Today in "fuck this asshole in particular," America has begun the sacred process of vilification of a dentist from Minnesota for allegedly "hunting" and beheading a lion in Zimbabwe as part of a trophy hunt. The dentist, Dr. Walter J. Palmer, reportedly paid $54,000 to hunt and kill the lion, known affectionately as Cecil by the locals.
But trophy hunting happens all the time. It's legal in many African countries (Zimbabwe and Tanzania being the biggest) and attracts millions of dollars from all over the globe, namely America. Why the outrage? Why the calls for Palmer's head? Why are we fucking this asshole in particular? Well, for starters, almost nothing about this hunt was ethical (not to mention legal) by any standards. As the story goes, Palmer and his hired guides wandered into one of Zimbabwe's national parks and found Cecil, ripe for the killing. Knowing that killing the lion on the grounds of the park would be highly illegal, they decided to utilize a loophole and lure the lion out of the park using a dead animal tied to their vehicle. Once Cecil was safely out of safety, Palmer shot him with a bow and arrow, wounding him. They tracked Cecil and eventually shot and killed him, proceeding to behead and skin him and leaving the carcass behind.
Right about now, there are two different possible reactions. Depending on this reaction, you can either find out if you're a sociopathic rectal cavity or a decent human being. You either see this as a tragedy or "just part of life." The latter reactionaries are the same ilk that buy into the idea that trophy hunting is all hunky dory and that selling off animal lives to the highest bidder is some convoluted way of helping struggling animal populations. Remember Kendall Jones from, like, a fucking year ago? The Texas cheerleader, known for posing with dead animals that she ostensibly shot and killed, gained a whole host of negative media attention when her pictures went viral. Her ordeal briefly brought the conversation of conservation (I'm sorry) to the forefront of everyone's mind before it inevitably slipped into obscurity in favor of whatever pissed us off next in July 2014.
But the conversation needs continuing. Conservation efforts are incredibly important, particularly in a time where we, as a species, are encroaching on literally every habitat on the planet and knocking over trees so that we can....marvel at how many trees we knocked over? I'm still fuzzy on the details. At any rate, trophy hunting is a good place to start. Is it good? Is it bad? Is it more complicated than that? I imagine the answer is "fuck, I have to think about this?" Luckily for you, I've done a good bit of the thinking for you.
For starters, why do people claim that trophy hunting is beneficial in the first place? The most commonly touted reasons are that it A) allows for more regulation of land that would otherwise see the aforementioned human encroachment, and B) garners millions of dollars in revenue for places that are in dire need of it. On face value, these both seem to be fairly rational justifications for sport hunting. No one can deny that one of the biggest ways to help conservation is to make sure it has enough money to fight back against....whatever the opposite of conservation is. Hunting? Maybe I'm splitting hairs.
But how much of that money actually goes into local communities and conservation efforts? A paltry amount, according to some. In fact, according to a study conducted at the University of Oxford, only an estimated 3-5% of revenue from trophy hunting in Tanzania is actually given back to the community. The opposition argues that eco-tourism is a far more profitable method of utilizing Africa's great animals for monetary gain. And these aren't just PETA-addled eco-terrorists that think this. Many African countries, including Kenya and Botswana have implemented countrywide bans on trophy hunting of big game.
The assertion that trophy hunting is beneficial to the survival and thriving of its victim populations is specious at best, relying on self-reported statistics and mythological narratives cooked up by people who want to keep firing rounds into animals that are really just trying to avoid being seen by all these fucking people. Admittedly, in an article in the University of Washington's Conservation magazine, the authors argue that outrage over trophy hunting, while sordid, is simply a distraction from the real problem: illegal poaching. The authors admit, albeit begrudgingly, that trophy hunters are at least more in line with conservation efforts than their criminal counterparts.
But this sort of backwards logic is similar to justifying paying a $5 fee to punch old ladies in the face because, hey, at least you're paying for their dental. I understand that not every trophy hunter is gleefully kicking down the proverbial door, guns a-blazing, but at the same time, I have yet to see any strong evidence of real benefit stemming from the practice of hunting for sport. There are better ways of attracting tourists, better ways of drumming up profit and much better ways of conserving species.
Dr. Palmer is an asshole, without question. He purposefully led a lion (being tracked with a GPS collar that he and his guides attempted to destroy, no less) from its protected habitat so that he could shoot it for the sole purpose of telling his asshole friends that he did. This may not be characteristic of the trophy hunting population as a whole, but I would hazard a guess that it is not a rare personality trait among them. The über-rich shelling out hundreds of thousands each to murder for sport rubs me very much in the wrong way. Its purported benefits aside, there is a deeply moral issue here that cannot be ignored or misdirected. It's indicative of a society that truly believes itself superior to animal-kind, claiming divine dominion over living beings not endowed with the gift of speech and opposable thumbs.
There's still more room for debate here, and I urge you to research on your own. Maybe there are untold benefits and maybe I'm being reactive. But from where I stand, the whole thing reeks of moral depravity.
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