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Some sub-species are dwindling and others are thriving, there are farms in South Africa where they are raised, not unlike how you raise other animals for food c

Some sub-species are dwindling and others are thriving, there are farms in South Africa where they are raised, not unlike how you raise other animals for food consumption and then they do the whole trophy hunting thing with some of them. The hunting funds the the efforts to care for and breed the animals. Depending on the value of the Animals, farmers will spend big money on the care of the animals because there is profit to be made from it. Given how corrupt the governments are in that part of the world and the poverty this may be one of the only realistic options for preserving some species. When the population doesn't have the basics, let alone disposable income, funding for conservation tends to be de-prioritized.

aphextron 9y ago
> Given how corrupt the governments are in that part of the world and the poverty this may be one of the only realistic options for preserving some species. When the population doesn't have the basics, let alone disposable income, funding for conservation tends to be de-prioritized. I wish more people could understand this. Hunters paying for high dollar trophy hunts are literally the only thing keeping African megafauna from total extinction at this point. It may hurt for someone who loves animals in a "Disney" sense to understand this, but most hunters have a far deeper love, respect, and appreciation for the natural world than any new age "environmentalist". We (hunters) have been doing this work for generations now, and it's not pretty. Not everything can be turned into a touchy feely bumper sticker that agrees with your political stance. The reality is that wild animals are a natural resource which must be carefully managed if they are to continue existing.
- bradyo 9y ago
  What if we provided the proper funding and... didn't hunt them.
  - mlloyd 9y ago
    Nah...the only way to ensure their survival is to kill them. Makes perfect sense.
    - RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago
      Actually it does. Why do we have so many cows and chickens? We like to kill and eat them and that provides incentives to raise them, provide for them, and protect them so that we can kill them.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    Who's "we"? Who's volunteering to replace the large sums of money wealthy foreigners are willing to pay to shoot a lion?
    - dmix 9y ago
      This also glosses over the whole curropt government thing which prefaced the OPs argument above. Which is why its one of the few feasible means to help protect them.
      - emodendroket 9y ago
        Corruption or not, having a lucrative reason to leave animal habitats alone and try to keep the animals alive (or even encourage the species to increase in number, which has happened for some species) means that people are more likely to do that and less to despoil the land for other purposes.
    - herriojr 9y ago
      It's not just that. If you pay to shoot a lion, it's not going to be a young lion that will sire a lot of children. It will be an old lion that is actually reducing the potential population growth. This is a good thing if we want to increase the number of lions. Hunting is a necessary evil. In terms of US conservation locally, hunting is fairly highly regulated. It is actually needed in a lot of areas where people go hunting for deer due to natural predators no longer existing. If it wasn't for hunters, there would be large population growths of deer to the point where they begin to kill off other species that rely on the same food sources as well as starve themselves. In the past, before things were so regulated, it wasn't unusual for populations to be decimated by humans. Passenger Pigeons are now extinct; Deer, Bison, and Elk in certain areas were killed off. Heck, in Ohio, Deer were reintroduced after being decimated, so they would run-a-muck if there was no hunting unless they were to reintroduce wolves to the area (good luck getting people to agree with this). All of this is due to humans creating imbalances in nature that conservation is now trying to keep in check, and hunting is necessary for certain species which no longer have natural predators, or in the case of lions, to ensure males that will sire more children get a chance to. Here's some Ohio History on Fauna: https://ocvn.osu.edu/news/ohios-wild-history-frontier-fauna-1750-present https://ocvn.osu.edu/news/ohios-wild-history-frontier-fauna-... TLDR -- unchecked hunting bad, regulated hunting good
