Thread: Defending hunters

Originally Posted by MassiveAttack

Have you never in your entier hunting career wounded an animal that you didn't recover?

Hi @MassiveAttack to answer your question….no….two reasons,

One, im still new to hunting and haven’t fired at a lot of deer,
Two, and the reason I put something on this thread, is i class myself an ‘Ethical Hunter’, unlike the yank prick in question!!!!

I would not hunt a targeted species ‘under gunned’ (223/243) against a Lion, never mind a bow,
if I was an egotistical prick and was using a bow, I would make sure 100% that it would be a ‘kill shot’

then, and this is the real reason for my total distaste of this persons character….i would not squat behind the lion with my bow and big cheesy grin
so anyone/everyone would ‘assume’ I had killed it…….that is the aspect that fucks me off the most, if the story had not got out, he would have ‘claimed’ that kill

I fired and missed a spiker last year, I went up a hill to search for it or a blood trail, could not find anything,
went back with my mates dog 3 hours later just to make sure, as I said earlier, I class myself an ‘Ethical Hunter’…..

Originally Posted by Scouser

Hi @MassiveAttack to answer your question….no….two reasons,

One, im still new to hunting and haven’t fired at a lot of deer

Indeed. No matter how ethical and well-intentioned, you will end up (like everyone else) having some poor shots or misjudgements which end up wounding animals you thought you would kill cleanly. Then you might not be able to find them afterwards, despite your best attempts. That doesn't make you unethical, just human. But maybe you will have climbed down from that high horse after some more experience.

Originally Posted by Scouser

Hi @MassiveAttack to answer your question….no….two reasons,

One, im still new to hunting and haven’t fired at a lot of deer,
Two, and the reason I put something on this thread, is i class myself an ‘Ethical Hunter’, unlike the yank prick in question!!!!

I would not hunt a targeted species ‘under gunned’ (223/243) against a Lion, never mind a bow,
if I was an egotistical prick and was using a bow, I would make sure 100% that it would be a ‘kill shot’

then, and this is the real reason for my total distaste of this persons character….i would not squat behind the lion with my bow and big cheesy grin
so anyone/everyone would ‘assume’ I had killed it…….that is the aspect that fucks me off the most, if the story had not got out, he would have ‘claimed’ that kill

I fired and missed a spiker last year, I went up a hill to search for it or a blood trail, could not find anything,
went back with my mates dog 3 hours later just to make sure, as I said earlier, I class myself an ‘Ethical Hunter’…..

Thanks for the honest reply. I have done more hunting than you although probably a lot less than others on here. While I also consider myself a ethical hunter I have had wounded animals that I haven't found and also, like you, shot at animals that have "dissapeared", presumably missed but possibly wounded. Like you, I have whenever possible spent hours looking for the lost animal.

Hunting isn't an exact science, if it was then it would just be shooting dairy cows in a paddock. For the hunt to be "fair chase" the animal must have a relaistic chance of escape and that often means a wounded animal can escape as well.

So wounded animals are a undeniable fact of life (as you found with your spiker). Stats for gamebird shooting can be as many as 25% hit but not recovered birds. As ethical hunters we spend our lifetimes getting better at the sport so that we can reduce that percentage but we can never reduce it to zero.

Now onto bow hunting. You may argue that it's undergunned but the fact that the human race survives today proves that this method can put food on the table and bring down the biggest animals on the planet. Bow hunting is different to rifle hunting in that there is no hydrostatic shock when the animal is hit. Animals die of blood loss rather than the shot of being shot so bow shot animals generally don't drop on the spot and normally require tracking.

Standard practise for any wounded animal is not to chase it immediatly after it's shot. Best practise is to give it at least 10min for the shock to set in and it to seeze up. If you chase it before then while it's full of adrenalin then it will run further than if you left it. I would also point out that this is a huge man eating wounded lion so sensible caution would say you don't go running into the bush after it without a plan. I would also point out that they did follow up this animal and not just go home and drink beer becasue thats easier.

So shooting it with a bow then having to track it and follow up and kill it would be fairly normal for these types of hunts. You may say this is unethical but our ancestors didn't think so and PETA would say the same about duck hunting today.

