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Author Topic: Trophy hunter shot while shooting lions  (Read 17532 times)

Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Trophy hunter shot while shooting lions
« Reply #20 on: January 30, 2018, 02:01:49 pm »

James, you seem to have overlooked the post by “Kent in SD.” There are other, legitimate and legal reasons for hunting.

James Clark

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Re: Trophy hunter shot while shooting lions
« Reply #21 on: January 30, 2018, 02:14:18 pm »

I didn't overlook it, and I'm intimately familiar with that argument.  There ARE legitimate reasons for hunting, including population control, prevention of invasive species etc.   

Keeping land open and species around because some people think it's fun to kill them isn't exactly a "+" in the humanity column in my book.  Sport hunting may have the beneficial side effect of species propagation and land conservation, but causing fear and pain for fun *isn't necessary* for those things to happen. 

Will I concede that it might be better for sport hunting to continue if the other alternative is the loss of species and habitat?  Sure - I can admit that.   It's just far from optimal IMO. 
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LesPalenik

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Re: Trophy hunter shot while shooting lions
« Reply #22 on: January 30, 2018, 03:06:13 pm »

Les, I have to ask what is the point of this post? It has nothing to do with photography, and the moderators said no more politics. It is not political? Just check the usual lefties'gloating over the loss of human life, just because they disagree with their opinion.

Well, it's just so happens that the hunters will shoot the animal also with their point-and-shoot camera or phone. But only after they killed it safely from a truck or a hide.
But the real reason why I posted that news item is to show what's happening on the other side of the photographic safaris. Nothing to do with politics or sympathies for lefties.
BTW, that dentist's lion was lured out from its sanctuary in a national park. So if the hunters can't get a real trophy on a lion farm, they will pay and kill a bigger trophy wherever they can find it.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/walter-palmer-dentist-and-lion-slayer-now-on-the-internet-hunt-list-1.3173233
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Chairman Bill

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Re: Trophy hunter shot while shooting lions
« Reply #23 on: January 30, 2018, 05:05:10 pm »

So sorry that the truth hurts.

Who was saying, sarcastically "how very sad'? Who was generalizing that sport hunters have "twisted personality"? Who was saying that "the society is better off without them"?

That was me. Generalising from one instance? Really?

A Michigan dentist who (legally) shot a lion with bow and arrow had to go into hiding because of death threats. In a recent Hollywood movie, one of the heroes' definition of "sport hunting" was to use a sniper rifle against bow & arrow lion hunters. So what am I misrepresenting?
Again, you're generalising from a limited amount of data.

Oh, and if you enjoy killing things, there really is something wrong with you.

Tony Jay

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Re: Trophy hunter shot while shooting lions
« Reply #24 on: January 30, 2018, 07:26:38 pm »


I wouldn't say "twisted."  One huge aspect you're missing is these sort of places are actually doing some good.  They do increase the gene pool of the animals, and more importantly they are saving large tracts of viable habitat.  What you are calling a "twisted personality" I'm calling a preservationist.  The landowners have found a way to put value on wild animals, and I think in the broad picture they are better off because of that.  The local Sioux Indians here have done something similar.  They have decent sized herds of buffalo on their reservations, and offer "hunts" for them.  While I personally don't see much difference in going out with a .30-06 and shooting a cow out in a field and one of these buffalo "hunts," the Indians I've talked to said they get $5,000 to $7,000 for each critter.  Don't tell anyone from out of state, but I think you could just buy a buffalo for about $1,500, take it back to your farm and shoot it, and save a lot of money.  Neither of these hunts have any appeal to me, but I applaud the Indians for coming up with a clever way to make some needed income, and landowners in Africa for finding a way to preserve habitat.  As for lions, I'd never go out and shoot one, including the wild mountain lions we have in my state.  I'm a cat lover. :)


Kent in SD
This is unbelievable nonsense!

There are hundreds of examples in South Africa (and other countries within Africa where landowners have found a way to give value to wildlife - they are called game reserves!
In South Arica, at least, most of the land set aside for conservation is private. It is not government owned.
Those reserves, by and large, are massive money spinners.
The wildlife on these reserves lives and dies naturally.

