Two Bits – 7 August 2015

Cecil the Lion certainly attracted more attention in death than he ever did in life.

The shooting by an American with bow and arrow of the Zimbabwean lion has caused an Internet storm of indignation second to none, though it would seem that Zimbabwe itself is struggling to sound quite as indignant. Hunting, after all, is a welcome source of foreign currency for that cash-strapped nation.

There were a lot of things wrong about the hunt: The animal was apparently lured out of a wildlife reserve, where it was protected, onto farmland where it became ‘fair game’. Secondly, it was the subject of a study being conducted by Oxford University and, thirdly, when the hunting party discovered the tracking collar on the lion, they at first tried to cover up their mistake.

Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer has paid dearly for his trophy. He paid $50 000 (R640 000) for the privilege, which was cheap compared to the fact that he has had to close his practice and go into hiding from the animal rights activists who want to string him up. He’ll probably have to change his name and move to Alaska. In one sense it’s quite absurd – a dentist from Minnesota, Mr Average middle-class American from the staid Midwest – hardly a bloodthirsty, gun-waving wild man from the scarier parts of the USA.

Of Zimbabwe’s hunting practices I know little, except they’re probably not that dissimilar from ours. Did you know that about 1 000 rich foreigners, mainly Americans and Europeans, come to South Africa every year to shoot lion?

Almost all of these are ‘canned’ lions, that is animals raised in semi-captivity on ranches, for the specific purpose of being shot by trophy hunters. The hunter pays about R250 000 for this type of trophy, and up to R1m for a lion in the wild.

There is a long list of animals one is allowed to hunt in South Africa and the hunting trade is worth about $200m a year (about R2.5bn), an amount not to be sniffed at.

People are always going to want to hunt, and it is my opinion that the ‘canned’ variety is far preferable to taking out animals that have earned their place in the bush. If the need for trophy hunting can be satisfied by animals raised for the purpose, then that is the way to go.

Professional hunter and Ballito resident Ray Millican disagrees vehemently. He has led hunts all over Africa for the past 35 years, and he is disgusted by ‘canned’ hunting.

“If you call yourself a true hunter, you’ll go into areas like those in Western Zambia where you’re hunting over 2.5 million hectares. No fences. If you are not very careful, you can end up being hunted yourself. At least the animal has a chance.

“I’ve known of situations where people are driven around these ‘canned’ hunting places and take shots at lions that are up against fences. That’s not hunting. That’s disgusting!”

Millican said a good professional works hand-in-hand with the authorities. “No proper hunter would condone what happened to Cecil.”

I don’t believe in hunting anything that is not for the pot. One possible exception to this is the need for culling over-large populations in the reserves.

I accept that professionals in SanParks and Ezemvelo know what they are talking about when they say that numbers need to be cut back periodically. Game parks are enormously expensive to run, so if they can earn good money by allowing a properly supervised hunter to shoot what they would have had to shoot anyway, it’s to the good.

Likewise, Namibia earns good money by allowing trophy hunting. One story that attracted particular attention was when American Corey Knowlton paid $350,000 (R4.5m) for a permit to hunt a black rhino there last year. Black rhinos are critically endangered, and Knowlton received death threats after the permit auction. It might appear bad on the surface, but there was more to the story than met the eye.

The permit from the Namibian government allowed the killing of only one of 18 elderly male black rhinos, which are actually considered a net negative for overall species survival, since they are past their breeding years but remain territorial and are therefore a threat to the younger males.

And, the money went to fight poaching.

Nevertheless, it is an enormously controversial subject and there can be no single answer. I do however feel strongly that every unnecessary death is senseless beyond measure.

* * *

Two whales walk into a bar.

The first whale says to the other, “WOOOOOO. WEEEEEEEEOOOOO. WEEEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOO.”

The second whale says, “Shut up Steve, you’re drunk.”