Big Game Hunters Help the Animals
When I was in South Africa speaking a few years ago, Secondhand Smokette and I made a point of traveling to a big game park so we could view the wild animals at close quarters. We stayed at Umlani, which is in a private park, and had a superb time viewing lions, a cheetah, elephants galore (a big bull elephant is B.I.G!), giraffes aplenty, cape buffalo, rhinos, gazelles, hyenas--it was a fabulous adventure.
I had just read Matthew Scully's Dominion, in which he went berserk about elephant hunting. So, I had a long talk with the operators of the place about the issue--which takes place literally where they live--and asked their thoughts on culling. They told me that without culling, the ecology of the parks would be ruined by the elephants and other animals, since it is a closed system. Second, selling hunting licenses literally allows the parks to stay open. Indeed, the parks couldn't exist otherwise because the licenses provide the bulk of the parks' budgets. Funny, how Scully didn't mention that little point in his outrage over elephants being shot.
Now, further support for this position comes from a story published in the London Times . Big game hunting is good for conservation and it pays for park upkeep. It is therefore, beneficial to the animals, overall. This needs to be kept in mind the next time someone decries the killing of big game in Africa.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 9:36 PM
9 Comments
9 Comments:
Elephant overpopulation is a huge problem in Southern Africa. If they don't cull, the elephants run through farms and then the farmers end up killing the elephants anyway.
But, to many of my friends' suprise, I'm in favor of elephant hunting and even Icelandic whaling. At least, I'm not bothered by the theory.
People might come up with emotional arguments against hunting. But to do that, you need to rationalize why elephant/whale hunting is bad, but cow/pig hunting is OK. I'll leave that for another day.
The real problem as I see it is if we allow hunting in over-populated sub-populations, how do we prevent the hunting in near-extinct sub-populations. That is assuming the near extinct sub-populations should be kept from extinction.
If all the benefits of big-game hunters is local (i.e., licensing, food from game), then this effect will probably be minimized. But with the international trade in ivory and whalemeat, it isn't so easy to tell.
This probably doesn't change much on your post, but it is something to consider. I think the mainstream environmentalists would agree with me, that it's not hunting per se that's the problem, but the effect elsewhere. The pure animal-welfare activists would disagree, in that all hunting is wrong - big game or cow/pig.
Right, Royale. The issues are ecological and conservation, e.g. proper management. Not the act itself.
In 1997, the int'l community agreed to allow the export of some ivory from South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Namibia to Japan under CITES. The rationale for - Southern Africa managed their elephants too well and were overpopulated. The rationale against - smuggling of ivory from Congo and India into this bonafide trade.
I once did a presentation to my environmental management class on why I favored the CITES proposal. To my surprise, I was actually met with hostility, or at least a very strong reluctance. I guess I thought the class would be more practical and less emotional.
I think more practically minded people would be in favor of integrating hunting into ecological management due to its potential to really help. But I think the emotional side of it is very strong and comes up in unexpected places.
Why do you (or does anyone) think so many of us are so emotional about animals?
Why? Good question. They remind us of our pets, or perhaps ourselves, our childhood stuffed animals. There might be a deeper answer, but that's all that I can think of now.
But as well, it depends on WHICH animals. For you can argue a snail species has every right to exist as a panda bear, but people have generally are more emotionally invested in the latter.
The million dollar phrase for this is "charismatic macrofauna." Basically, the cuddly animals that people love - whales, pandas, seal cubs, etc...If you noticed, environmental groups typically include pictures of those on their mailers for donations.
Iceland's whaling apologist made a great argument - what is so inherent about whales to make them sacred from eating, but not cows or pigs? I can't think of a better answer than whales are cuddly and cute whereas pigs are not. The same for horses and dogs - in America, why don't we eat them?
I think people are emotional about animals because we yearn for lost innocence. It is also why there is so much misanthropy.
I'm all for the proper protection of all species, and not just because I have "four-legged children" instead of "pets" (two of the feline persuasion, one canine). If there's a God (I believe there is) then this planet is on loan to us and we don't have a right to be inhumane to animals - we don't own them. We're allowed to do medical research on them, hunt them, play with them, and study them, but we can't go around driving them to extinction.
So we need to be able to hunt them to keep the numbers in check, and we need to not over-hunt so that they don't decrease. We need to stop poachers and we need to increase legitimate hunting, with appropriate seaons and limits.
Any good hunter will tell you how important it is to have a large, healthy and happy group of animals to enjoy. We're all for conservation of land, pollution control, and eliminating poachers. We enjoy our sport and we love the animals that we hunt - the pleasure of the chase, the beauty of the animal, the benefits of fresh meat...
I love elephants. I want them to be happy and healthy and to have good population numbers, and if that means culling them in an appropriate fashion, then we need to do that to protect the creatures God gave us.
Oh, and Royale - if I were to find out that a species of snail was going extinct, I'd be as worried about that as the tigers - any time we screw up, nature takes note and something bad happens. It's better not to fool around and to do everything we can to keep the numbers of the animals we have around us up as long as possible. When nature decides to do away with something then okay, but until then we have to do our part.
I've said this before, but I think it's applicable here. But I see many parallels between the environmental concerns and embryos. If one has either concern, then they should be combined to a larger movement of protecting ALL life for life's sake with human exceptionalism being a capstone.
1. It's more coherent logically than to find nuances between them to justify giving of complete rights to one, but none to the other.
2. Political expediency. Again, pragmatics in tune with emotions is better.
Royale, you are a man after my own heart.
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