Category: Euthanasia

Big Game trophy hunting always in the headlines.

Big game trophy hunting has recently hit the headlines yet again with another American huntress causing worldwide outrage by posting photos on social media and causing widespread attention. It could be said that they do it on purpose. And of course that is exactly want they want to do. They want us outraged, and strange though it may seem, they want the publicity so that they can get the notoriety and associated celebrity they crave and social media is the best way of doing so.

The culprit this time is a lady from Kentucky named Tess Thompson Talley who stated:

“prayers for my once in a lifetime dream hunt came true today. Spotted this rare black giraffe bull and stalked him for quite awhile. I knew it was the one. He was over 18 years old, 4,000 lbs and was blessed to be able to get 2,000 lbs of meat from him.

Dead giraffe, posing hunter, Big Game trophy hunting
Tess Thompson Talley with her aged victim. ©Independent Digital News and Media Ltd.

They know what they do is perfectly legal and that they have the backing of many conservationists, wildlife experts and scientists. Many are coming around to the idea that perhaps it does benefit some animals in the long-term to be hunted for money which can be used to pay for their protection and habitat.

“Lions need trophy hunting just as much as trophy hunting needs lions”

Dr Craig Packer, an eminent American professor with a passion for conserving lions is one of them and has stated: ‘Lions need trophy hunting just as much as trophy hunting needs lions’. He believes their long-term survival depends on big money coming in to protect them and was also quoted as saying:

“Trophy hunting is not inherently damaging to lion populations provided the hunters take care to let the males mature and wait to harvest them after their cubs are safely reared. The dentist [who shot Cedric] was unlucky and not altogether to blame. Trophy hunters are no angels, but they actually control four times as much lion habitat in Africa than is protected in national parks; and 80% of the world’s lions left in the world are in the hunters’ hands”.

For the countries involved, such as Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Mozambique it apparently benefits their economy greatly. Advocates are quick to point out that by encouraging ‘hunting farms’ wildlife and natural habitat is also encouraged and not used for livestock, therefore benefiting conservation.

“you can often be sharing the dinner table with hunters who have just shot one of the animals you came on safari to see”.

Hunting farms are on the increase and are shooting galleries full of semi tame animals that are easily tracked and shot. They have the dual purpose of being ‘private reserves’ providing luxury safari accommodation for tourists. Ironically at these places you can often be sharing the dinner table with hunters who have just shot one of the animals you came on safari to see.

The subject is of course extremely divisive and in recent years we have had the story of Cedric the lion in Zimbabwe. He was shot with an arrow, then tracked for hours and finally shot dead by a trophy hunter paying US$35,000 dollars for the privilege. The main reason this story attracted so much attention was that the lion had a name making it more personal to us and was wearing a tracker collar for an Oxford University research team to follow him.

He didn’t realise the lion was so popular and had a name, otherwise he wouldn’t have shot him.

The American dentist, who committed the outrage, apologised for his actions. He said that he didn’t realise the lion was so popular and had a name, otherwise he wouldn’t have shot him. The apology was absurd as basically he was justifying his actions by claiming that shooting some other semi-tame non-celebrity nameless lion would have been acceptable, which bizarrely is probably correct.

What is noticeable is that so many of the hunters are north american, presumably because of the gun culture there and that they are bored with shooting bears, coyotes and pumas in their own part of the world.

There are hundreds if not thousands of iconic wild animals such as lions and bears being bred for the sole purpose of being shot for gain and pleasure, just like game birds. All over Africa big-game hunting is big business, with hunters lining up to pay huge sums to kill ‘trophy’ animals, so that they can display the heads and body parts around the home.

“Everything I have done is legal, so how can you fault someone because of their hobbies?” Sabrina Corgatelli, another ‘celebrated’ hunter.

Big game hunting will never be eradicated in the present climate as there are so many mixed messages coming from all those who should be campaigning against it.

There seems something very wrong in breeding ‘wild’ animals to order, just to be shot to raise funds to supposedly conserve others. If that is the future for the planets’ wildlife, which it seems it is, I just wonder whether it is worth bothering to save animals for future generations.

Updated February 2020

Hunting with dogs and the “unenforceable” ban.

Invading their space – animal encounters.

