That could apply to both sides of the debate.
Except it doesn’t. I try to address each point raised using facts and logic. In contrast, my comments are ignored or simply responded to with a variant of one of the following clichés/sound bites: “If someone is killing animals they don’t have to kill they can’t really be supporting conservation.” Or “Why don’t we pay people to do what hunters will pay to do.” Or “Hunters don’t really care about conservation they just like killing.” Or “Hunting is the problem, not the solution.”
Why not just say you like hunting animals.
Again? Of course people like hunting. What you don’t seem to believe is that a person who likes hunting can also care about conservation and appreciate that the money they spend on hunting goes to a good cause. You keep pretending that liking hunting must mean that a hunter cares about nothing else but hunting and therefore must be dissembling if they point out that properly managed hunting provides many benefits to others and to nature.
Besides, as pointed out more than once, even if they don’t want to provide any benefits and just want to hunt, a properly managed sport hunting program insures that they will still be providing the benefits anyway.
The contributions of those, like myself, who have killed exactly ZERO elephants and bought ZERO products made from elephants (such as ivory), are GREATER than buying the deaths of elephants through hunting (or buying ivory, etc.). Simple math. Adding and subtracting. My actions are neutral while hunters subtract from the population.
This is false. The animals removed from the population by managed sport hunting do not negatively affect the population and even contribute to maintaining healthy population levels. What you continue to ignore is that all animals eventually die. You keep pretending that no animals die if sport hunters do not kill them. That is not reality. They will all die regardless of whether they are hunted legally or not. Instead of allowing all the animals to die of natural causes (or be killed by poachers)--essentially allowing them to go to waste, some can be converted to a valuable resource, a resource which benefits the remaining animals and many humans.
The population has gone from Millions to thousands directly due to MAN's behavior in irresponsibly taking land and killing through pulling the trigger or firing the arrows and throwing the spears. Totally intellectually dishonest to think this is due to mother nature.
First of all, no one has suggested that mother nature is responsible for the population reduction of elephants. So that is either a non sequitur or a strawman, take your pick.
Second, while it is true that man’s behavior is largely responsible for the reduction in elephant population, you correctly note that not all of the problem is hunting. In fact, a large part of the problem was habitat encroachment, the second largest part was uncontrolled hunting—what we would call poaching today.
Properly managed sport hunting addresses both of those problems as explained many times in this thread. Because sport hunting gives elephants value to the locals and to those directly involved in the hunting profession, those persons are motivated to maintain the elephants’ habitat and to provide anti-poaching support. In addition, sport hunting funds government anti-poaching efforts as well.
So while your comments about the population reduction are accurate, they actually support sport hunting. This has been another pervasive theme in your comments—you make no practical distinction between poaching/uncontrolled/illegal hunting and properly managed legal sport hunting. In reality the difference is tremendous.
One more thing. One of the things that may not be obvious in this discussion is how much it costs to legally kill an elephant. Without even getting into transportation costs, equipment costs or fees paid to professional hunters, the cost of an elephant trophy fee generally runs into five figures. Anyone who thinks that there are thousands of people lining up to shoot an elephant at those prices are badly mistaken. It should go without saying that the number of animals being taken is quite small. That makes the benefits provided all the more impressive.
First we're not talking about the deer and elk population which are in the tens of millions and quite healthy, able to quickly reproduce.
A properly managed sport hunting program takes into account population size and reproduction rates when determining how many and what type of permits to sell. To see that this is true, you can look at the population statistics in areas where managed sport hunting is allowed.
Killing a creature is killing a creature, plain and simple. Who's to say whether it would live a day or a year or a decade more.
That’s what I said your objection was in one of my previous posts. Throughout this discussion you have tried to make it sound like you are arguing from the position that sport hunting is injurious to the animal population in specific and conservation in general but in reality your objection is to hunting/killing trophy animals pretty much regardless of any other facts that apply.
In fact, taking a limited number of animals that are past breeding age and near the end of their lifespan has at the very worst, a neutral effect on the population. Eliminating those animals via a properly managed sport hunting program provides money for anti-poaching efforts which preserves the breeding population and it preserves habitat by giving the animals value to the locals.
I read and understand and reject as absurd the arguments proposed for big game hunts of endangered or struggling species.
The arguments are not just “proposed” they are based on the factual success of such activities when properly implemented. You can reject them because you do not like the idea of them, but that does not change the fact that they achieve the claimed goals—goals you claim to support.
I differ in that I selfLESSly want them conserved.
You also differ from hunters in that you and those like you provide only a tiny fraction of the monies required to actually accomplish the conservation that you support, while hunting provides the major portion of it.
Your motives may be pure and you may feel superior, but it’s the money from hunters that does the heavy lifting—and that’s true regardless of whether or not their hearts are in the right place. As I’ve said before, that’s part of the beauty of the solution—a solution that is, you may be interested to know, if not whole-heartedly supported, is at least accepted as viable and necessary by the World Wildlife Federation.
http://www.wwf.org.uk/wwf_articles.cfm?unewsid=6766
As a leading conservation organisation, WWF works to address illegal or unsustainable exploitation of wildlife. Within this framework, WWF accepts or supports hunting in a very limited number of contexts where it is culturally appropriate, legal and effectively regulated, and has demonstrated environmental and community benefits.
http://www.dw.de/wwf-defends-elephant-hunts-for-conservation/a-15891067
Trophy hunting presents a difficult ethical problem for the WWF, which says it may be one way to reduce poaching for ivory, the number one killer of Africa's elephants.
"It (poaching) kills 12,000 elephants a year," said Gramling. "We've also learned – and this can be a challenge for conservationists – that in some circumstances, regulated hunting has to be tolerated, because it reduces the poverty that fuels poaching."
…the most fundamental, simple solution does NOT involve shooting one more elephant or endangered animal...
The problem with that statement is that only long term solution found to be truly effective does, in fact, involve properly managed hunting. A simple, fundamental, pleasing, selfless, <insert preferred adjective here>, “solution” is of no benefit if it does not truly solve the problem.
Here’s another endorsement of properly managed trophy hunting from what might be a surprising source to some.
http://conservationmagazine.org/2014/01/can-trophy-hunting-reconciled-conservation/
”Better evidence would come from proof that hunting can be consistent with actual, measurable conservation-related benefits for a species.
Is there such evidence? According to a 2005 paper by Nigel Leader-Williams and colleagues in the Journal of International Wildlife Law and Policy the answer is yes.”
…
”…Leader-Williams also pointed out that the implementation of controlled, legalized hunting was also beneficial for Zimbabwe’s elephants. “Implementing trophy hunting has doubled the area of the country under wildlife management relative to the 13% in state protected areas,” thanks to the inclusion of private lands, he says. “As a result, the area of suitable land available to elephants and other wildlife has increased, reversing the problem of habitat loss and helping to maintain a sustained population increase in Zimbabwe’s already large elephant population.”
