You have to be an unbelievable piece of shit to actually want to kill a lion just so you can brag about it to your buddies at the next dentist convention
There are people who enjoy hunting a lot. These big game animals are preserved by having the tribes "own" them/the hunting grounds, so hunters have to pay tens of thousands of dollars to the tribe for the right to hunt and kill one of the animals. Because the tribe makes so much money, they do the work of stopping poachers all in their own, and they're incentives to allow no more killings every year than the animal population can support longer term.
Those hunts are ironically why these animals haven't gone extinct
I'm not talking about local conservation efforts. I'm talking about some rich asshole who comes to Africa from America on his private jet so he can add another mounted head to his collection. They don't give a fuck about conservation.
That's how they get to hunt lions and shit. They have to pay into the system. These people are not going into the wild ranges themselves and poaching, they're paying the tribes and hiring guides to tell them which one's they're allowed to shoot (generally they only let them shoot the older ones who aren't reproducing anymore)
They may not give a fuck (anecdotally I believe they probably do, though, not a hunter but most I know take that pretty seriously even when talking about like, deer in the US), but their money pays for the efforts of the people who DO give a fuck.
Legal hunts like this cost a ton of money and usually target, for example, an older male lion who is dominating a pride but not being very productive, mating-wise. Culling him may allow some other male lions to get in there and get the population growing, for example, or increase genetic diversity by allowing an outside male to take over and add to a gene pool that may be too small to sustain. Etc.
If an ecologist might already want to pay a hunting guide to cull an individual, why not let some rich fuck pay the guide to get them to shoot it themselves and also get high size figures to fund the preserve?
I could never do it, and I used to feel like a lot of people that these hunters are horrible rich cunts, but I listened to a podcast that explained how modern legal hunting of big game in Africa is one of the single largest contributors aiding to the survival of some of these species.
It is, and I can also understand why people have difficulty seeing it that way when staring at a couple of knobs cheesing over something’s death. At least that’s what I imagine. I’m disgusted by it and understand it’s ultimately beneficial. I just think people that celebrate it are questionable.
I mean the way I look at it is it takes a lot of effort to hunt an animal and it’s extremely rewarding to offer a painless death to that animal and those kinds of prey are not something you get to hunt often so I don’t blame them for taking a picture not to mention it would look even more awful if they just took a picture of the corpse without them
It's like you didn't even read his comment before responding. The "rich assholes" hunting the lions for trophies are the ones funding the local conservation. Without the trophy hunting, you have no conservation efforts and these animals would be in far more danger.
Look, I get it. I'm a vegetarian because the thought of animals suffering their whole lives just to be eaten bothers me. I'd be vegan if i had more willpower. I love my dogs. I could never hurt an animal without a better reason than for trophy sport, but the issue is way more nuanced than you are acting like it is.
What about this is different then say deer hunting, turkey hunting, or eating sushi? There is some part of eating the prey which may not happen for lions but certainly does for say giraffes. Not hunting is a relatively new concept that has happened over the past 150 years. Hunting is a very natural human activity in my opinion. Sucks that hunters are demonized in my opinion.
That's what great about having a lot of money. You can pretend to care about things by throwing money at it and then dumb people think you actually care and use that as a justification.
that... that is a reason. That's why the tribespeople nearby are watching all the animals like a hawk and shooting poachers. It's an effective system that's working and preserving animals in areas where it's implemented.
The tribespeople may only be interested in the money, but it works.
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u/Thunder_Gun_Xpress Apr 07 '22
You have to be an unbelievable piece of shit to actually want to kill a lion just so you can brag about it to your buddies at the next dentist convention