  - aphextron 9y ago
    And what if we all stood in line at the Red Cross giving blood every day at the rate which they desperately need it? And what if we just funded every charity on earth with every penny of taxpayer dollars? I’m all for any solution that doesnt involve hunting. But the fact is that altruism has its limits, and pretending like that’s not the case is threatening the existence of these animals.
- spacehome 9y ago
  I don't take issue with your main point, but it's difficult for me to understand how you can want to shoot something you "love". Is it possible to explain this to a non-hunter?
yongjik 9y ago
Given how the Asian demand for rhino horns brought them down to near-extinction (or actual extinction, in case of the northern white rhinos), I'm doubtful that demand for hunting will protect the ecosystem in a meaningful way. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd like to see hard numbers, not just some feel-good anecdotes about local people raising giraffes for hunting.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  I don't think anybody is arguing for poaching or unrestricted hunting. The kind of programs we're talking about are more limited and very expensive to participate in (like buy-a-new-car territory) and, while it's controversial, there does seem to be evidence suggesting it is effective. This recent article goes into it in depth https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/10/trophy-hunting-killing-saving-animals/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/10/trophy-h...
lgleason 9y ago
Lots of great conversation here. With the private game farms, some more context for people who are not familiar with them. They are generally facilities with 100's of acres of land and high fences around the perimeters to keep the animals in and the poachers etc out. Each animal has a dollar value associated with them. A Blesbok(type of Antelope) goes for about $400(what they charge a hunter if they get one) and it goes up to $50,000+ to get a Cape Buffalo. Needless to say there is a lot of incentive to take care of the animals. For example one time I was visiting a family member that owns a Cape Buffalo farm in South Africa when someone left one of the gates open overnight. The herd of 50 got out and went a few miles down the road. That day was a "all hands on deck" to herd the ~2.5 million dollars of live stock back to the farm. There was a vet on stand by and they brought in a helicopter to do a survey and assist. The operation makes makes money for him, he employs a people and brings in money from tourists etc. and he is incentivised, by money he makes from his business, to take care of the animals. This is in sharp contrast to the government of South Africa that has trouble taking care of the basics for the majority of the population, like education, at times maintaining reliable electricity (ask people there about the Escomm rolling power cuts when the grid is over capacity, or water in Cape Town... the water crisis has much more to do with poor utility management than climate change), most middle class people hire armed response private security services and don't rely on the police for security, etc.. Another relative works for a company the does municipal land valuations for tax assessments. It is not uncommon that they will get a contract, perform all of the things required for the contract, but then the municipality will hold off on paying (6+ months) until his company takes legal action, puts on lien on the municipalities assets and begins to seize them by going in and physically starting to take furniture, cars etc.. Some brought up a good point with the conservation efforts to hunt the older animals in the wild. Those permits can help to fund the conservation effort, but given how corrupt the government is there, someone with money could pay off a bureaucrat to look the other way with a permit etc... and then will the money actually be put into conservation efforts. I could write a book on this (and have to an extent here) but this is in one of the larger, more developed economies in Africa that some refer to as “Africa Light”. Now imagine what is happening in African countries with even less functional governments.
- vaMukanya 9y ago

