EATING ELEPHANTS

People are fond of judging big game hunters. I must admit to having some reservations about the practice myself.  It's just not my thang, but I accept that folks do lots of stuff that’s not for me, and accepting that is the essence of tolerance.

We hear the word 'tolerance' a lot these days, and of course being branded 'intolerant' is quite the insult of the times, however the tolerance so many people claim to embody in relation to things such as immigration and Islam, isn’t tolerance at all. Tolerance is not a matter of embracing something one does not oppose; something one enjoys or approves of. Tolerance is the act of accepting that which one is not comfortable with, does not like and does not approve of.

Unlike those who emote their position on big game hunting from a position of warm-fuzzy feelings and general ignorance, I at least have bothered to look into what big game  or “trophy” hunting involves. Having done so, I have decided that I will be tolerant of the practice until I am given reason (not emotive drivel) to change that view.

One of the most common smarty-pants statements deployed against big game hunting, goes along the lines of, "Well unless he/she ate that elephant he/she killed, he/she is just a murderer!" With that bleat in mind I thought I'd share a short video of what happens when hungry locals learn that one of their elephants has been taken in a hunt.  The video is not shockingly graphic, but it may be too realistic for the likes of the armchair critic.

(WARNING: Depicts rooly-trooly meat.)

Click image to play

Every scrap of elephant meat is eaten by people who often have access to very little protein. This is a condition of the legal government regulated hunt. The pictures one sees of dead elephants abandoned with their faces hacked off by machete-wielding barbarians, depict the work of ivory poachers, not hunters.

Such pictures are disseminated by animal-welfare agencies and organisations like The Greens, as the work of hunters. This is a stratagem designed to promote intolerance by deception and the Australian community laps it up like pigs at a trough. All countries acknowledge the difference between the illegal unethical activities of poachers, and the legal ethical and conservation conscious activities of hunters and they report the former as the work of poachers.

Every country does this, except Australia! 

In Australia, intolerant agencies such as The Greens and the NPA (National Parks Association) plunge huge amounts of time and resources into blurring the lines in order to engender disdain and even hatred of responsible hunters. It's a form of hate speech, given the verisimilitude of responsible, compassionate, even noble activism it doesn't deserve.

These agencies are fond of saying that shooting animals with a camera is a much better way to promote tourism and conservation. Tanzania has developed this option, creating 15 photo-safari areas, at great expense. Yet as National Geographic points out, "without the financial resources provided by hunters to protect habitat and stop poachers, there would be no infrastructure for wildlife management” (Sept 2nd, 2013). 

In short, it is because of the work of hunters, not photographers, that there are animals left to capture on film and hunters in fact pay for the photo-safari infrastructure.

Sadly, it has been found that the average photographer leaves a much larger ecological footprint than the hunter, with his demand for comfy motels, coaches, viewing platforms, restaurants, souvenir shops, hot showers, toilet facilities and all the waste that lot entails, but as long as we feel better about photographers than hunters, what does any of that matter?

For further information about legal hunting's contribution to wildlife conservation programs, and the realities of hunting vs. shooting with cameras, I encourage you to watch the expert panel assembled by the University of NSW's program "The Hot Seat" below.

Click image to play "The shoot lions don't they?"

Hunters currently provide the bulk of funding for all wildlife conservation and management activities in the US. 

Conservation agencies also raise huge sums for conservation, a considerable percentage of which they spend on campaigns opposing hunting. It is the hunters' coin that arrives intact at the coalface and services hands-on conservation efforts.

In 1900 there were less than 50 white rhinos remaining in the world (wild and zoo populations). Today there are more than 20,000, largely thanks to big game hunting revenue.

In 1900 there were approximately 500,000 white tailed deer in existence. Today they number around 32 million, thanks to hunters’ licence fees and other hunting related levies.

Were they not the subjects of disinformation and hate campaigns sponsored by the agencies that 'tolerant' people take pride in donating to, the knowledge commitment and energies of Australian hunters could be tapped into to the very great benefit of the Aussie environment.

Ah, but that would require a great act of tolerance, which of course the intolerant simply will not tolerate.

Anyway, I’ll get outaya way now....

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