Those canned hunting safaris are nothing like this at all.
Animals are bred in captivity - and in the case of lions and other large cats, in particular - are actually caged. For a hunt they are released into what could be termed a large field. At this point they are shot.
This is NOT conservation. It is not even hunting... (see below)
Ask anyone in South Africa who is actually invested in conservation in that country and one will discover that those people who run canned hunting concerns are, to put it diplomatically, seriously on the nose!
Furthermore, these conservationists are not citified lefty-loony types. The owners of these private game reserves, by and large, were once cattlemen, who were themselves avid hunters, but realised that the real value of wildlife was in a live animal, who could be viewed and photographed on multiple occasions, rather than a dead animal hanging on a wall.

Many of the private game reserves in South Africa are within a couple of hundred kilometres of the property referred to in the OP. In the early 1980's a massive drought destroyed the cattle industry in this area. Despite several years of drought the wildlife survived. Many of the former cattle farmers got the hint. They started game farming, but quickly realised that much more money could be made from tourism. Although private conservation was alive and well prior to this time in South Africa that drought finally killed off many of the unsustainable and silly land-use practices then in operation in South Africa and gave a huge boost to private conservation. Many individual farms were consolidated into single land tracts that made much more sense from a conservation perspective. Large game, such as elephants and rhino, could be introduced along with large predators.

Nothing in the above description of 'canned' hunting ever even classifies as the SPORT of hunting. Sport hunting requires the on-foot tracking and hunting of WILD animals in their own habitat that are free to act as they see fit. In Africa, it is not unknown for these actions to result in the death of the hunter. The term 'Big Five' comes from the experience of hunting where the animals so designated were responsible for the overwhelming percentage of hunters killed while hunting. However, forward-looking countries in Africa (see below) are banning even sport hunting...

Fundamentally, the argument for hunting, sport or canned, as a necessary component of conservation is spurious, misinformed, and often downright disingenuous. Botswana, once home to a massive hunting industry, has recently banned all hunting. Firstly, compared to tourists using a camera on safari, the income was relatively small. Secondly, global attitudes toward hunting have changed over the decades, and Botswana, seeing the writing on the wall, correctly decided to ban hunting.

Conservation means just that - to conserve; not to kill or destroy.
BTW culling is not hunting. A cull may become necessary to protect that species and others and to maintain the ecological viability of the land. Culling of predators is never necessary in this equation since they represent such small numbers in the overall ecology and their numbers rise and fall depending on prey availability. Furthermore the best solution to preventing culling is to have larger tracts of land set aside for conservation. This allows wildlife to move to where water and food is located. This process of consolidation of conservation land is still in progress in South Africa (and other countries in Southern Africa for that matter), both from a government and private perspective, but may not ever be satisfactorily completed.

Hunting, especially the 'canned' variety, mentioned in the OP runs hopelessly counter to any of the principles of conservation and the only effect is that of harm...
Please do not confuse the selfish outdated views of a few South African businessmen peddling 'canned' hunting as the 'real thing' to equally selfish and deluded clients with more money than sense as representing conservation in any sense of the  word!

Also, it would be unrealistic to expect the South African government to act decisively on the matter. Currently the ruling party, the ANC, is currently hopelessly mired in its own party politics and the urgent business of the country is currently relegated to irrelevancy. On a related topic the huge disaster of an out-of-control poaching epidemic in the country (a problem exponentially bigger than the admittedly stinky canned hunting industry) is directly related to the out-of-control corruption that has infected every government agency in the country.

Disclaimer: If you are wondering how I could know about all this, I was born and raised in South Africa. I always had a keen interest in nature and conservation and so staying informed about issues such as those raised in this thread are second nature.

Tony Jay
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JoeKitchen

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Re: Trophy hunter shot while shooting lions
« Reply #25 on: January 30, 2018, 08:41:59 pm »

Man, some of you take this too serious as a political debate. 

Anyway, just my two cents, as a conservative, I see no reason to morn this man. 
« Last Edit: January 30, 2018, 08:46:29 pm by JoeKitchen »
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Two23

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Re: Trophy hunter shot while shooting lions
« Reply #26 on: January 30, 2018, 09:59:41 pm »

Man, some of you take this too serious as a political debate. 

Anyway, just my two cents, as a conservative, I see no reason to morn this man.



He was a fellow human being, with a family.  Lots of us (self included) do risky things as a hobby.  I've had some close calls myself in my kayak, racing motorcycles (motorcross/enduros,) and even hiking in the mountains. 


Kent in SD
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Trophy hunter shot while shooting lions
« Reply #27 on: January 30, 2018, 10:37:43 pm »

Tony, that was an unbelievable nonsense.

Do you guys in South Africa have a term for straw man?

tom b

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Re: Trophy hunter shot while shooting lions
« Reply #28 on: January 31, 2018, 01:24:32 am »

Slobodan, what do you mean by that comment?

