Hunting Elephants for "Sport" Is Wrong
I actually know a guy who went on a big game hunt in South Africa late last year and I know he shot something and was having trouble bring his "trophy" back to the United States because of expense and regulations. The ironies of what he does for a living and how he paid for his trip are mind boggling.
President Trump and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Friday night announced that the administration’s reversal of a ban on importation of elephant hunt trophies from Zimbabwe and Zambia has been put on hold until further review. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had announced the policy shift just two days earlier, with officials signaling in a statement that they would expand efforts to promote trophy hunting as a form of conservation. The United States has passed the Endangered Species Act in 1973 and is a party to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
Whether you like the laws or not, they are efforts to to prevent species from going extinct and preventing them from living in the natural settings they occupy.
As in all things that relate to regulation there is both good and bad. Trophy hunting might be good if there were too many elephants in the world and they were nuisance but that does not seem to be the case with elephants. According to the World Wildlife Fund: In contrast, Savannah elephant populations in parts of southern Africa are large and expanding, with almost 300,000 elephants now roaming across the sub-region.
Significant elephant populations are now confined to well-protected areas. However, less than 20% of African elephant habitat is under formal protection. Elephants are listed as a threatened specie but there are still issues regarding the ivory trade and the poaching of elephants and habitat degradation that make them a threatened specie.
Personally, I don't think the United States should promote the hunting of elephants elephants in Africa for trophy purposes by big game hunters even if it might seem to be good business. Who can say who benefits the most from this activity or does it just feed further corruption.
President Trump and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Friday night announced that the administration’s reversal of a ban on importation of elephant hunt trophies from Zimbabwe and Zambia has been put on hold until further review. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had announced the policy shift just two days earlier, with officials signaling in a statement that they would expand efforts to promote trophy hunting as a form of conservation. The United States has passed the Endangered Species Act in 1973 and is a party to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
Whether you like the laws or not, they are efforts to to prevent species from going extinct and preventing them from living in the natural settings they occupy.
As in all things that relate to regulation there is both good and bad. Trophy hunting might be good if there were too many elephants in the world and they were nuisance but that does not seem to be the case with elephants. According to the World Wildlife Fund: In contrast, Savannah elephant populations in parts of southern Africa are large and expanding, with almost 300,000 elephants now roaming across the sub-region.
Significant elephant populations are now confined to well-protected areas. However, less than 20% of African elephant habitat is under formal protection. Elephants are listed as a threatened specie but there are still issues regarding the ivory trade and the poaching of elephants and habitat degradation that make them a threatened specie.
Personally, I don't think the United States should promote the hunting of elephants elephants in Africa for trophy purposes by big game hunters even if it might seem to be good business. Who can say who benefits the most from this activity or does it just feed further corruption.
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