I don't see that this dentist bloke has done anything worse than what we all have done during our hunting career. Personally I don't consider an animal that I have paid for a valid trophy but I also don't feel the need to criticize and judge the dentist bloke.

I see in todays news that Zimbabwe has reopened lion hunting so I guess they are a sensible lot over in Africa.

http://www.wisdomination.com/its-tim...ernet-outrage/

Sent from my SM-T800 using Tapatalk

This is good article about the need for controlled hunting in Africa

Lionizing Cecil Makes Us Feel Good, But a Trophy Hunting Ban Will Accelerate Slaughter | California Magazine

Lionizing Cecil Makes Us Feel Good, But a Trophy Hunting Ban Will Accelerate Slaughter

By Glen Martin
If you fly over parts of Tsavo today—and I challenge anyone to do so, if you have the eyes for it – you can see lines of snares set out in funnel traps that extend four or five miles. Tens of thousands of animals are being killed annually for the meat business. Carnivores are being decimated in the same snares and discarded. I am not a propagandist on this issue, but when my friends say we are very concerned that hunting will be reintroduced in Kenya, let me put it to you: hunting has never been stopped in Kenya, and there is more hunting in Kenya today than at any time since independence. (Thousands) of animals are being killed annually with no control. Snaring, poisoning, and shooting are common things. So when you have a fear of debate about hunting, please don’t think there is no hunting. Think of a policy to regulate it, so that we can make it sustainable. That is surely the issue, because an illegal crop, an illegal market is unsustainable in the long term, whatever it is. And the market in wildlife meat is unsustainable as currently practiced, and something needs to be done.

-Richard Leaky, in an address to the Strathmore Business School, Nairobi

Richard Leaky, of course, is the renowned paleoanthropologist, conservationist, and the first director of the Kenya Wildlife Service, the man who was in large part responsible for scotching the ivory trade during the initial round of the Elephant Wars in the 1980s.

I interviewed Leakey a few years ago for my book, Game Changer: Animal Rights and the Fate of Africa’s Wildlife (University of California Press, 2012). His words came back to me with the brouhaha over the shooting of Cecil, the most lionized lion on the planet. So did the words of many of the other people I interviewed for the book. That includes Ian Parker, a legendary Kenyan game ranger and warden; Michael Norton-Griffiths, who served as the senior ecologist for Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park and managed the Eastern Sahel Program for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature; Ole Kaparo, a former speaker of the Kenyan Parliament and a leader of the Laikipia Maasai people; and Laurence Frank, an emeritus associate of UC Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Biology and one of Africa’s most respected carnivore biologists.

Ultimately, wild animals are disappearing in Africa because they are worthless to the people who live with and near them.
All these men no doubt are upset to varying degrees by l’affaire Cecil—but not for reasons one may think. They’re probably more distressed by the response to the shooting than the shooting itself. That’s because the uproar over Cecil, the fervent calls for expanding the bans on trophy hunting in Africa, will work against African wildlife conservation in general and carnivore conservation in particular.

As Leaky points out, regulated hunting—even poorly regulated hunting, as seems the case with Cecil in Zimbabwe—isn’t the driving force in the decline of the African lion, which has fallen from a continental population of around 200,000 to fewer than 20,000 today. Unregulated hunting is the main culprit: Industrial-scale poaching and bushmeat hunting. Ancillary reasons include the inexorable expansion of agriculture and the increasing populations of pastoral peoples, who inhabit their ancestral rangelands in ever-increasing numbers, spearing or poisoning any predator that could pose a threat to their cattle and goats. And it’s also the booming illegal trade in wildlife parts. More than one field biologist I talked to told me how wild animals—particularly predators, rhinos, and elephants—are disappearing in proportion to the rapid expansion of Chinese-funded development projects. Ivory and rhino horn, of course, remain highly prized in China, and lion bone is considered an “acceptable” substitute for tiger bone in traditional Asian medicine; lion and leopard claws and teeth also are much sought after.

