptive challenges will be necessary by all stakeholders” – and yet your words seek to cause the elimination of a long standing, important stakeholder in conservation – the TH safari industry.

No adaptation is possible with the extinction your scenario proposes. Instead of eliminating a stakeholder, may I suggest that you try putting your own personal preferences aside to accommodate tolerance? Many TH outfitters also offer photo safaris and I have yet to meet one who firmly believes that no one should be allowed to conduct photo safaris – even if they themselves don’t have the slightest interest in photography.

And I also have yet to meet a TH outfitter who does not strive for healthy populations of wildlife that can realistically be supported sustainably, whilst also trying hard to curb all of the other unsustainable challenges that Africa’s wildlife truly does face – like land conversion, poaching, desertification, expanding human populations, etc. If TH safari operators are willing to fight the same challenges you are and are willing to work towards the same goal as you are, then why can you not adopt a tolerant, cooperative approach instead of insisting upon an eliminatory, intolerant one? Again, where exactly do your priorities lie?

I’ll conclude with an extension of your energy industry analogy. Perhaps conservation efforts and the production thereof share a more important trait with electricity sources? It’s all too easy for those of us who have electricity to take it for granted, not bothering to truly understand how it’s produced and the costs thereof, expect it to be provided cheaply, rely heavily upon it, and then bemoan its absence when it goes out. So many parallels to conservation, indeed.

Sincerely,

Karen Seginak


Source: http://theconservationimperative.com/?p=675

This Animal Cracker's article ignores all of the serious threats to wildlife. All of them. And he is opposed to the only real source of money to save them. That is his right. But he offers no proof of his foolish statements.....but uses "colonialism", "unsustainable" and many other terms and asks his readers to simply assume they are true. The analogy I think of is this: Two California politicians recently won their districts primary representing the "Democratic Socialist Party". That's right. despite 200 years and dozens of countries proving that Socialism doesnt work. (Try living in Venezuela, for example )The same with hunting. When it goes, so goes the wildlife.......many, many examples in history. Animal Crackers never learn............FWB

Karen's rebuttal is awesome.

I'm glad she's on our side. LOL

Another silly article by an intellectual! First of all these folks fail to understand that animals die everyday and that is part of nature and we as hunters are part of nature. Not all animals are pets and live to a ripe old age!
Much to say here buy you all know the story as do I.
Philip

Royal27 said:

Karen's rebuttal is awesome.

I'm glad she's on our side. LOL

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No kidding!