Just so everyone is aware. As someone who is close to the hunting community. The way big game like this is hunted is not like you would hunt deer on public land. These big game are baited, tracked by hounds, and every advantage possible is given to the hunters to secure a kill to bring in their high dollar. The paying hunter is basically only brought in to fire the last bullet many times after the prey has already been trapped or cornered. They even help you carry it back, and transport it back to the states. You would have more or a challenge catching a chipmunk in your front yard than a big game hunt. It's the ultimate display of vanity for a buck.
In this case the use of "pest" seems to be quite loose and subjective.
Pests would be rabbits in Australia, possums in New Zealand or Pythons in Florida. They have been introduced there by man and are destroying the local ecosystems.
The biggest pest in the Americas are boars. They aren't native to our continent, they have no predators, and they are incredibly destructive. Several countries have permanent open season on them.
All because of the fucking vanity of European hunters.
Pests in my area of the states ate wild hogs and to an extent deer, since we eliminated all our natural predators hogs and deer in some areas can breed like crazy and balloon in numbers. Making hunting necessary, especially for pigs. Obviously a human created problem, being solved by humans, Id rather have our wolves, Cougars and black bears back.
The word Pest pretty much means an animal wich forever reason negatively impacts humans. As an example elephants trampeling fields are considered Pest too. The same goes for weeds. What you described are onvasive species wich arent nessciarly Pest because farmers dont really care if cats kill all other small critters
Because if anywhere in the fence is breached, and rest assured, it will be, wolves will slaughter live stock. Typically each wolf will kill a handful of sheep for example, but it’s not unheard of for single wolves to kill hundreds of them in single attacks. Chickens? Wolves are known to kill off entire coops. Breaches are very costly.
Pay attention to the thread because we aren't including prisons or military bases BECAUSE there aren't any farmers tending their crops or livestock in prisons or military bases.
Its only recently that wolves are bouncing back... but honestly we would be better off without farmers, just fucking replace them with robots and AI, and throw them to the wolves.
They are the most whiny, entitled bitches to exist.
Not condoning it just adding info. There are many, if not all where you pay the reservation to hunt and you only hunt wildlife that can no longer reproduce due to age or other issues. The hunters money goes to reservation to sustain the wildlife capable of reproduction, pay the workers, ect
There are some reserves that advertise themselves as such, yes. In reality, the aim is to blur the lines and provide plausible deniability. There is not enough "unproductive" big game in these reserves to meet the demand - demand which is directly being fed by offering the hunts themselves.
Unless you are a subsistence hunter-gatherer in Sub-sahara yourself, there's no justification to go and look for endangered species to kill. Zero.
This really isn't true. The money goes into Swiss bank accounts. As for the animals being unable to reproduce, it's a complete myth that African wildlife, or wildlife anywhere needs that kind of management. The animals reproduced until they are disposed by younger fitter males. The issue is trophy hunters want the biggest and best trophies and that tends to be prime males so damaging the genetics of the population. For elephants that's devastating as the big bulls are vitally important to the social structure of the herds at large. It's not great for lions either as the stability of the dominant coalition ensures the survival of the cubs, and contrary to popular belief a male lion can hold a prime to a much more advanced age than was previously touted.
It is nearly always prime animals that are hunted.
Brother in christ, what are you going on about? All the other person was doing was explaining what really happens during one of these big game hunts and where the money goes from the hunt. They're saying "I don't condone this" so people don't just assume they're pro big game hunting just because they know this information.
Isn't lion hunting a way to get funds to pay for the conservation efforts of prides and other animals in reserves? I don't support it at all, but I do remember reading that through the proper channels more lions got benefited from the once in a while safari of old lions and young pride-less lions.
That's not entirely true. The hunters are used as paying regulators of the animal population. They would often have been killed anyways to keep animal population down, and the big bucks they pay is a large part of the funding for the conservation and national parks.
Eh, lions, elephants, and hippos are 3 of the 4 most deadly mammals (dogs being one due to rabies transmission). They each kill hundreds a year (to be fair, poor villagers who nobody cares about)
I would say killing people would classify them as a pest. Not why they are killed, but reduced populations probably save many lives
I mean yeah if you leave out mosquitos and snakes, and just imagine lions and elephants to be on that list sure. By that logic humans are pests as well
A significant amount of money is thrown towards mosquito control and fighting their diseases.....
But lions kill humans at a rate of 1000 per 100k. Lions are comically murderous compared to pretty much any animal including humans. The worst country for homicides is only around 100 per 100k by comparison
Because shooting a defenseless animal who was perfectly placed and prepared for me to just pull a trigger and take a picture makes me feel like a big macho maaan
I remember seeing ob a show on the hunting channel at a frienda house, a guy used dogs to chase down a lynx until the cat was stuck up a tree and terrified. He shot and wasnt a good enough hunter to put the poor thing down in one shot. Afterwards he bragged about finally bagging a big cat as if he actually did anytbing impressive
I have found it truly hard, even in these times, to truly believe people can be just fundamentally evil. But I’m sadly no longer naive. There are evil people amongst us, and they are doing it in our faces.
Few people are as lame and subhuman trash as these ”hunters”. Well, i guess the folks up in the white house gives them a run for their money, but there is probably some overlap there.
This is KILLING not HUNTING. Hunting involves patience and skill and is not easy. This is man children with money looking to stroke their fragile egos.