An African savannah devoid of lumbering pachyderms and lolling lions may make a New York animal rights activist weep, but to a Samburu pastoralist or Kikuyu subsistence farmer it constitutes a lovely prospect.
But ultimately, wild animals are disappearing in Africa because they are worthless to the people who live with and near them. Kenya’s hunting ban has been in effect since 1977. During that time, the country’s wildlife has declined by more than 70 percent. The country’s subsistence farmers and pastoralists can derive no legitimate utility from the animals. Indeed, wildlife makes their lives harder. Elephants raid their crops, destroy their water systems, stomp cattle and the occasional farmer. Lions, hyenas, and leopards kill their livestock. Better to shoot the elephant and poison the lion. An African savannah devoid of lumbering pachyderms and lolling lions may make a New York animal rights activist weep, but to a Samburu pastoralist or Kikuyu subsistence farmer it constitutes a lovely prospect, one promising peaceful nights uninterrupted by the trumpeting of elephants raiding the pumpkin patch or the squeals of goats enduring evisceration by hungry lions.

But what about eco-tourism? Why hasn’t that helped? Don’t the eco-lodges sprouting across Kenya like mushrooms after the Long Rains deliver cash, goods, and services to local communities? Aren’t they a very good thing? In a word, no. First, these lodges constitute permanent physical footprints on the wild landscape. They require roads and other infrastructure, and thus fragment wildlife habitat. Locals tend to congregate around them, driving game further afield.

Further, many of the lodges are owned by foreign entrepreneurs and corporations, and the profits tend to trickle up to their proprietors and Kenya’s deeply corrupt oligarchs, not down to the poor farmers and herdsmen on the land.

Michael Norton-Griffiths observes the situation is analogous to a man whose only asset is a goat. But this particular goat comes with many strings attached. The man owns the goat, but he can’t sell it or eat it. In fact, he can’t “exploit” the goat in anyway. The only thing he’s allowed to do is let tourists drive by and take pictures of it. Oh, one more thing: he doesn’t get any money from photo-snapping goat enthusiasts. All profits go to the guys driving the tourist buses. Kenya’s rural residents, in other words, are responsible for the country’s wildlife, but they aren’t allowed to benefit from it.

In any evaluation of Africa’s wildlife crisis, Namibia must be considered. That’s because there isn’t a wildlife crisis in Namibia. At the time of its independence from South Africa in 1990, Namibia’s game populations were at historic lows, decimated by years of combat between locals and the South African army. The new government wanted to encourage both a wildlife rebound and tourism, but it took a tack directly opposite from Kenya’s. Rural populations were organized into communities controlling vast areas of land. Where necessary, the wildlands were restocked with game. Each community was invested with the right to manage its own wildlife resources, subject to certain broad dictates from Namibian national wildlife agencies. In other words, game was commoditized. It could be cropped for commercial meat production; it could be eaten by community members; the rights to hunt trophy specimens of charismatic species could be sold. Suddenly, wildlife had great value for people living in the Namibian bush, and they reacted predictably: They protected their assets.

I saw this dynamic in action at Salambala Conservancy in Caprivi, a lush northern Namibian province watered by the Okavango and Zambezi Rivers. A holding of the Subia people, Salambala is “small” by Namibian conservancy standards, but still vast by any objective accounting: 230,000 acres. The community and the central government have established sustainable annual quotas for almost every species inhabiting the land, right down to game birds: 50 impala, seven African buffalo, fifty zebras, four kudus, four waterbucks, four hippos, three crocodiles, three baboons, two black-backed jackals, 100 white-faced ducks, 150 turtle doves, 50 guinea fowl, and 70 red-billed francolins. The quota for elephants is eight, with six going to trophy hunters, one dedicated to the community’s chief and elders, and one reserved for distribution among conservancy members. (Lions are still relatively rare in Namibia, though their reintroduction proceeds in certain areas. One reason Namibia remains Africa’s cheetah stronghold is the dearth of lions, which reflexively kill the smaller cats; where lions are prevalent, cheetahs, axiomatically, are scarce. Cheetahs, by the way, are also included in the trophy quota of some community conservancies.)

