Cecil who?
I am not a hunter. I don't even like hunting. But I am not a lunatic or a zombie either.Read a little. Look up some stuff on Google. Educate yourself a little and start thinking for yourself - don't simply swallow everything the media pushes down your throat. It is nothing but opium for the masses.
It never ceases to amaze me how easily the media can whip up a storm in a tea cup, leaving the frenzied masses foaming at the mouth with indignant fury.
All just because someone had given the lion a name. Every single day we are bombarded with hunters posing with their kills - rhino, elephant, leopard, giraffe, greater kudu, you name it. If the 'hunter' is some scantily dressed eye candy there might be a ripple, but otherwise nothing... But make it personal by giving the victim a name, and all hell breaks loose. The righteous masses, most of whom have no understanding of the concepts of 'sustainable use', 'ethical hunting' 'extinction' or CITES, jump on the band wagon with unbridled fury.
Whether this hunt had been ethical remains to be seen, but time will tell.
While everyone is still ranting and fuming, I have a message for you from my friend Arthur:
"The night after Cecil was killed, poachers crossed the border into the Tsavo National Park and slaughtered five elephants in minutes. All five died in a radius of fifty yards. The tusks were hacked out, and rangers found the carcasses and the orphan the next day.
Spare a thought for my nameless relatives."
Did you see anything about this in the media?
Neither did I.
The swear word is "poaching", people. That is where the danger of extinction lies. An elephant is poached in Africa every fifteen minutes.
Now that is something to go ballistic about.
Do I hear your voice out there?
So true, so true! Media frenzy...The merchants of chaos!
ReplyDeleteBeen in conservation all my life, I understand sustainable utilization and I am passionate about nature in all its facets!
DeleteSadly in some cases “armchair conservationist” can do more harm than a poacher!
“Cecil” the lion put all forms of hunting under the spotlight and the uninformed emotionally charged “bunny huggers” are on it like sharks smelling blood in the water.
One of the direct results of this incident is that Delta airlines banned all transportation of animal trophies from Africa and now trophy hunting and hunting in general is under scrutiny.
It is irrelevant whether we like or dislike hunting; the reality is that these industries give wildlife an economical value that supports a huge industry.
What those poor soles don’t realize is that thousand’s game ranches exist because there is a financial reason for conservation through sustainable utilization…. yes and that include trophy hunting.
Take the financial incentive away and the wildlife become worthless, redundant and replaceable.
Is this what we want? Replacing game ranches with cattle ranching?
We may be on our way to destroy the Southern Africa’s biggest conservation initiative, which is the role, the private landowner play in conservation.
It is OK to have an opinion or a debate on the ethics of hunting but as always, there is a bigger picture.
I only wish that we could get the same media results on the senseless slaughtering of rhinos and elephants!