I got upset about a post/story on Facebook on Friday, put up by some anti=hunting geeks, that chortled with glee because a PH in Zimbabwe had been killed by an elephant while he was guiding an elephant hunt. The patent ignorance of the comments made my blood boil. I stewed about it for quite a while, then I wrote the following post:
Yesterday two of my Facebook friends shared this article, with comments essentially rejoicing at the news of this man's death. I am appalled by this. Not just because of the ugly implications in rejoicing over the death of another human being, but even moreso because such "celebration" betrays a glaring ignorance of the very real and incredibly difficult work being done to manage and conserve wildlife in Africa, which this man was a part of.
Never mind for now that these "defenseless gentle giants" are anything but defenseless, and that they kill dozens if not scores of African humans every year. They are huge wild animals, and the half-million or so elephants in Africa share the same habitat with millions of humans. Nasty encounters are inevitable. But never mind that for now.
Most North Americans are ignorant of the success of wildlife management programs in Africa that have brought elephant populations back from the brink of endangerment 30 years ago. And most North Americans are ignorant of the fact that hunting these animals is an essential part of elephant population management programs throughout Africa. There are many vital facts they are ignorant of, but I will briefly summarize a few of them.
First, elephant hunting targets the big tuskers: the oldest males, who are past their prime breeding age, Removing them from the population frees up food and space for young elephants, which promotes the general health of the herd. Not only that, but legally harvesting the elephants with big ivory greatly reduces the incentive for poachers to move in (who sell the ivory to Asian markets, where it's used for phoney medicines, aphrodisiacs, etc).
Second, elephant hunters pay a lot of money for the privilege of hunting elephants, and that money (along with all the other hunting license fees paid by foreign hunters) is virtually the sole source of funding for wildlife management in Africa. African nations are, in the main, impoverished; they have no money to pay for habitat and wildlife management (instead, their rulers spend their money on truly important things like limousines, palaces, and armies).Hunting fees paid by foreign hunters in hard currency is one of the main sources of real income in many of these nations. A significant part of that money is re-invested in wildlife management, and without it, wildlife management would cease to exist. This is exactly what happened in Kenya, which banned hunting in 1977. Kenya's wildlife populations were devastated by loss of management and by poaching, and have not recovered. By way of contrast, neighboring Namibia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa have thriving wildlife populations and habitat, funded entirely by foreign hunters.
Third, most African governments have no interest in policing their wild lands, and certainly don't have the money to do so. Wildlife managers become the de facto law enforcement presence in much of rural Africa, and again, these people's salaries and expenses are paid out of the revenue generated by foreign hunters.
Fourth, in a region starved for protein, hunting of elephants and other wild game provides a badly-needed supply of meat for local populations. Domestic livestock can't survive in much of the game-rich habitat of Africa due to insects and disease. A single elephant killed by a legal hunter provides fresh, dried, smoked, or canned meat for an entire village for months.
An African PH (professional hunter, a.k.a. guide/outfitter) may run a wildlife concession encompassing hundreds of thousands of hectares, employing scores to hundreds of local people, providing meat for thousands of others, and through his taxes and the fees paid by his hunter clients, provides the funds needed to pay for wildlife managers, game wardens, judges, courts, and other infrastructure. This hunter's business is literally the lifeblood of an entire district. He guides hunters who harvest--always within the limits set by the government's wildlife managers--wild animals in an ethical and responsible manner, and in doing so helps maintain healthy populations of wild creatures that often have no idea of his presence until they are humanely killed by the hunter's bullet. (If you don't think that's humane, consider the alternative: being taken down by lions or hyenas, clawed and bitten and strangled to death by the predators who will begin eating your living flesh before you expire! Death in wild Africa is far from "going gently into that good night" for any creature.) African villages deliberately locate near hunting concessions to reap the employment opportunities, free meat, increased safety, and other benefits of the hunting economy.
Despite these very real facts about hunting in Africa, I read the words of ignorant and judgmental North Americans, comfortably ensconced in their urban homes, secure in their environmental righteousness, drinking their Starbucks coffee and stuffing themselves with the flesh of animals killed and prepared by others, rejoicing at this man's death because they view what he does, lawfully and for the greater good of his community, as something to be reviled. Because it's generally approved in their politically/environmentally-correct social milieu, I suspect. Blithely ignorant of the terrible impact this man's death will have on his community, the loss of employment by his concession, the meat his community will not have this winter to feed their families, the loss of revenue to his nation's wildlife management programs, too many people have, perhaps unthinkingly, rejoiced at the idea that an elephant somehow meted out "justice" when it brought this man's life to a violent end.
Too many North Americans have been indoctrinated by Disney cartoons and scripted "wildlife" television programs to view hunting as something evil, contrary to the factual realities of hunting in our modern world. They give money to phony charities that purport to protect animals while mostly lining the pockets of their directors. Self-righteous North American anti-hunters have a need to rejoice in a professional hunter's death because doing so confirms them in their self-righteousness. Perhaps they don't want to know the whole story. It's easier to simply revile the hunter, because it's fashionable to do so, and because it allows them to keep on consuming gourmet coffee and organic burgers with what they think is a clear conscience.
I sincerely hope that my Facebook friends who made comments "liking" the news of this man's death will read this and realize their response, while based on a sincere love of animals and wilderness, may have failed to take into account all of the facts of the case.
The response I've gotten has been surprisingly good. I've only garnered a few Facebook "likes", but more importantly I've received several phone calls from friends and family telling me that this is causing a buzz among their friends (non-hunting city dwellers), and quite a positive buzz at that. My sister, who lives in Edmonton, Canada, has cut & pasted it and emailed it to some of her non-hunting friends and is thinking about having it reprinted in a local newspaper.
The phone call with my sister got me thinking. I spend almost all of my non-working time with fellow hunters & outdoorsmen, and have done so for the better part of the last 40+ years. Unpleasant encounters with anti-hunting people has taught me to simply not talk about hunting in general social gatherings. Basically, I've become truly out of touch with what non-hunters think.
And that's a bad thing. With so many freedoms under attack in America and elsewhere in the world by socialist/leftist people, we can't afford to let the middle ground go uncontested. Most non-hunters aren't anti-hunters. But the only message they're hearing and reading in the news and in social media is either anti-hunting or chest-thumping pro-hunting stuff.
Somebody needs to be getting the message out to these middle-ground folks, in language they can understand. They don't want to see pictures of some bleached blonde in camo with bolt-on titties posing with her latest lion kill as an example of New Womanhood (although WE all do, but WE'RE not the target group!!), they're thinking people who are hungry for real information to counter the propaganda being slung by the anti's.
Because they're not stupid. They're simply ignorant of the facts about hunting. And they want information. They've read news about the lies and corruption in organizations like PETA and World Wildlife Fund, but there's no one really telling them the straight goods. A news source that is pro-hunting in viewpoint by doesn't condescend to them.
Which brings me to my point: I'm thinking about starting just such a venture. A website and blog about hunting, aimed at non-hunters. I've spent enough time among non-hunting outdoorsmen/women that I think I have a pretty good idea how to get their attention and hold it. I'm guessing I'll need some help from one or two like-minded hunters, so I'm going to throw this up as an open invitation to anyone here on the 'Fire with an inclination to take this on.
It won't be a money-making venture, and it won't get us free gear or hunting trips. But if it comes together like it should it will be enormously satisfying and just might make a difference in this crazy world of ours, helping to preserve hunting for our grandchildren.
If you're interested, PM me and we'll talk.
