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Bok's recent reference to my killing of animals without opposing thumbs prompted me to start this thread. It's one thing to decide not to hunt, that's a personal choice. But a statement such as he made is actually anti-hunting in nature and there is a movement in that direction both nationally and internationally. The problem is that the "well-meaning" please don't hurt that animal crowd are ignoring the unintended consequences of the stance of ignorance concerning who is actually footing the bill for conservation. Hint - it's not Sierra Club or Friends of Animals that even comes close to using a fraction of their raised monies to actual preserve habitat. Conversely they use their money to try and stop the group that does the most to benefit wildlife as a whole. The hunter!!
Example from Huffington Post (believe it or not)
"Africa's wildlife is being loved to death. Kenya's much-praised ban on hunting, in fact, has had an impact opposite to its intent: wild animals are disappearing at an accelerating rate. "Charismatic megafauna" -- elephants, lions, rhinos, the larger antelopes -- are in a true death spiral.
<snip>
Subsequent to the ban, they could not respond -- legally -- when an elephant raided their maize and stomped their goats, or when a lion killed a cow. But laws made in Nairobi are seldom if ever applied with rigor in the Kenyan bush. Even as animal rights groups lionized Kenya's no-kill policy and urged its adoption across Africa, the killing has continued unabated. Carnivores are poisoned, antelope snared, elephants speared and shot: Crops can thus be raised and the livestock grazed in peace.
Michael Norton-Griffiths, who has served as the senior ecologist for Tanzania's Serengeti National Park and the manager of the Eastern Sahel Program for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, likened the situation to owning a goat.
Assume, says Norton-Griffiths, that you're a poor pastoralist in rural Kenya, and your assets consist of a goat. You can eat this goat, or milk it. You can sell it, gaining hard currency that you can use to buy necessities. Or you can breed it, increasing your asset base in the form of another goat.
But now imagine that a law is passed that forbids you to eat, sell, or breed that goat. In fact, the only thing you can do with it is allow tourists to take pictures of it. Even then, you obtain no benefit; the money derived from the tourists photographing the goat goes to the owner of the "eco-lodge" they are patronizing.
By substituting wildlife for the goat, says Norton-Griffiths, you have the situation that exists in Kenya today."
What's happening in the USA? Last year hunters spent 38.3 Billion (with a B) dollars that had an 86.9 Billion dollar multiplier effect across the US economy.
Link large .pdf
So Bok, feel free to make childish snipes about my hunting. I will continue to spend and support conservation far in excess of your empty words.
Example from Huffington Post (believe it or not)
"Africa's wildlife is being loved to death. Kenya's much-praised ban on hunting, in fact, has had an impact opposite to its intent: wild animals are disappearing at an accelerating rate. "Charismatic megafauna" -- elephants, lions, rhinos, the larger antelopes -- are in a true death spiral.
<snip>
Subsequent to the ban, they could not respond -- legally -- when an elephant raided their maize and stomped their goats, or when a lion killed a cow. But laws made in Nairobi are seldom if ever applied with rigor in the Kenyan bush. Even as animal rights groups lionized Kenya's no-kill policy and urged its adoption across Africa, the killing has continued unabated. Carnivores are poisoned, antelope snared, elephants speared and shot: Crops can thus be raised and the livestock grazed in peace.
Michael Norton-Griffiths, who has served as the senior ecologist for Tanzania's Serengeti National Park and the manager of the Eastern Sahel Program for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, likened the situation to owning a goat.
Assume, says Norton-Griffiths, that you're a poor pastoralist in rural Kenya, and your assets consist of a goat. You can eat this goat, or milk it. You can sell it, gaining hard currency that you can use to buy necessities. Or you can breed it, increasing your asset base in the form of another goat.
But now imagine that a law is passed that forbids you to eat, sell, or breed that goat. In fact, the only thing you can do with it is allow tourists to take pictures of it. Even then, you obtain no benefit; the money derived from the tourists photographing the goat goes to the owner of the "eco-lodge" they are patronizing.
By substituting wildlife for the goat, says Norton-Griffiths, you have the situation that exists in Kenya today."
What's happening in the USA? Last year hunters spent 38.3 Billion (with a B) dollars that had an 86.9 Billion dollar multiplier effect across the US economy.
Link large .pdf
So Bok, feel free to make childish snipes about my hunting. I will continue to spend and support conservation far in excess of your empty words.