The following story appeared in the Spring/Summer 2016 issue of Born Free USA’s magazine, Animal Issues Digest.
A year after the now-famous Cecil the lion was slaughtered by the now-infamous dentist, Walter Palmer, we are still working vigorously to dramatically decrease, and someday end, thrill killing. Those “sport” hunters who kill for amusement do so callously, with little regard for the suffering of individual animals; little vision for the long-term viability of wildlife populations or the robustness of the ecosystems in which they live; and little concern for the development of local communities, whose members share wild animals’ habitat.[teaserbreak]
Hunting has been generally accepted for millennia. However, in recent decades, we are seeing the intense impact this deadly activity can have on wild animal populations. To be clear, hunting impact is not the sole impact. Wildlife succumbs to the impacts of human growth and encroachment into wildlife habitat; human encroachment into wildlife habitat often leads to the degradation of that habitat, particularly with conversion to agricultural lands; the influx of cattle into wildlife habitat leads to losses of valuable livestock by predators, who are now closer to human settlements and have lost much of their natural prey base (which, in turn, leads to brutal retaliatory killings of these natural predators); and wild animals suffer from poaching for their parts (elephants for ivory, rhinos for horns, bears for gallbladders, and tigers for skins, teeth, and internal organs).
But, in a world in which there were estimated to be 78,500 lions across Africa in 1980, yet fewer than 20,000 remain today… and where, during that time, it was legal to hunt lions across most of the continent… and where American trophy hunters alone have been killing, on average, more than 500 lions per year to import the bodies as “trophies”… the impact of hunting is undeniable.
International transport of hunting trophies is governed by the rules of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the national laws in member countries that implement CITES, such as the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in the United States. However, under CITES, even species listed on Appendix I (which prohibits trade that is primarily for commercial purposes) can be traded internationally if there are permits given from the government of origin and the government of import. Even species listed as Endangered under the ESA can be imported as sport-hunted trophies if the hunter can show that there is some enhancement to the survival of th species by engaging in this otherwise-prohibited activity (for example, claiming that the money spent on the hunt will be given back to conservation efforts).
All of this means that even the most imperiled species can be slaughtered by hunters while conservationists struggle to save these animals. Looking at a 10-year period from 2005-2014, the numbers are shocking. Nearly 114,000 specimens were imported into the European Union as hunting trophies, with Spain, Germany, and France being the biggest offenders. Species slaughtered for sport included African elephants, hippos, leopards, white rhinos, lions, and cheetahs. In the same period, for the same species, more than 170,000 items entered the U.S.
The hunting lobby pressures governments around the world to set quotas to allow a certain number of animals to be killed—as though hunting exists in a vacuum, where the exact number of wild animals is known for certain… where the external threats I discussed earlier are insignificant and not impactful… and where all hunters wouldn’t kill more animals than they are allotted.
Despite the plight of rhinos—a species for which 13 animals were poached in South Africa for their valuable horns in 2007, while more than 1,000 were poached in each of the past two years—legal hunting continues throughout southern Africa. The U.S. government has even approved the import of a trophy hunted black rhino horn from Namibia. Fewer than 5,000 black rhinos cling to existence.
The markhor, a wild Asian sheep inhabiting rocky environments in countries such as Pakistan, is subject to an annual hunting quota—despite the fact that overhunting is recognized as one of the threats facing the species. African leopards are subject to hunting quotas in more than a dozen African nations—despite the fact that the continentwide population is unknown (nor is the impact of hunting on the species).
This carnage, carried out by self-involved, greedy, and thoughtless killers, is continually defended with the claim that the revenue generated from hunting supports wildlife conservation (to the tune of literally hundreds of millions of dollars spread out across numerous national economies). However, Born Free USA supported research exposed this exaggeration.
A recent study by Economists at Large found that, across countries it investigated that had both hunting and non-lethal tourism, only 1.8% of tourist revenue was from hunting—meaning that more than 98% came from other forms of tourism (like bird- or whale-watching, non-harmful wildlife safaris, etc.). And, of the revenue generated by hunters, the study references research by the International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation and The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, supported by other authors, which finds that “hunting companies contribute only 3% of their revenue to communities living in hunting areas.”
There is more money for local communities and more revenue to support wildlife conservation activities by promoting eco-tourism than hunting tourism. One elephant can live into her 60s or 70s, having offspring to perpetually populate large matriarchal herds, bringing annual tourist revenue to the people who live near them, year after year. One slaughtered female elephant, tusks removed to the U.S. or Europe as a trophy, brings a small amount of revenue that barely reaches the local people. It’s a one-time-only offer, and it ends the breeding pipeline to supply Africa with elephants in perpetuity: elephants who also play an incredibly vital role in the ecosystem.
Born Free USA knows that wild animals are slaughtered by trophy hunters—to the suffering of individual animals, and the detriment of wildlife populations and their ecosystems—with little revenue contributing to conservation. A new report by the Natural Resources Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, Missing the Mark: African trophy hunting fails to show consistent conservation benefits, supports our position. The report acknowledges that “trophy hunters do not always play by the rules” and that “evidence shows that trophy hunting is having negative impacts across sub-Saharan Africa.”
What is the purpose of wildlife conservation? Is it to perpetuate a vibrant and healthy ecosystem that benefits all life on the planet, including humans… or is it to make sure there is a bounty of animals for people to kill? Should we protect wild wolves in the Great Lakes or the black bears in Florida—using the Endangered Species Act to help these species recover from the brink of extinction—only to allow hunters to renew their bloody onslaught when the numbers of each animal reach a given threshold?
Hunting destroys wildlife: individual animals, their family systems, and the ecosystems in which they would otherwise thrive. Hunting cannot be defended on economic grounds when the numbers speak for themselves. Economics is not a positive connector between hunting and conservation.
Our collective energy and wisdom should be invested in protecting wild animals in the wild, where they belong, while also enhancing the lives of people in the local communities around protected areas.
Cecil had a name, and that name gave a voice to an entire species in need of help. There should be no more Cecils. There should also be no more Walter Palmers. In 2016, when we know about threats to wild animals, impacts of hunting, and the dramatic decline of the most imperiled species, it is clear that the time has come to end thrill killing of wildlife.