Let’s analyse some of the points made, shown in parentheses below:
(Animal rights orgs use emotional messaging that has nothing to do with the science of wildlife conservation.)
Does this mean that advocating protection for wildlife is emotional and unscientific, whereas killing wild animals for fun is scientific? Surely not.
Next they’ll tell us that the only way to preserve whales is to hunt them in the Antarctic.
(Hunters and hunting actually benefit lions).
Rebuttal: No, actually it was the irresponsible over-hunting by trophy hunters that wiped out wild lion prides and forced the industry to turn to lion farming and canned hunting in order to generate a constant supply of living targets for the trophy hunters.
(Hunting prevents human/lion conflict, where African pastoralists poison and snare lions to protect their livestock).
Look at the dishonesty in this argument, which amounts to emotional blackmail: SCI is seriously contending that unless hunters are allowed to kill some animals, then Africans will kill them all.
there is no credible scientific study to show that rural Africans in lion range states where hunting is banned kill more lions than those Africans living in areas where trophy hunting takes place.
human/lion conflict is caused by Africans encroaching into wilderness areas; this in turn is caused by a culture of reckless, polygamous over-breeding by the human population. Kenya had a population of 4 million after WWII; that population has exploded to over 40 million. This is the real cause of lion eradication; it has nothing whatever to do with hunting. In actual fact, hunting merely aggravates the plight of persecuted lions.
Here is an account of a typical hunting safari to South Africa, a ‘lion range state where hunting is permitted’.
So eight hunters killed 65 animals in ten days on a game farm near Pretoria: can hunters please explain to me in plain language how such an ugly slaughter of helpless animals can possibly be termed “conservation?”
this is Africa, where money has adhesive qualities; it sticks to the fingers of politicians and officials - more fiercely than SuperGlue.
Money does not trickle down to the poor; hunting feeds corruption and benefits all the wrong people, addressing none of the social, cultural and political issues that are driving lions to extinction.
Actually, only rigid military protection, using emergency powers to by- pass corrupt and incompetent legal systems in Africa will save lions (Rhinos and Elephants) from trophy hunters and other poachers.
So here is my message to Safari Club International: If you used your vast financial resources and manpower to fund and involve your members in anti-poaching operations, and trained your fancy guns on poachers, not on animals, then, and only then, could you credibly claim to be conservationists.