http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3177611/PIERS-MORGAN-d-love-hunt… Cliff notes: Rich dentist from Minnesota paid US$50k to hunt a lion. The lion he killed was the famous Zimbawean lion; Cecil. He shot the lion with a bow and arrow, but it survived, they then tracked it for another 40hrs, shot it, skinned it and decapitated it. Dentist kills big game and is photographed with white rhino and leopard. He prides himself on being a world-class archer… Thoughts? Walter Palmer: Big game Hunter
It’s basically the same story as the one about the guy from Texas that paid $500k to kill an old male rhino. Selective hunting, even of threatened and endangered species, is a good thing. People’s knee-jerk reaction is to think this is some horrible, perhaps illegal, hunt. It’s completely legal, the money helps sustain the park, and killing an old male makes room for hornier, younger males.
On a related note, I think trophy hunting is stupid and people that do it are an odd breed. Hunting for food is cool. Hunting to mount a head on your living room wall is creepy and points towards insecurity issues.
Edit: I didn’t read the article. This was an illegal hunt and the guides went out of their way to destroy the lion’s gps collar. These guys suck and deserve to be hunted, perhaps with something less lethal than a crossbow. Slingshots?
I’ve got a friend that participated in a ton of these types of hunts as a writer for an outdoors magazine. According to him, they were going to go on a safari type deal with this guy at one point, but he’s been cited in Minnesota and Wisconsin for various poaching/unlicensed fishing and hunting incidents. No idea if it’s true or not.
As for that friend, he’s living the dream. Not killing it by any means financially, but he basically hunts and fishes and get sall sorts of free gear for a living.
Your point about helping sustain the park is stupid, if people wanted to do that then surely they could just give the $500k straight to the park. Trophy hunting for the sake of sticking a decapitated head above your fireplace is horrible
You’re letting your feelings get in the way of science. In the case of the rhino that was killed a while back, it was going to be killed either way because it was no longer breeding and it wasn’t allowing younger male rhinos anywhere near the female rhinos. If it was going to be killed either way, why not raise money doing it?
Even though I can’t really relate to trophy hunters, there’s little doubt the vast majority of them care more about the animals they hunt than you do. For the most part, avid hunters are conservationalists and naturalists. They want these animals to be around forever, not to kill the last one.
I will only ever hunt or fish if I ended up eating it. And if I wanted to give money for the presevation of animals, I wouldn’t do it by hunting…I would just donate.
I prefer to look at live lions over dead lions. I don’t have a problem with hunting, I used to hunt and fish a lot. But people who go kill lions they’re not going to eat for fun are strange. Especially if it is illegal and the vast majority of the civilized world thinks doing so makes you an idiot.
Saying killing lions supports the park is a paradox. the park is there as a sanctuary to lions/other wildlife. you don’t need to pay to kill an animal to support a park (this can’t even happen cause it’s illegal to kill in the park). if you really want to support the park then donate. conservationists say this lions 6 cubs will die as well, seeing as the next lion in the hierarchy will kill all cubs to support his own bloodline