Trophy Hunting

Handmade Damascus Hunting Knives    

Trophy hunting is the shooting of carefully selected animals, often large games such as rhinos, elephants, lions, cougars and bears, under official government license, for pleasure.
The trophy is the animal (or its head, skin or any other part of the body) that the hunter keeps as a souvenir. It is a booming industry and is legal, although with restrictions on the species that can be hunted, where and when hunting can take place and the weapons that can be used.
Is it the same as "canned" hunting?
Canned hunting is trophy hunting in its most indefensible form, in which animals (especially lions) are raised on ranches and held captive (often in appalling conditions) specifically for hunters to shoot.




Is it really legal to kill endangered species?
Can be. Some countries do allow a small number of endangered species to be killed in the wild by sport hunters and, with the approval of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), it is still possible to carry trophies to home.
Is that why the subject is so controversial?
Yes. Allowing endangered species to be killed by sport is counterintuitive. Poachers are killing about 100 elephants and 3 to 4 rhinos per day, so allowing the trophy hunters to kill even more seems absurd. Critics are also concerned about the mixed messages it sends to the local population: they can not hunt endangered species, but wealthy Westerners can.

 What about the morality of bringing animal trophies?
This is another topic. Most find it difficult to sympathize with someone who pays tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, has everything prepared for them in advance, fires (often incompetently) at an animal at close range, and then waits for the delivery of the carefully prepared trophy. .
Where do the trophies go?
USA UU It imports legally no less than 126,000 animal trophies each year, and the EU around 11,000 to 12,000 (representing 140 species, including from African elephants to American black bears), not counting the trophies taken in the countries themselves.
Does everyone agree that trophy hunting is bad?
No. South Africa allows hunting for trophies of the 'Big Five' and many other species, for example, while Kenya has banned trophy hunting since 1977. Even conservationists can not agree: many argue for more compassionate solutions for conservation challenges, while others Believe that trophy hunting can be a good thing.
How can it be good?
While there are many examples of what is bad (the largest declines in lion populations occur in countries with the highest hunting intensity, for example), an apparently good example is cited again and again. It is claimed that trophy hunting has played a role in the recovery of the southern white rhinoceros population in South Africa.
The argument is that by allowing private landowners to conduct a limited trophy hunt, they have been given an incentive to maintain and protect rhinoceroses (albeit in large enclosures). There is also an argument that income from trophy hunting helps conservation by re-entering desperately poor communities.




That's right?
Trophy hunters spend large sums of money, but where it ends is another matter. Critics argue that the hunting elite and corrupt government officials deflect up to 97 percent.
In addition, these are unique payments, you can not kill the same animal twice, while a lion or a rhinoceros can earn money from traditional ecotourism for many years. And that, apart from moral issues, is the heart of the matter.