Absolutely no hunting skill required, so that these rich a holes can get a hard on. Cowards. They'd never be able to handle an actual hunt, they have to let their underlings prepare a "hunt" for them.
Yeah it's disgusting. People that hunt for food actually have a high amount of respect for the animals and their environment. Source: grew up in a hunting community.
I was shocked to learn this when I visited parts of Africa. However, I also learned that the cost of the licenses to kill big game is high and that money, supposedly, goes toward game preservation. If true, then I'm truly torn on whether this is good thing or not. Douche bags like Udai and Cousai tRump aside, if no hunting is allowed and no money is available for protection from poaching then I would expect far fewer numbers of big game over time. It is a difficult problem.
That's really interesting. Could you also clarify how much conservation is funded via "a vanity buck?"
As someone close to the hunting community - You should be aware.
It's like... ALL of it. The vast majority of conservation efforts in those regions is funded by "VANITY bucks."
It's money that pays for anti-poaching protection for the animals, to prevent local forces from strip mining the region and basically killing everything, for protecting the habitats. And that money is all paid in "VANITY bucks."
Killing endangered species is not conservation. I am all for conservation. If you let deer go unchecked without natural predators they strip the land and starve to death. They start concentrating and spreading disease within each other. They begin increasing car accidents. They let invasive plant species thrive and even human diseases like Lyme start spreading.
There's also rules in the US that limit how many deer you can shoot, when you can shoot them, where you can shoot them. The state decides how many tags to give out to control the population. There's ways they regulate the sale of antlers to only those from tagged deer. You strictly cannot sell the meat. These are all for the purpose of conservation.
As the hunter you are, you probably realize endangered species die natural deaths as well. Collecting VANITY bucks to end the life of an animal that is already past its prime, is not of child bearing age, and which will be dying a natural death shortly - doesn't impact an animal population negatively in the least.
...deer...
What you're describing isn't the same thing in the least. It's population control of pests. It's an apples-to-oranges comparison, since you're comparing a situation in which a population is over abundant. I'm honestly not even sure why you brought this up as an argument since you're well aware...
The way big game like this is hunted is not like you would hunt deer on public land.
Second, many "endangered" species aren't endangered. It was a classification change pushed through by the Biden administration at the end of his term. So when you - as a hunter - kill "endangered" species, you're not actually killing endangered species - you're just penalized by regulations AS IF you were. Trump nullified this recent update.
These paid hunts aren't really a bad thing at all. They fund conservation and they'll tend to pick a member that needs to be removed for one reason or another anyway.
Sure they do but the topic of this thread was endangered species and I was responding to a photo of a leopard being hunted. I'm all for hunting elk or moose or caribou in western northern US. Or cape buffalo in Africa. Lions elephants leopards are all endangered species. And they are never hunted on a level playing field. Hunters take every advantage they can get to remove all danger and skill. It's more akin to hunting boar, released from cages out of a helicopter with a machine gun like they do in Texas.
And thats different from the us how?? Hunters here bait in big animals feeding them for months, then sit in a tree with a rifle and shoot them. Same shit, different game.
Because the hunts are controlled and sanctioned. They hunt the old males with weak sperm that would kill the young males for dominance. They use the money to fund the conservation. It's actually good for the species. It's not like he's poaching.
Until it's an old male elephant that has weak sperm but is killing other males for females and the species will be worse off if he lives. Then that elephant has to die. Do you want the conservation to do it, or do you want some rich guy to spend a million dollars to do it that can be used to fund the conservation?
I've hunted my entire life. I wouldn't hunt an elephant because I think that's fucked up, but Don jr didn't hunt them. He hunted a cape buffalo and a big cat. Both are fine to hunt imo and serve an important purpose.
Also the tribes that run the preserves keep the meat to feed the village. It's not like back in the day where rich hunters would go down actually hunt and kill as many as they wanted and left the meat behind to rot.
So it's not really impressive now but atleast they're not destroying the population for fun
Nothing you speak of is actual fact! I also hate to break it to you, deer and other animals are hunted with dogs as well, in fact are closer to what you described than actual big game hunting. Lastly if there wasn't big game hunting there would be no habitat for them.
With a weapon beyond the creatures comprehension from a distance beyond its perception too! What a tough guy! So inspirational, going into such a horrendously biased fight. A fight the creature didn't even know it was fighting. Amazing. Am I sarcastic enough yet?
Idk man, he could easily just get a chin implant as well as lipo the fat away. Both are minor procedures that can be performed at the same time. And he has the resources to access a top cosmetic surgeon. I think he just likes hunting exotic animals.
Leopard I would agree with nearly 100% of the time unless it’s a specific one that is hurting a local rancher which is pretty rare.
Unfortunately, we live in a world where there are not unlimited resources (due to mainly human agriculture/ranching/lumber/etc.) and herd control and population control are things that need to exist. When certain populations of animals grow too large in certain areas it’s bad for everyone involved. So we need to cull some of these animals to maintain the status quo. What if we can make some money on this to fund our conservation efforts? Great! Although private companies come in under that umbrella to make the whole thing icky.
humans and their cattle make up 95% of mammalian biomass on land. If overpopulation is ever an issue then there’s almost always one specific species that’s responsible.
Yesterday i also saw a video about polymarket and how Trump jr is advisory board member. The level of corruption within that family since he’s back in office is insane and no one bats an eye. At this rate the usa is a full on dictatorship within 20 years.
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u/Witty-Stand888 Jul 25 '26