Bounty hunting does not help prevent the extinction of lions

Many ecologists claim that "sporting" hunting has no value for nature conservation, according to them the sport is a factor that harms and harms the ability of mammal populations to exist in the wild. Despite the hunters' lobby's claims to the contrary, there are clear signs of their minimal to zero contribution to the economy or to supporting the locals, as most of the profit ends up in the pockets of corrupt foreign or local investors

Much has already been said and written for and against hunting as a "sport", in which the stuffed animal is presented as a trophy in the house of the winning hunt. When public opinion opposes and the authorities in many countries prepare laws and regulations to ban the sport - the bounty hunters will do everything to protect the idea and exercise their right to shoot wild animals and display the stuffed animals.

Mrs. Dickman owns a farm in South Africa where wild animals are raised. The farm is supported by hunting sports associations and clubs. The lady gathered support and signatures of more than a hundred people. who claim to be conservationists, including famous names, andpublished a letter in "Science" the main point of which was support for a "sporting" hunter.

The main claims in the letter are that bounty hunting in Africa, despite being repulsive, is a necessary evil to preserve wild animals; Hunting plays an important role in the survival of wild animals; Banning the export and import of stuffed animals will harm the preservation of the animals. Dickman also wrote that hunting promotes the diversity of species and the preservation of population habitats and that bounty hunting promotes animal conservation in Africa. Proceeds from the hunt are used to support local human populations.

is that so?

Many ecologists claim that "sporting" hunting has no value for nature conservation,

According to them, sport is a factor that harms and harms the ability of mammal populations to exist in the wild. Despite the hunters' lobby's claims to the contrary, there are clear signs of their minimal to zero contribution to the economy or to supporting the locals, as most of the profit ends up in the pockets of corrupt foreign or local investors.

A journalistic publication in "Science" with the addition of the signature of more than a hundred "experts" creates the impression that the topic has a broad consensus among scientists, which resulted in the letter being distributed among a wide audience by means of communication such as the BBC. However, presenting such a broad consensus is not true as a large number of conservation experts disagree on the value of conservation, the profits and benefits of bounty hunting. What became clear when "Science" published a large number of articles that contradict the idea of ​​supporting the hunter. At the base of the opposition to hunting is the attitude that: "Hunting as a long-term solution for the conservation of wildlife in Africa is not sustainable. In order to implement proper conservation, there is a need for environmental management, responsible, tough and, if necessary, devoid of sentimentality, which will be based on information and an appreciation for wildlife beyond its economic value.

The fact that the publication of the hunters comes a few days after the publication of an initiative with a demand to stop is suspicious The import of stuffed animals to the USA The so-called "Cecil Initiative" is named after her The lion that was "hunted" in Zimbabwe.

According to this initiative, legislators in Europe and the US are considering banning the import of "prizes" and stuffed animals. The ban will be enacted following a tendency to stop the "sport" by investigating the effectiveness of the hunter to support the preservation of wild animals. An investigation that will reveal the absurd idea of ​​the hunting industry.

It turns out that the supporters of the hunter in the USA who oppose the Cecil initiative are not supported or motivated by science, since The scientific qualifications of most of the signatories to the publication are non-existent except for the interest in the industry that profits from bounty hunters, including support In the club from where the hunter who killed Sesi was fromTo. The support of industrialists whose influence on the destruction of nature in Africa is documented and known.

In her address to the editor-in-chief of "Science" it turned out that the publishers of the "idea" were not required to declare a conflict of interest, since after an investigation and the writers' refusal to make a fair disclosure, their ties to the hunting industry turned out to be nothing more than an attempt at false advertising without scientific support, what is called nowadays Dizzy

In their attempt to convince the audience that "a bounty hunter is a necessary evil" the author and her supporters ignored Sustainable applications and alternatives some of which were published in a letter that contradicts the "idea", since bounty hunting is an addiction of a super-rich minority and the only way to justify it is through pseudo-scientific publications that try to show benefits that don't exist.

Threatened by the fact that opposition is growing and that global public opinion is learning to recognize the hunter as cruel and unnecessary, the members of the hunting clubs resort to all means to protect their right to shoot animals and display the stuffed carcasses. In a time of scams, lies and misrepresentations, Dickman's letter is another attempt by Noel to Sakharir that accepting it as truth for implementation will cause fatal damage to wild animals and the natural environment in Africa.

With us: a few years ago, a lawyer of the hunters' association contacted me with a request that I come to give expert testimony in a lawsuit against the authority that announced that no more hunting licenses would be issued. I replied that in my humble opinion the decision is wrong since it is equivalent to the decision of the police to stop issuing driver's licenses or to the decision of the Ministry of Communications to stop the sale of telephones. Unless the decision is to stop the hunter completely, because in my opinion it is appropriate to stop the sport hunting completely and allow only hunting by experts and only in cases and places where it is necessary to thin out populations that are exploding or harmful in agriculture. To make matters worse, we have harmed nature so badly that today there is a need for active management of populations, which means maintaining the existing ones while trying to return animals that have been harmed or disappeared to nature. Active management also includes the need for thinning, as bad as the concept sounds. We have destroyed every good plot and harmed the natural environment and only management based on scientific data (without sentimentality) will enable restoration, restoration and active preservation of nature.

I will add that if you are involved in nature conservation and the natural environment, then for many years I have been calling on everyone in charge of the natural environment to carry out surveys of the carrying capacity of reserves, sites and beaches. Such a survey will determine the maximum number of visitors a website can carry with minimal damage. Based on the surveys, those in charge of the sites must determine and implement restrictions on the number of visitors.
In many of the sites, every visit is an injury, so determining the number of visitors will be a compromise between the need to maintain and the desire for public visits. Anyone who cares and has a duty to protect the natural environment must implement this.