2 ms·
Morality aside, not every animal in the world can be bred and used for sport hunting. In fact, very few animals can even be domesticated, and the ones that are
by astrodust 10y ago
Morality aside, not every animal in the world can be bred and used for sport hunting. In fact, very few animals can even be domesticated, and the ones that are common now are in that exclusive club of those that are useful and can be domesticated.
People have tried for centuries to domesticate elephants and have failed. The best we can do now is train them.
Killing elephants for a small amount of ivory is extremely wasteful. If you could bio-engineer some kind of ivory-growing organism, or make some already domesticated animal grow ivory horns (e.g. cows, goats) then you might be able to boost supply to a degree that's meaningful.
- avar 10y agoWhat does domestication have to do with the utility of animals for sport hunting? Those are entirely different things. The grizzly, black bear, moose, buffalo, deer, countless bird species etc. can't be domesticated, but they can be hunted without endangering their species as a whole.
- astrodust 10y agoThey're notably not endangered any more than raccoons or skunks are. There's sufficiently large wild populations that limited sport hunting will have a minimal impact on their survival. This is not the same with rare species like elephants, especially those that take decades to fully mature and have extremely complex social structures that are violently disrupted by poaching. Bears and moose are largely independent. Buffalo and deer work in herds, but are constantly victims of predation to keep their numbers in check. Elephants and rhinos do not have a lot of predators other than humans, and the biggest threat to their existence may very well be poachers.