Most of us do not like having what is called our ‘personal space’ invaded and some of us quite rightly get very agitated when this occurs. When it involves wild animal encounters we arrogantly believe that when invading their space, that they should tolerate our intrusions without any complaint or retaliation.

Wild animals usually instinctively slink away at our approach and only become dangerous when they are provoked…..

When we come face to face with a truly wild animal we do know our limits and that apart from putting ourselves in danger we are also putting the life of the animal in danger.  Those of us who live in countries which do not harbour potentially dangerous wild animals may be excused for this behaviour as we are not familiar with the threat, although even domesticated cows and bulls can react if approached in the wrong way as many people have found to their cost.

Our refusal to show common sense and be responsible for our own health and safety by allowing wild animals their personal space often results in the death of one or both participants and highlights our complete ignorance of the capabilities of wild animals and how we should act near them.  Our increasing detachment from nature and our insistence of seeking thrills and entering wild places is making this kind of incident more common. We have no perception of the danger we might be putting ourselves in as we have been lulled into viewing wild animals as placid creatures and an opportunity for a selfie through the advent of social media and petting attractions in foreign lands.

Wild animals usually instinctively slink away at our approach and only become dangerous when they are provoked in some way or feel threatened, particularly if protecting their offspring. In countries such as the USA, Canada and Africa, where residents should perhaps know better, many individuals often insist on putting themselves and the animals they encounter at risk by entering areas supposedly set aside as much for the animals as ourselves and best not frequented, often ignoring advice to the contrary.

We do not take warnings seriously

There are unfortunately many examples of fatal attacks which highlight this behaviour. Darshe Patel was hiking with four friends in a Reserve in New Jersey, U.S.A and were told to turn back because a bear was in the area, but they continued and came across the bear. He stopped to take a photograph and was attacked and killed by the black bear. His four friends ran for their lives and survived. The bear was tracked down and shot. A man named Brad Treat was mountain biking in a Montana forest reserve when he collided with a grizzly bear. The startled bear immediately attacked and killed him, but was not killed “because its behaviour was a natural response to a surprise encounter involving physical contact“.

In another incident in Yellowstone Park, a couple walked up to a bison and tried to take a selfie only to be trampled and in 2015, an American woman in a South African lion park ignored warnings to close the car window while taking photographs, allowing a male lion to get within a yard of her before jumping and mauling her to death.

Animal encounters can prove fatal for all those involved.

In August 2015, a medic named Lance Crosby, aged 63, who was working in Yellowstone Park, decided to ignore warning notices and take a hike into a restricted area, only to bump into a grizzly bear named Blaze and her two young cubs, who being extremely protective of them and feeling threatened promptly attacked and killed him.

Although she was popular in the park and had a ‘clean record for attacking’ people, she was immediately faced with the death sentence and during the seven days that her fate was in the balance the entire world pleaded for her to be reprieved. The investigation of the ‘murder site’, which included DNA sampling and footprint analysis, proved it was her that killed the unfortunate man and her big mistake, and what sealed her fate, was eating parts of him, so she was hunted down and shot for public safety reasons and her two poor cubs were shipped off to Toledo zoo to spend a lifetime in captivity, all because one misguided person decided to invade her space.

The Washington Post quoted the park superintendent as stating that ‘We can’t favour one individual bear over protecting the lives of humans’, a standard comment for all such human deaths by animals and ‘the decision was made based on sound science’.

Invading their space

Although we set aside large swathes of land in the name of conserving animals and habit and give them such impressive names as national parks, reserves and conservation areas, in reality they have just become giant adventure playgrounds for us humans and our families to mountain bike, hike, picnic, climb mountains, kayak in rivers and shoot the rapids with no consideration of the disturbance to the animals. Far from being safety zones for them we increasingly invade these spaces, trample over the habitat, disturb them and if they should dare to retaliate by attacking us, we dispose of them.

It hardly seems fair to me and if we are truly genuine in our declared aims to preserve wildlife for the future perhaps we should give some serious thought to whose benefit these areas are truly for and keep the ultimate predator humans out of them.

So, the moral of the story is when enjoying these wonderful wild spaces and encounters with animals keep your distance and please give them a little more respect. Our irresponsible and uninformed behaviour can cause their deaths.