i think the hunts help pay for the protected parks in the area and help pay for the employees as well. i think that's how a lot of parks are funded. give people an incentive and they will take care of the land and animals.
I'm really torn on this. One side of me says that by making it so lucrative you encourage them to start playing loose with the rules or even start campaigning to make the rules really lax. I just don't see how making it lucrative to kill them doesn't have a huge problem with encouraging them to start killing more and finding ways around rules or even changing them (the government itself can see how much money they make off of it, and let's be honest, ZImbabwe right now isn't known for having a really moral government).
The other side says people are going to poach anyways and if you make it legal you may channel more of that into a more controlled way for them to kill. But, when it comes to animals that are hunted mostly for trophy hunts (and not cause there is a market for the product), not sure the poaching would out do how many are killed for legal hunts especially if they start loosening the rules (because it's very lucrative). And I'm sorry, people overall have not shown that they are far sighted enough to go, "this is lucrative, we want to conserve this so we have this in the future" vs. " this is lucrative, killing more will get us more money now".
And honestly, I don't care if you can justify it by saying your money is helping, if you get your kicks by killing endangered animals, I think you're scum. Why not get your kicks by taking photos of them (just as hard really, harder cause they don't die and you have to sneak away too)? You still have proof you found one, you have to sneak up on them (Hell, it's even more important they don't see you are there), it has all the thrills of hunting them except for the actual killing part (and I am going to think you are scum for wanting to make one less endangered animal in the world when you know they are rare and populations are struggling).