Lost for thought,
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Tom Brown

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Re: Trophy hunter shot while shooting lions
« Reply #29 on: January 31, 2018, 01:25:28 am »

A Michigan dentist who (legally) shot a lion with bow and arrow had to go into hiding because of death threats.

Well...

Minnesota dentist 'deeply' regrets 'taking' Cecil the lion

...maybe that the dentist wasn't from Michigan?

But hey, don't let facts get in the way of a good story, right?
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LesPalenik

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Re: Trophy hunter shot while shooting lions
« Reply #30 on: January 31, 2018, 01:56:12 am »

Quote
Since the 1980s, the population of African lions has dropped from 100,000 individuals all the way to 20,000. And while the wild numbers of lions are decreasing, the number of captive-bred lions used for canned hunts has only increased.

In South Africa, there are about 200 breeding facilities which account for the captivity of nearly 8,000 predators. It is thought that approximately 1,000 of these animals are lions. According to people behind the documentary “Blood Lions,” facilities that breed captive lions claim that these breeding farms take pressure off of wild predator populations – but there is little to no evidence that this is the case. In addition, any claims that these captive bred lion populations benefit conservation efforts are also false. The lions kept in these facilities have been inbred over generations, meaning that if their genes were mixed into wild prides, it could have a devastating impact on the survival of the species.

http://www.onegreenplanet.org/environment/why-there-are-thousands-of-lions-in-south-africa-but-this-species-is-still-in-danger-of-extinction/
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pegelli

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Re: Trophy hunter shot while shooting lions
« Reply #31 on: January 31, 2018, 02:16:29 am »

Tony, that was an unbelievable nonsense.

Do you guys in South Africa have a term for straw man?
Sounds to me like a populist strawman defence once he's out of real arguments: "I have big hands, believe me, I have the biggest hands in the universe"

Tony's story makes perfect sense, which doesn't mean you have to agree with it. But if you don't agree the omen is on you to provide logical counter arguments because statements like these only undermine your own credibility.
« Last Edit: January 31, 2018, 02:19:41 am by pegelli »
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pieter, aka pegelli

Tony Jay

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Re: Trophy hunter shot while shooting lions
« Reply #32 on: January 31, 2018, 03:23:56 am »

http://www.onegreenplanet.org/environment/why-there-are-thousands-of-lions-in-south-africa-but-this-species-is-still-in-danger-of-extinction/
These captive lions cannot be released into the wild - they would simply die...
Certainly none would survive long enough to breed.

Occasionally captive lions (and other large cats) have been rehabilitated back into the wild but it is a long, and expensive, business to do this. The situation with lions is especially difficult because, they, unlike most cat species that are solitary, are pride animals. This means that either lions have to be released into areas devoid of other lions, or they have to be rehabilitated as a group in order to function as a pride. I am not aware of any successful group rehabilitations of lions into viable prides in the wild. If anyone knows of a successful example of this it would be good news indeed!

It is absolutely correct that the 'canned' hunting of captive lions has done nothing to halt the wholesale destruction of the wild lion population across Africa. This kind of activity is anathema to any conservationist, and even the 'real' sport hunters will have nothing to do with those who engage in this kind of activity.

I stand by my assertion that the people who are arranging the 'canned' hunting safaris as well as their clients are selfish individuals who care nothing for conservation. Their currency, literally, is blood money, certainly not principle. Africa, in general, and South Africa specifically can do without them. Certainly, it becomes very hard to convince poor Africans on the edge of poverty not to hunt (poach) a rhino or an elephant where a single tusk or horn represents a year, or more, in income to them not to do these things when rich foreigners can shoot and kill the same wildlife, apparently legally...
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William Walker

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Re: Trophy hunter shot while shooting lions
« Reply #33 on: January 31, 2018, 04:00:40 am »

near Setlagole,
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5325943/Big-game-hunter-killed-stalked-lions-South-Africa.html

My grandfather owned the Hotel and Trading Store at Setlagole (which is all Setlagole consists of!), and my father bought the business from him and later sold up in 1974.

Most South Africans can't stand the idea of "Canned Hunting" but, there is always a willing seller and a willing buyer (mostly from overseas....)

Finally, we are on the map!  :-\ (This incident happened on one of the farms up the road. It used to all be maize-farming country but is best suited for cattle.)

The Picture is from a slide my mother took of the hotel section about sixty years ago.

