Axulus
Veteran Member
Today, trophy hunting takes place in 23 sub-Saharan African nations, generating over $200 million and attracting over 18,000 clients each year. That’s money spent in the economies of multiple African nations directly pegged to the continuing presence of big game animals. It’s a large economic incentive for conservation of these species. And it’s growing.
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This chart, from a study conducted by the University of Pretoria, demonstrates the increased economic value of trophy hunting in southern Africa. The explosive growth in South Africa is largely due to ranch land that had been dedicated to livestock being given over to game ranching. Elephants and lions are now worth more to landowners than cows and chickens.
Because a hunter like Walt Palmer is prepared to fly over and pay someone a large sum of money to kill a big, endangered critter, an economic opportunity attached to that critter is created. So, an enterprising individual will do anything from breeding to fostering to protecting and/or providing a habitat for a population of those critters. In order for that economic opportunity to last and for the investment to pay off, many more critters need to be added than the Walts of this world can ever kill. And because Walt and his pals want prime examples of that critter hanging on their trophy room walls, those critters need to be happy, healthy and wild. Yes, Walt will kill some of them, but many more will be able to go about their happy, healthy, wild lives as a result.
Yes, most of Walt’s spend does get pocketed by greedy capitalist types. But that’s the entire idea here. The greedy capitalist types are the ones earning a profit off the happy, healthy, wild population of critters. This isn’t some government boondoggle, it’s capitalism at its finest, creating employment and making the rich richer and all because they’ve got that happy, healthy population of critters.
How does the economic impact of hunting compare to tourism? After all, some tourists are paying to see animals, thereby giving them economic value too. In 2013, all tourism (not just people seeing animals) netted the South African economy $5.84 billion, which is a lot more money than hunting brings in.
But, that hunting is taking place in areas where tourists don’t often go. Game ranches have reached an equivalent total area to national parks in South Africa, effectively doubling the land on which large animals have to grow and roam.
Trophy hunting is also present in countries which do not otherwise have significant tourist economies, places like Ethiopia, Chad and the Central African Republic. Again providing economic incentive for the conservation of animals that otherwise might not exist in struggling economies and through political instability.
The average tourist in South Africa spends $64 a day on stuff like food and hotel rooms and transportation and maybe even tour of a national park. It costs a hunter up to $35,000 to kill a single lion in that country.
How does the economic benefit of hunting compare to money provided by charities? The World Wildlife Fund, for instance, spends $224 million a year, but that’s spread across the globe on programs including deforestation, habitat destruction and curbing carbon emissions. Some is spent on anti-poaching initiatives, but it does not equal the economic incentive for conservation in Africa that trophy hunting does.
Trophy hunting is also a powerful anti-poaching tool. If an animal is worth a large sum of money, the people invested in earning that money are motivated to prevent losses. This doesn’t help national parks, where hunting of any kind is forbidden, but it does prevent the illegal taking of protected species on private land.
Walt has been photographed with at least one lion kill, previous to the one that caused the current furor, as well as other animals native to Africa. It’s been reported that he paid up to $55,000 for this latest hunt. That’s at least $100,000 that he’s personally put into African economies, money that wouldn’t have been spent if there weren’t lions to hunt. That’s money which is a specific economic motivation for conservation. How much money have you and your Facebook friends contributed directly to big game conservation in Africa? I’m guessing that for most of you, it’s much, much less.
The 800lbs gorilla in the room here is obviously the allegedly illegal nature of Walt’s hunt. According to reports, the lion he killed was illegally lured out of a national park for the express purpose of the kill (without his knowledge, according to Walt) and the asshole made a bad shot, wounding rather than killing the lion, leading to nearly two days of suffering before another hunter put it out of its misery. All that seriously sucks and just adds layers of asshole to the already asshole act of killing a lion. But, in all this talk of bad Yelp reviews and doxxing and closed dental practices, I figured there should at least be some discussion of the conservation benefits trophy hunting like this does, in fact, bring to animals. All hunters should not be tarred by Walt’s brush.
Maybe instead of just tweeting with a hashtag, this encourages you to actually do something substantial for animal conservation, just like Walt Palmer has.
http://indefinitelywild.gizmodo.com...lmer-has-done-more-for-conservatio-1720901473