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> 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. Whe

> 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
    - acjohnson55 9y ago
- 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?

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
  - acjohnson55 9y ago
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?