Trophy
Hunting : A Myth of Conservation
My introduction
to the controversial business of trophy hunting began in 2010 during the 2010
FIFA World Cup held in South Africa where thousands of football fans were
allured towards the lucrative game of trophy hunting by the members of the
hunting trade. I wrote an article on the adverse effects of trophy hunting in
an online news portal which received quite a few supportive comments and
surprisingly an equal number of comments glorifying the game. This led me to
question the “behind the scenes truth” of this popular practice.
With the growing
anthropogenic pressures, lion numbers have plummeted in all parts of the world
where they existed. In the past, these magnificent creatures roared across the
countries of the African continent towards Central Asia and far east into
north-western India. Now, the lions have disappeared over 80% of their historic
range. Only a few African countries and India has managed to hold on to the
last surviving populations of the lion. Still, in Africa where an estimated
250,000 lions existed in 1975, a staggering decline to a meagre 25-30,000 lions
have occurred in a short span of time.
At such a
crucial time, the methods used to implement conservation of lions in many of
the African countries appears quite questionable. Trophy hunting (the selective
hunting of wild game animals) is a practiced conservation policy in many
African regions. There are both supporters and critics of this policy.
The former
propagate the fact that controlled trophy hunting provides the economic
incentive to the locals and the government to conserve the wildlife and
increase the number of species to maintain a sizeable population for hunting. They
believe it diverts people from indulging in poaching and agricultural activites
since the economies there thrive on trophy hunting. The figures look quite
promising too. According to studies by the pro-hunting lobby, in 2008, hunting
tourism in 23 African countries together yielded a whopping 200 million USD. This
huge revenue is the basic fact on which wildlife conservation and trophy
hunting have been linked to each other in a beneficial manner.
The anti-hunting
lobby believes the situation is not as ideal as it looks.
Considering anti-trophy
hunting reports, I will enumerate the possible adverse effects of trophy
hunting on conservation based on three major critical aspects :
The
biological aspect : A lobby of scientists consider trophy
hunting is genetically draining. Several scientific reports claim that this practice
of hunting is encouraging reverse evolution. It is easy to comprehend. Nature
always selects for the strongest and fittest. The weaker individuals in a species
are eliminated by natural selection. However, humans are interfering with the
laws of nature. Trophy hunters always cherish a dream of displaying the best
possible trophy in their living room. That means the strongest and the most
magnificent animal needs to be hunted. Thus, they are eliminating the best
genes of the population by killing the fittest animals. The gene pool is now
comprised of the weaker genes and contrary to nature’s ways the weakest animals
are surviving. In the long term a population susceptible to various stress factors
are produced resulting in gradual annihilation of the species.
The practice of
trophy hunting is also disturbing the entire social structure of lion families.
The trophy hunters often kill the dominant male of a pride leaving the cubs
susceptible to be killed by invading younger males. This happens in nature at
low frequencies but trophy hunters probably speed up the process and this leads
to lowering of lion populations.
Unregulated canned
hunting is worse. Here animals are allowed to run in large enclosures and
tracked down and shot by hunters. These animals are usually bred in captivity. Reports
indicate that wild cubs are often kidnapped from their mothers and brought to breeding
centres from where starts their continuous exploitation till death. When young,
these fluffy, sweet looking cubs are used to allure tourists to play with them.
Little do the tourists understand their activities are only bringing intense
suffering to the lions. When juvenile or sub-adults, the cubs are stowed away
in crampy cages and sold to the canned hunting market for killing.
Economic
aspect
:
We all aware of economic status of Africa. According to the United Nations
Human Development Report in 2003, the bottom 25 ranked nations (151st to 175th)
were all African. The African natives are largely illiterate, poverty-stricken
and extremely vulnerable to exploitation. Trophy hunt businessmen propagate the
fact that the revenue generated from this industry is supporting the
down-trodden in the economically poor countries of Africa. However, there seems
to be no concrete evidence attesting to this fact.
On the contrary,
a new study commissioned by The Humane Society of the United States, Humane
Society International and Born Free USA/Born Free Foundation, reveals that
rural African communities derive negligible benefit from trophy hunting. Only
3% of the money generated from this industry actually reaches the natives in
whose homeland the trophy hunting business thrives. So, the argument that
trophy hunting sustains the native people and encourages them to conserve
animals seems to hold no ground in the presence of current statistics.
Moral
aspects : “Killing is conserving “ is the
message we will be handing over to our future generations if we support trophy
hunting. First we kill and endanger wildlife and then we kill again to conserve
them. Do we really not have any alternatives? There are people in the field sacrificing their own lives to save the
animals from poachers. Is it necessary to kill lions for conservation?
In India, where trophy
hunting is not encouraged, conservation efforts have yielded favorible results.
A 27% increase in the Asiatic Lion population has occurred in the last five
years in the Gir forest of Gujarat. Here local economy thrives on wildlife
tourism and lions are shot by cameras and not guns.
I would like to end with this quote
Hunting is not a sport.
In a sport, both sides should know they're in the game. ~Paul Rodriguez -
Writer :
Dr. Oishimaya
Sen Nag
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