Two years ago, when the well-known and well-loved lion Cecil was coaxed out of a protected area in Zimbabwe so he could be shot to death by a citizen of the United States, the practice of trophy hunting was once again thrust into public discussion. The outrage over Cecil’s killing was far-reaching; Humane Society of the United States President Wayne Pacelle called the hunter a “morally deadened human being.” Dr. Jane Goodall called the act “incomprehensible.” A Change.org petition demanding punishment for the killing garnered nearly 1.4 million signatures. It finally looked as if some progress could be made.
But last month, Cecil’s own son also fell to the twisted ego of a trophy hunter, and we’re faced with the grim reality that, even after the public outcry regarding Cecil’s pointless and grotesque killing, nothing has changed. African lions and many other species are disappearing from the earth at an alarming rate, and we continue to allow wealthy sadists to kill them for pleasure.
An Indian leopard rescued by Wildlife SOS.
Of course, the hunters don’t perceive themselves that way — or perhaps more accurately they don’t want us to perceive them that way. Trophy hunters like Walter Palmer (who paid more than $50,000 dollars to shoot Cecil) or Corey Knowlton (who paid $350,000 to shoot a rare black rhino, which are critically endangered) can make all the excuses they wish to justify their bloodlust. Some have tried to disguise their actions as the purview of charitable heroes. Some have proclaimed themselves the “true” conservationists. (After all, how better to protect an endangered species than to kill it, skin it, and behead it?) Others have claimed that they are “showing respect for the animals” by killing them for bragging rights. Some assert that local communities are economically enriched through the violent depletion of their resources. We want to address a few of these claims.
First, their economic assertion. Even if these apparent philanthropists were actually slaying animals out of selfless purity for the benefit of local communities, their argument is flimsy: those communities benefit only minimally from trophy hunters, and any conservationist efforts from trophy hunter money is negligible. Because trophy hunting money makes up as little as 1.8 percent of tourism revenue in Africa, as our friends at the Dodo write, “the majority of tourists come to see Africa's wildlife, not kill it.” None of the $50,000 Palmer paid to kill Cecil, writes the Dodo, “would have accrued to government, communities or conservation as the hunt was illegal and the money paid to the landowner and professional hunter.” It’s simple: if a trophy hunter’s goal is to protect species and help financially strapped communities, they can send a check instead of a bullet. Why does philanthropy have to involve sawing the head off an endangered lion? In Cecil’s case, according to the New York Times, Palmer shot him with a bow and arrow, followed him around for nearly two days as he bled out in agony, then decapitated him for the prized skull. All for the neighboring community, eh?
A male lion, one of the prime targets of trophy hunters. basks in the Namibian sun.
Second, their “true conservationist” claim. As we said, some trophy hunters anoint themselves as the true conservationists — not the organizations, government agencies, and private individuals who dedicate real time, thorough research, and myriad resources to the protection of wildlife — they’re just elitist tree huggers, after all. Without trophy hunter money “pouring into conservation” through the killing of animals, we’re told, there would be no conservation at all. They might tell you that killing roughly 600 lions in Africa a year (an unsustainable rate given the species’ already low numbers) is simply the price of funding conservation. If this sounds absurd to you, it should. If it reminds of you Exxon calling themselves “stewards of the environment” after the Valdez oil spill, it should. Because there is literally no basis for such claims — in fact, the opposite: as we said, trophy hunters contribute only tiny proportion of the tourist revenue in Africa — almost none of which goes to conservation. That seems to hold true outside Africa as well.
As part of their “true conservationist” claim, trophy hunters have asserted that their actions help wild animal populations. Sound absurd? It is! First of all, trophy hunters generally take the largest animals of a given species. And these equate to the most successful individuals, the ones that should be reproducing and putting their stamp on the herd for the sake of their species. Trophy hunting is not a natural process. Secondly, trophy hunters are often stalking animals that are already rare and whose numbers are dropping in the wild due to poaching, habitat loss, and a host of other issues. Clearly, trophy hunting will only hurt these wild populations. Third, nefarious activities such as the lion-bone trade are partially fueled by trophy hunting: the availability of fresh lion bones creates more demand for the killing to continue. Could anyone really believe this helps wild populations? The ugly truth is that trophy hunters simply enjoy killing rare and beautiful animals.
Wildlife SOS works in India, where trophy hunting is non-existent, and yet we have found ways to protect species and help communities without taking anyone’s blood money. We are proof that it can be done. While trophy hunters make up just a tiny sliver of the human population, their ability to do damage — while making self-aggrandizing claims about it along the way — is large. It’s time we took that ability away from them. When an endangered species is gone, it’s gone forever.
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