aphextron 9y ago

> Given how corrupt the governments are in that part of the world and the poverty this may be one of the only realistic options for preserving some species. When the population doesn't have the basics, let alone disposable income, funding for conservation tends to be de-prioritized. I wish more people could understand this. Hunters paying for high dollar trophy hunts are literally the only thing keeping African megafauna from total extinction at this point. It may hurt for someone who loves animals in a "Disney" sense to understand this, but most hunters have a far deeper love, respect, and appreciation for the natural world than any new age "environmentalist". We (hunters) have been doing this work for generations now, and it's not pretty. Not everything can be turned into a touchy feely bumper sticker that agrees with your political stance. The reality is that wild animals are a natural resource which must be carefully managed if they are to continue existing.

bradyo 9y ago
What if we provided the proper funding and... didn't hunt them.
- mlloyd 9y ago
  Nah...the only way to ensure their survival is to kill them. Makes perfect sense.
  - RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago
    Actually it does. Why do we have so many cows and chickens? We like to kill and eat them and that provides incentives to raise them, provide for them, and protect them so that we can kill them.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  Who's "we"? Who's volunteering to replace the large sums of money wealthy foreigners are willing to pay to shoot a lion?
  - dmix 9y ago
    This also glosses over the whole curropt government thing which prefaced the OPs argument above. Which is why its one of the few feasible means to help protect them.
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      Corruption or not, having a lucrative reason to leave animal habitats alone and try to keep the animals alive (or even encourage the species to increase in number, which has happened for some species) means that people are more likely to do that and less to despoil the land for other purposes.
  - herriojr 9y ago
    It's not just that. If you pay to shoot a lion, it's not going to be a young lion that will sire a lot of children. It will be an old lion that is actually reducing the potential population growth. This is a good thing if we want to increase the number of lions. Hunting is a necessary evil. In terms of US conservation locally, hunting is fairly highly regulated. It is actually needed in a lot of areas where people go hunting for deer due to natural predators no longer existing. If it wasn't for hunters, there would be large population growths of deer to the point where they begin to kill off other species that rely on the same food sources as well as starve themselves. In the past, before things were so regulated, it wasn't unusual for populations to be decimated by humans. Passenger Pigeons are now extinct; Deer, Bison, and Elk in certain areas were killed off. Heck, in Ohio, Deer were reintroduced after being decimated, so they would run-a-muck if there was no hunting unless they were to reintroduce wolves to the area (good luck getting people to agree with this). All of this is due to humans creating imbalances in nature that conservation is now trying to keep in check, and hunting is necessary for certain species which no longer have natural predators, or in the case of lions, to ensure males that will sire more children get a chance to. Here's some Ohio History on Fauna: https://ocvn.osu.edu/news/ohios-wild-history-frontier-fauna-1750-present https://ocvn.osu.edu/news/ohios-wild-history-frontier-fauna-... TLDR -- unchecked hunting bad, regulated hunting good
- aphextron 9y ago
  And what if we all stood in line at the Red Cross giving blood every day at the rate which they desperately need it? And what if we just funded every charity on earth with every penny of taxpayer dollars? I’m all for any solution that doesnt involve hunting. But the fact is that altruism has its limits, and pretending like that’s not the case is threatening the existence of these animals.
spacehome 9y ago
I don't take issue with your main point, but it's difficult for me to understand how you can want to shoot something you "love". Is it possible to explain this to a non-hunter?

yongjik 9y ago

Given how the Asian demand for rhino horns brought them down to near-extinction (or actual extinction, in case of the northern white rhinos), I'm doubtful that demand for hunting will protect the ecosystem in a meaningful way. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd like to see hard numbers, not just some feel-good anecdotes about local people raising giraffes for hunting.

emodendroket 9y ago
I don't think anybody is arguing for poaching or unrestricted hunting. The kind of programs we're talking about are more limited and very expensive to participate in (like buy-a-new-car territory) and, while it's controversial, there does seem to be evidence suggesting it is effective. This recent article goes into it in depth https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/10/trophy-hunting-killing-saving-animals/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/10/trophy-h...

lgleason 9y ago

Lots of great conversation here. With the private game farms, some more context for people who are not familiar with them. They are generally facilities with 100's of acres of land and high fences around the perimeters to keep the animals in and the poachers etc out. Each animal has a dollar value associated with them. A Blesbok(type of Antelope) goes for about $400(what they charge a hunter if they get one) and it goes up to $50,000+ to get a Cape Buffalo. Needless to say there is a lot of incentive to take care of the animals. For example one time I was visiting a family member that owns a Cape Buffalo farm in South Africa when someone left one of the gates open overnight. The herd of 50 got out and went a few miles down the road. That day was a "all hands on deck" to herd the ~2.5 million dollars of live stock back to the farm. There was a vet on stand by and they brought in a helicopter to do a survey and assist. The operation makes makes money for him, he employs a people and brings in money from tourists etc. and he is incentivised, by money he makes from his business, to take care of the animals. This is in sharp contrast to the government of South Africa that has trouble taking care of the basics for the majority of the population, like education, at times maintaining reliable electricity (ask people there about the Escomm rolling power cuts when the grid is over capacity, or water in Cape Town... the water crisis has much more to do with poor utility management than climate change), most middle class people hire armed response private security services and don't rely on the police for security, etc.. Another relative works for a company the does municipal land valuations for tax assessments. It is not uncommon that they will get a contract, perform all of the things required for the contract, but then the municipality will hold off on paying (6+ months) until his company takes legal action, puts on lien on the municipalities assets and begins to seize them by going in and physically starting to take furniture, cars etc.. Some brought up a good point with the conservation efforts to hunt the older animals in the wild. Those permits can help to fund the conservation effort, but given how corrupt the government is there, someone with money could pay off a bureaucrat to look the other way with a permit etc... and then will the money actually be put into conservation efforts. I could write a book on this (and have to an extent here) but this is in one of the larger, more developed economies in Africa that some refer to as “Africa Light”. Now imagine what is happening in African countries with even less functional governments.

vaMukanya 9y ago