4 ms·
Not sure if you read the article but Jacques specifically states there's a clear difference between a rich dude shooting the Elephant and a native Zimbabwean ga
by kwantam 16y ago
Not sure if you read the article but Jacques specifically states there's a clear difference between a rich dude shooting the Elephant and a native Zimbabwean game warden doing it to protect his crops (which btw, there are many other ways of going about that than shooting it). The psychology behind the former doing it can be extremely powerful (and enraging) compared to the latter.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the elephant ends up dead either way. If the Zimbabwean government can monetize a practice that would otherwise cost them money (viz., protecting crops from elephants) and simultaneously a dude with excess money can get some recreational activity out of it, it seems like it's a win-win.
There obviously are some issues with this, e.g., if the government's only interest is moneymaking rather than proper wildlife husbandry, then they're incentivized short-term to sell the rights to kill every elephant around. But no one is going around complaining that there's insufficient evidence of proper husbandry here; rather, they're complaining because a big mammal that lots of us read about in storybooks as kids just got shot.
I'd be pissed if this were a case where they obviously baited the elephants or were just slaughtering the animals indiscriminately. This obviously isn't the case, though.