Hunting

[Aman A.K.A. Ahamburger]

Hunting might not be for everyone but the cold hard facts right from the mouths of most conservation groups, wildlife management experts and African governments: "Hunting, they contend, is part of a complex economy that has so far proven to be the most effective method of conservation, not only in Africa but around the world as well."

The fact is that money from selling licenses is invested into building and maintaining micro ecosystems that support not only the animals, but vital parts of the economy for some nations. The harsh reality for most "upper east side" minded people is that hunters care for and maintain nature far better than any city has, ever. In fact, cities and farming are responsible for the majority of imbalances that have been created in nature, not hunting.

So while the pictures of hunters posing with their trophies might offend please try to remember that poaching is the problem, and any good hunter I know wouldn't hesitate for a second to turn in a poacher.

Outcry for Cecil the Lion Could Undercut Conservation Efforts

“My trophy hunting price is $2,500” for a kudu, more than 10 times what the meat of one of the antelopes would bring, he said.

“You stop trophy hunting, the live market is going to change completely; it’ll go to meat value, really,” less than 60 cents a pound, he added. “So that will deprive the national parks and the provincial parks of a lot of their budget.”

Many scientists agree with him.

Despite intensifying calls to ban or restrict trophy hunting in Africa after the killing of a lion named Cecil in Zimbabwe, most conservation groups, wildlife management experts and African governments support the practice as a way to maintain wildlife. Hunting, they contend, is part of a complex economy that has so far proven to be the most effective method of conservation, not only in Africa but around the world as well.

While hunting is banned in government parks here in South Africa, animals inside their boundaries are routinely sold to game ranches when their populations are considered excessive, generating money to maintain habitats and fight poachers.

And because trophy hunting is legal in private game reserves, the animals end up fetching higher prices than they would in being killed for food or other reasons, conservationists contend. Lion hunts, one of the most lucrative forms of trophy hunting, bring in between $24,000 and $71,000 per outing on average across Africa, according to a 2012 study. In southern Africa, the emergence of a regulated trophy hunting industry on private game ranches in the 1960s helped restore vast stretches of degraded habitats and revive certain species, like the southern white rhinoceros, which had been hunted almost to extinction, conservationists say.

A similar shift occurred in the United States decades earlier when the Pittman-Robertson Act of 1937 allocated the proceeds from hunting to bring back lands and animals, they argue.

“There’s only two places on the earth where wildlife at a large scale has actually increased in the 20th century, and those are North America and southern Africa,” said Rosie Cooney, a zoologist who is the chairwoman of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Sustainable Use and Livelihoods Specialist Group. “Both of those models of conservation were built around hunting.”