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Did you read the article? Way too many baby elephants that had their mothers slaughtered. Somehow I doubt the orphaned animals left behind consider it a "big win". Trophy hunters and poachers are on the same level IMO. Leave the animals alone!
But those aren't the ones targeted in these hunts, poachers are responsible for killing the elephants you mentioned.
I have no problem with hunting - it's been how my father's family has survived in various points in time. I have plenty of friends who are hunters. I have a problem with weirdos who shell out lots of money to go to a foreign country to kill something that they are not going to eat or even butcher themselves. I am not much of an animal rights activist, and I sure do enjoy meat, but I'm uneasy with people who kill for pleasure.
I don't think there's any poetic justice that this guy got killed, but he's not someone I would want to live next to, work with, associate with or even know. In my eyes, killing simply for sport is purely sociopathic.
If they were truly devoted to conservation instead of killing things, they'd be taking photo safaris to Africa and spending their tourist dollars that way and donating to causes that would establish a system for locals to maintain appropriate populations and responsibly harvest animals for meat. They're not though. They like killing things. It makes them feel accomplished for some reason and gives them an adrenaline rush. That's disturbing.
And then you add in that animals like elephants are VERY intelligent creatures who demonstrate very sophisticated cultures and strong family ties. Yeah, the herd needs to be culled sometimes, but what does it say about you that YOU want to be the one to have the pleasure of the culling, such that you will pay thousands of dollars to make it happen.
I remember one time when I was a kid, some 25 years ago, when my father shot one of his hunting dogs after it bit him pretty violently despite his months of working with it on its issues. He took no joy in the act and viewed it as a grim necessity, and I remember the unhappiness on his face in the aftermath. It was a necessity to put the dog down, not a joy. If you were going to put down a magnificent exotic animal in the name of conservation, why would you pose smiling alongside it?
Maybe it's because I was raised to see hunting as a way to supplement one's diet and income that I find sport hunters who never eat the game they kill and pay a ton of money to make that kill as completely insane. I dunno.
Sad to say, I've been to South Africa's Kruger National Park and out there they actually have Elephant overpopulation issues - they solve that by culling these noble beasts to maintain the ecosystem (and Kruger is about the size of New Jersey). A necessary evil.
Not to say this is the same situation, but it puts things in at least a little more perspective.
I hate to gloat and celebrate a human being's death, but animals are living things and deserve to live as much as human beings. We do not have a right to aimlessly kill animals and destroy other parts of natural life.
They can send his body to the NRA headquarters.
Elephants are cute animals who have are hunted down just for game or their tusks, though ivories are illegal for many years now.
I hate to gloat and celebrate a human being's death, but animals are living things and deserve to live as much as human beings. We do not have a right to aimlessly kill animals and destroy other parts of natural life.
They can send his body to the NRA headquarters.
Elephants are cute animals who have are hunted down just for game or their tusks, though ivories are illegal for many years now.
If they were truly devoted to conservation instead of killing things, they'd be taking photo safaris to Africa and spending their tourist dollars that way and donating to causes that would establish a system for locals to maintain appropriate populations and responsibly harvest animals for meat. They're not though. They like killing things. It makes them feel accomplished for some reason and gives them an adrenaline rush. That's disturbing.
Why should it be "disturbing"? it's an impulse which has ruled human nature from time immemorial; it's only within the past couple of decades that a relative handful of idealists have deluded themselves into thinking that the basics of human behavior can be changed by legislative fiat (which, BTW, is unworkable in much of the world -- including some regions and sectors of even the most tested democracies.)
We do have a problem; the natural habitat of many species is shrinking; some have become extinct, others are on the verge of it. But like the hype over climate change (climate change is real, but the phrase "global warming" is a scare tactic) the simplistic recruitment of sheltered suburbanites, eager to find someone to demonize, usually a mature white male, via oversimplified arguments probably both stiffens the opposition and offends many of us who recognize that, while there is a problem, there is no simple solution.
It's probably out of our hands, no matter what the ideologues and dreamers propose.
Last edited by 2nd trick op; 04-20-2015 at 04:16 PM..
Well, since elephants shouldn't be shot because they are cute, all the big game hunters should go off and shoot warthogs now instead?
Hmm, "deserve to live as much as human beings" and we have the death penalty in quite a few states.
I'll second JrzDefector's post. Hunting has it's place but if you kill it, you should eat it, IMHO. Unless it's being culled for some other reason such as disease or some such. I mean, really, if you're gonna shoot for sport, there's some terribly evil and vicious tin cans out there that really need shooting. Although, I suppose they don't look real well mounted as trophies on the wall.
Well, since elephants shouldn't be shot because they are cute, all the big game hunters should go off and shoot warthogs now instead?
Hmm, "deserve to live as much as human beings" and we have the death penalty in quite a few states.
I'll second JrzDefector's post. Hunting has it's place but if you kill it, you should eat it, IMHO. Unless it's being culled for some other reason such as disease or some such. I mean, really, if you're gonna shoot for sport, there's some terribly evil and vicious tin cans out there that really need shooting. Although, I suppose they don't look real well mounted as trophies on the wall.
I used to let a co-worker hunt my land a few years back. I clearly told him he could DEER hunt upfront. One day he is leaving in the evening and stopped to show me the Bobcat he had shot. I asked him if he was going to eat it and he said he was going to just have it mounted. I told him he had just lost his hunting spot and WHY. I am in the same camp- you kill it you eat it. If you want to shoot something for fun a paper target or tin can doesn't care.
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