It’s easier to scream in outrage over the killing of a highly charismatic lion with a cute name, sign a Change.org petition, and move on to posting selfies, than it is to actually investigate the deep forces behind the African wildlife holocaust.
The community keeps all income generated from trophy hunters and meat sales. Prior to independence and the establishment of Salambala, any Subia community member who poached an animal likely would have met with praise; his act would’ve meant meat for family, friends and neighbors. Now, the illegal taking of game is considered a major offense, theft from the community as a whole. Shortly before my arrival, the remains of a blue wildebeest had been found, and local administrators quickly determined that a community member was responsible for the killing. They cheerfully predicted he would soon be apprehended, beaten severely, and handed over to government authorities for additional punishment.

Ultimately, then, the African wildlife crisis is a crisis of misperception. Conservation has been subsumed by animal rights. These are not, however, the same things. Individual animals—most recently Cecil and Jericho—have become more important in the Age of Social Media than species stability, habitat preservation, and pragmatic if uncomfortable policies that would actually encourage the preservation of wildlife. This is understandable: It’s easier to scream in outrage over the killing of a highly charismatic lion with a cute name, sign a Change.org petition, and move on to posting selfies, than it is to actually investigate the deep forces behind the African wildlife holocaust. But emoting over Cecil isn’t going to save the African lion. The African lion is not the Lion King, just as Daffy Duck is not representative of a typical mallard in a North American marsh. We don’t live in a cartoon, and our problems are not solved by anthropomorphizing wildlife. Blanket trophy hunting bans may make us feel better, but they will only accelerate the slaughter.

One in a series of personal Perspectives. We invite writers and readers to submit their own essays—inspiration can come from California magazine or California Magazine Online stories, the news, or issues of the day. Read more:

Posted on August 3, 2015 - 7:10am

I have a problem when people want to throw *all* hunters under the bus and label them "sport hunters". Those people don't want to accept there are differences. They don't think of conservation for a reason or that providing meat for people as a reason or for farmers hunting is a way of looking after their land. When I have said I go hunting, I have been called that I'm doing it for "sport". That makes no sense to me? When I think of sport hunting I do think of trophy-only hunters, of which I know none personally. But I know plenty of people who hunt as a part of their lifestyle, for learning valuable bush skills, being out in the land and providing for themselves. I can't make sense of people who want to label hunting as I know it as "sport"; if it has been the same way for tens of thousands of years, how is it sport?

Anyway all that aside the best way to defend hunters is education, pretty simple. Yet lacking in our society.

Originally Posted by Aly

I have a problem when people want to throw *all* hunters under the bus and label them "sport hunters". Those people don't want to accept there are differences. They don't think of conservation for a reason or that providing meat for people as a reason or for farmers hunting is a way of looking after their land. When I have said I go hunting, I have been called that I'm doing it for "sport". That makes no sense to me? When I think of sport hunting I do think of trophy-only hunters, of which I know none personally. But I know plenty of people who hunt as a part of their lifestyle, for learning valuable bush skills, being out in the land and providing for themselves. I can't make sense of people who want to label hunting as I know it as "sport"; if it has been the same way for tens of thousands of years, how is it sport?

Anyway all that aside the best way to defend hunters is education, pretty simple. Yet lacking in our society.

Thats exactly my point. You may decide your reasons for hunting are more valid than a trophy hunter but whatever the difference is it's very subtle and doesn't matter to either the game animal or animal rights activests so you are splitting hairs.

I hunt for sport as we all do. Nobody in this country has to hunt for sustanance so even if you eat what you shoot you are still hunting for sport because it would have been a lot cheaper, quicker and simpler to buy a duck or venison roast from the supermarket.

@Spudattack - agree with everything you have said.

[QUOTEI tried to make this point in the thread about the bloke who killed Cecil the Lion but failed. If we condem or don't condone the dentist bloke who pulled the trigger then we condem ourselves because there is only a subtle difference as to why he wanted to kill a lion and why we want to hunt the species we hunt.

We hunt thing for many reasons, food, trophies, pest control and sport. All of these reasons are valid in the right context and it's fair to say the thing being hunted doesn't care about the reason or what happens to it after it's death - it just wants to keep on living.

