Yeah, and I'm also upset about the US FWS prohibiting the import of any elephant parts. Lions are probably next while rhinos are basically extinct.
I killed bull elephant in 2008 and 2011, and lion in 2011. I wanted to "hurry up" before hunting them was banned. After all, I remember when tiger hunting was still legal in India.
The population in sub-Saharan Africa stands at 1 billion now. It is projected at 3 billion by 2100. The game will be unable to survive that. Perhaps we'll be left with buffalo because there are so many of them. But strip off the hype and buffalo hunting, to me, is like several days of aerobic exercise followed by shooting a big cow. Or so it seemed to me for the two I killed. If you're a halfway decent shot, there is no danger. Perhaps I can go on a PAC elephant hunt sometime.
In Zim in 2011, I was told by my PH that we could shoot any rhino or elephant poachers we encountered. Fortunately we did not encounter any, though we found a poached elephant. A friend of my PH had shot a poacher who turned out to be a govt. minister's son. Big trouble.
The average citified wuss in the US does not understand the difference between sport hunting and poaching, and I fear it is impossible to teach them.
