Messofanego
Banned
Kind of a interesting situation. No surprise that people here show no sympathy for the hunter since on its surface hunting elephants seems like such a shitty thing to do. I can't blame them. But I read another article that goes into a little more detail:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...professional-big-game-hunter-in-Zimbabwe.html
Supposedly they were tracking a lion first, but decided to get a look at this elephant instead. Not sure if they're telling the truth. Shooting from ten yards at a charging Bull elephant with elevated levels of testosterone sounds terrifying.
The article also linked to this story about elephant population:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...or-funds-lost-from-ban-on-trophy-hunters.html
Sounds like controlling elephant populations is a monumental task and Zimbabwe in particular is having a hard time with it since one of their main sources of income for those operations (hunting) has diminished. Seems like donations aren't enough.
The whole ordeal comes off as nothing but difficult lesser-of-two-evil choices at every turn. Flourishing elephant populations in the wrong place means a spike in poacher operations as well. Lack of money means short staffed parks which also means less protection. I sure wouldn't want to be the one to make those decisions.
There's always a bit more to stories of "trophy hunting" but in my experiences here people are less likely to look at that perspective. I wish people were more willing to give it a real critical analysis the way they would other scientific research.
Aren't these separate cases, though? Cause the articles mention this hunter going for the ivory, while the overpopulation stuff seems to bear out that they don't need hunters when bad weather conditions like drought do the work naturally on culling anyway.
Considering ivory is used to fund terrorism like Boko Haram, can see why many (and I) would have no sympathy for this hunter.