The dentist bloke paid for a above board and legal lion hunt. His guides may have done something that could be clasified as poaching but but he paid for and expected a legal hunt so this isn't his crime.

The angry mob on bookface and the rest of the internet is now up in arms about how somone could kill the cuddly wuddly lion and why would anyone do that? This cuts to the heart of the very reason why we hunt and if we can't answer this question then our children won't get to enjoy the same hunting culture that we have.

The reason why we hunt is the same reason Cecil (used to) hunt - we are preaditors, it's in our nature and it's natural for us to do this.][/QUOTE]

thats the crux of the matter did he participate in a hunt knowing that unethical and illegal methods were bieng used.
must have been shit ph.s not to have stuck a couple of finishers in the lion bow hunt or no.
i thought imediate follow up and quick despatch would be part of a ph,s licencing duties.
trophy hunter meathunter whatever if he behaved outside the written and unwritten rules his trophy aint worth shit and his condemnation on those grounds is deserved from all of us.

Originally Posted by gsp follower

[QUOTEI tried to make this point in the thread about the bloke who killed Cecil the Lion but failed. If we condem or don't condone the dentist bloke who pulled the trigger then we condem ourselves because there is only a subtle difference as to why he wanted to kill a lion and why we want to hunt the species we hunt.

We hunt thing for many reasons, food, trophies, pest control and sport. All of these reasons are valid in the right context and it's fair to say the thing being hunted doesn't care about the reason or what happens to it after it's death - it just wants to keep on living.

The dentist bloke paid for a above board and legal lion hunt. His guides may have done something that could be clasified as poaching but but he paid for and expected a legal hunt so this isn't his crime.

The angry mob on bookface and the rest of the internet is now up in arms about how somone could kill the cuddly wuddly lion and why would anyone do that? This cuts to the heart of the very reason why we hunt and if we can't answer this question then our children won't get to enjoy the same hunting culture that we have.

The reason why we hunt is the same reason Cecil (used to) hunt - we are preaditors, it's in our nature and it's natural for us to do this.]

thats the crux of the matter did he participate in a hunt knowing that unethical and illegal methods were bieng used.
must have been shit ph.s not to have stuck a couple of finishers in the lion bow hunt or no.
i thought imediate follow up and quick despatch would be part of a ph,s licencing duties.
trophy hunter meathunter whatever if he behaved outside the written and unwritten rules his trophy aint worth shit and his condemnation on those grounds is deserved from all of us.[/QUOTE]

Code of ethics APHA: Welcome to Apha Website
not sure about zphga rules.
I did a few years guiding in Europe and North Africa (private properties) I have seen a couple of interesting people. Some clients didn't wanted to pay after their animal have been secured by my colleges. In most cases its up to the PH if he want to interact or not, in most you can see straight away if a followup shot is needed. Hunting big game especially something from the big five they should have secured the animal much sooner. But I haven't been there so not sure what happened exactly.

About this lady: sorry but she must be a resident of a different planet. For a second I felt like am back in the UK. Guys from there must be pretty familiar whit this.
I should write an article about cruel and sadistic teachers

Good creeping and lurking in the shadows for everyone!

BF

Originally Posted by gsp follower

[QUOTEI tried to make this point in the thread about the bloke who killed Cecil the Lion but failed. If we condem or don't condone the dentist bloke who pulled the trigger then we condem ourselves because there is only a subtle difference as to why he wanted to kill a lion and why we want to hunt the species we hunt.

We hunt thing for many reasons, food, trophies, pest control and sport. All of these reasons are valid in the right context and it's fair to say the thing being hunted doesn't care about the reason or what happens to it after it's death - it just wants to keep on living.

The dentist bloke paid for a above board and legal lion hunt. His guides may have done something that could be clasified as poaching but but he paid for and expected a legal hunt so this isn't his crime.

The angry mob on bookface and the rest of the internet is now up in arms about how somone could kill the cuddly wuddly lion and why would anyone do that? This cuts to the heart of the very reason why we hunt and if we can't answer this question then our children won't get to enjoy the same hunting culture that we have.