William
« Last Edit: January 31, 2018, 05:34:47 am by William Walker »
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Rob C

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Re: Trophy hunter shot while shooting lions
« Reply #34 on: January 31, 2018, 04:50:47 am »

Hunting for pleasure is a manifestation of stunted mental growth, or worse.

When I was in my early teens, in a boarding school in India, I was guest at a fellow prisoner's home on a tea plantation. As with other kids, we were adept at the illegal fabrication of catapults fashioned from eucalyptus tree twigs and rubber bands cut from bus or truck tyres (our shoes sometimes miraculously lost their leather tongues). The rubber was hard to find, and the best was classifed as "unlimited stretch" which obviously demonstrated how little we knew about the nature of rubber.

Anyway, during that holiday on the plantation we shot quite a few very pretty birds and skinned them. A kind of butterly collection, you might say. We thougt nothing of it. Decades later, I look forward to feeding crumbs to the winter robins - if they come at all. I don't remember seeing a single one so far this year... When I used to stack wood for the fire, one of these lovely little beings would fly over beside me and remain about two feet distant, pecking at spiders or bugs or whatever it was it found on the wood. The thought of destroying such a creature made me want to weep, both for it and for my past errors of insensitivity to fellow life.

That represents the difference between mindless murder and the sense of shared responsibility for, and ultimate oneness with, that all life shares. It's a shame it takes a few years to get to that point of recognition. Kids can claim ignorance; an adult?

Rob

Paulo Bizarro

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Re: Trophy hunter shot while shooting lions
« Reply #35 on: January 31, 2018, 04:58:35 am »

Sad story of an accidental death.

Legal hunting is a good business. Here in Portugal we have areas just for that. It helps to control some species, like wild boars.

Morally I am against it, but these issues are not black and white, and taking extreme positions never solved anything.

LesPalenik

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Re: Trophy hunter shot while shooting lions
« Reply #36 on: January 31, 2018, 05:41:40 am »

About 600,000 wild boars are killed each year in Germany. Experts say that is not enough to stop the population from growing.  In Berlin alone the wild boar population is estimated at somewhere between 3,000 and 8,000. Many wild boars carry the African Swine Fever (ASF). The German Farmers’ Association called on Friday for 70 percent of the country’s wild boar population to be culled so as to reduce the chances of a spread of illness to domestic pig population. The wild boars kill, injure and terrorize joggers, mothers with baby cariages, and even hunters.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/04/hunter-dies-in-germany-after-wild-boar-he-was-trying-to-shoot-attacked-him

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/10/21/wild-boars-terrorize-german-town-injure-4/787155001/



 

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Robert Roaldi

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Re: Trophy hunter shot while shooting lions
« Reply #37 on: January 31, 2018, 07:30:43 am »

Just one comment about this thread. It did NOT start out as overtly political but some contributors tried to make it so, which led to some (maybe the same people) to state that it should be closed, and they did so pretty early on, and this did not seem warranted to me. I mean, this is the Coffee Corner. Getting rid of offensive insulting threads is one thing, but this one was not so and does not seem to be headed that way (so far).

At the risk of being repetitious, you can always not participate if you don't like a thread, but demanding that it be closed, without good reason, is going a little far. It's true that this thread does have any obvious photographic connection (although it would be interesting to see what would happen to this kind of, to my mind, phoney hunting if photos were taken and made public), but I thought the purpose of the Coffee Corner was to be more relaxed than that. I may be wrong.
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Trophy hunter shot while shooting lions
« Reply #38 on: January 31, 2018, 08:06:21 am »

Well...

Minnesota dentist 'deeply' regrets 'taking' Cecil the lion

...maybe that the dentist wasn't from Michigan?

But hey, don't let facts get in the way of a good story, right?

That is known as a smart-ass comment, Jeff. And exactly how does that fact change anything of importance? Yes, he was from another state that starts with “M” so what?

pegelli

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Re: Trophy hunter shot while shooting lions
« Reply #39 on: January 31, 2018, 08:38:56 am »

That is known as a smart-ass comment, Jeff. And exactly how does that fact change anything of importance? Yes, he was from another state that starts with “M” so what?

That's known as a diversion tactic ;)

Well, the real question is how did the fact that he lured the Lion with a trail of food to the right place for a shoot change anything? I think that makes him an A$$ irrespective of which state he is coming from.

But I agree, wishing him dead is way over the top, but calling him for what he is if fine by me. 
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pieter, aka pegelli
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