The reason why we hunt is the same reason Cecil (used to) hunt - we are preaditors, it's in our nature and it's natural for us to do this.]

thats the crux of the matter did he participate in a hunt knowing that unethical and illegal methods were bieng used.
must have been shit ph.s not to have stuck a couple of finishers in the lion bow hunt or no.
i thought imediate follow up and quick despatch would be part of a ph,s licencing duties.
trophy hunter meathunter whatever if he behaved outside the written and unwritten rules his trophy aint worth shit and his condemnation on those grounds is deserved from all of us.[/QUOTE]

Yep, another point is that it has not been proven that either Palmer or the Ph actually did anything illegal on this hunt, only allegations all made by the anti hunting crowd.

Aside from stuffing up the shot and the ph failing to finish it off immediately (again, we do not know the exact circumstances here) it is not clear than they did anything wrong, unethical perhaps, but also still to be proven.

To condemn them without knowing all the facts would be foolish.

But fully agree, should it be found that they acted illegally I have no issue with the full force of what little law Zimbabwe has to be thrown at them!

Nah his condemnation isn't justified on the basis of what we know that he did, nor is it ever justified to participate in trial by media ever.... leave that to the emotionally underdeveloped...

To scapegoat this guy, just to avoid association might be convenient ... but it just makes us exactly the same as the other people doing the same thing.

Personally I have no interest in any form of canned/guided hunting, nor predator hunting nor giraffe/elephant/rhino. But I'm not ignorant enough to insist that my personal values should apply across the board, unlike the numbies on the other side of this issue..

Trophy hunting might be harder to rationalise to the civilised uninformed, but it makes the most sense for african wildlife management. There is no place for meat hunting as a foreign exchange earner for those economies.

The dumb money in this debate is too dumb to understand the issues.

Originally Posted by Sidney

Nah his condemnation isn't justified on the basis of what we know that he did, nor is it ever justified to participate in trial by media ever.... leave that to the emotionally underdeveloped...

To scapegoat this guy, just to avoid association might be convenient ... but it just makes us exactly the same as the other people doing the same thing.

Personally I have no interest in any form of canned/guided hunting, nor predator hunting nor giraffe/elephant/rhino. But I'm not ignorant enough to insist that my personal values should apply across the board, unlike the numbies on the other side of this issue..

Trophy hunting might be harder to rationalise to the civilised uninformed, but it makes the most sense for african wildlife management. There is no place for meat hunting as a foreign exchange earner for those economies.

The dumb money in this debate is too dumb to understand the issues.

I agree. My issue is that it is commercialised hunting that most often puts a magnifying glass on every one that is captured under the banner of "hunting". Ill considered (perhaps irresponsible) exploit photo's, equipment and service advertising on easily accessible public pages my greatest concern.

Originally Posted by MassiveAttack

Thats exactly my point. You may decide your reasons for hunting are more valid than a trophy hunter but whatever the difference is it's very subtle and doesn't matter to either the game animal or animal rights activests so you are splitting hairs.

I hunt for sport as we all do. Nobody in this country has to hunt for sustanance so even if you eat what you shoot you are still hunting for sport because it would have been a lot cheaper, quicker and simpler to buy a duck or venison roast from the supermarket.

@Spudattack - agree with everything you have said.

+1

Each to their own. To the other side we are all the same. The fact that the wild hunted animal has less stress than the farm animal completely escapes them, provided they are not veges as well.

Originally Posted by MassiveAttack

Nobody in this country has to hunt for sustanance 8><---

Interestingly I came across a hunter the other day who is un-employed and hunts to put decent quality meat, venison/rabbit etc on his family's table, so I'll disagree with you here.

Originally Posted by steven

Interestingly I came across a hunter the other day who is un-employed and hunts to put decent quality meat, venison/rabbit etc on his family's table, so I'll disagree with you here.

Ok so there is one. He must live very close to his hunting area for the value of the meat he catches to be greater than the money he spends on gas driving out to get it. Thats assuming he already owns his equipment and values his time at $0 per hour.

Living in canterbury I couldn't get to an area where I could shoot a deer (or even a rabbit) for less than $50. $50 buys a lot of mince at pack n save.