HUNTING AND AUSTRALIA'S ENORMOUS WILD BORE

Now before you go criticising me for the title’s spelling, I should point out I am in fact referring to His Lordship Peter FitzSimons (cuffs forelock in deference to aristocratic superiority),  in which case all becomes clear and I’m sure, gentle reader, you will agree the title has perfect integrity, even if Lord FitzSimons himself does not.

Having read the ‘article’, Killing defenceless animals – just tell me how that can be sport? in the Sydney Morning Herald, my first reaction was to wonder if, given the obvious fragility of the mind it contains, it is wise to get about inciting bulls to attack one's head. 

Still, I accept that FitzSimons' decision to wear a red headscarf and declare himself ‘Lord’, puerile affectations though they may appear to the casual observer – do not, in fact, have to make sense to me. He does it for reasons best know – and I suspect kept – to him and that’s just fine, just as it’s fine that I should hunt for my own reasons. My opinion of the various manifestations of his mid-life-crisis, like his opinion of my hunting activities, is absolutely worthless. 

Likewise, hunters have no obligation to explain why they hunt, thus nourishing His Lordship’s tirades and providing the fodder he craves for his next unremarkable column. 

His concerns for animal welfare and his obvious contempt for hunters reminded me of a childhood excursion to Sydney’s La Perouse. 

It was the mid 1960s, a small circus outfit had come to town and with it the usual assortment of exotic beasts from the Dark Continent, each confined to a tiny cage with thick iron bars of the sort that protect the public, while affording a relatively unobscured view of the occupant. 

It was here that I saw a chimp for the very first time and what a remarkable chimp he was, all dressed in his little suit, smoking cigars, using a spoon to eat his tucker and generally aping human behaviour in a very entertaining manner.

During the ensuing years I'd often wondered what became of that little guy in his inhospitable iron confinement, so you can imagine perhaps, the joy I felt upon discovering he'd mastered the rudiments of English sufficient to hold down a regular gig as a columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald. 

Pleased you've given up the cigars, Your Lordship. They’ll stunt your growth, though perhaps intellectually at least, the damage was done.

Sadly, His Lordship’s – or Gonzo’s as I’ll always think of him – column demonstrates the limits of anthropomorphosis.

Even with the most committed effort to civilise and integrate an ape with a limited vocabulary and basic social skills into mainstream society, he will always struggle somewhat with his environment, rattling the bars as it were, crapping in his hand and tossing it at anything that displeases him in a world he struggles to understand.

It is in his nature to lash out you see and in the manner of the brute who believes tossing turds is clever, he is sadly oblivious to the fact that people are not actually laughing with him. 

His Lordship's article begins with an invitation contrived to pander to the mob mentality, “So let's talk about hunters and let's talk about miserable bastards who get their jollies by stalking and killing defenceless animals. But I repeat myself ...” he says. He’s such a card, but not just any card, a simplistic attention seeking card whose capacity for reason and intellectual rigor is reminiscent of that displayed by a fresh corpse. 

Lord FitzSimons' claim that hunters are unwilling to engage with him in debate about trophy hunting is a lie, pure and simple. Unsurprising perhaps, he is after all an Australian 'journalist'. See the Twitter snippet below for an example of His Lordship's commitment to sincere, intellectual debate.

Example of rapier witted aristocratic intellectualism

His aim is to dominate the discussion, to push it in a direction that supports his clearly close-minded, simplistic view of what hunting – and in particular, trophy hunting - is all about. 

Regardless of how reasoned an argument one might seek to put to him, regardless of the science-based studies and the peer-reviewed research collated by highly regarded international agencies one submits for his information, Lord FitzSimons will simply respond with emotive, non-sequitur vitriol of the kind one expects to hear in a pub just moments before a frustrated, inarticulate drunk lands a coward punch.

Regardless of the response he receives from a hunter committed to engaging him in respectful, productive debate, His Lordship will always revert to type with the same childish rebukes he's famous for. He attacks with puerile accusations one expects to hear from a pimply-faced schoolgirl in the quad – Err, you're DISGUSTING (note: Mr. Shouty all-caps)! Eer, you kill animals, shame! Eer, you're tragic I'm tellin'! 

It's not that hunters lack the courage to engage with His Lordship, but rather they realise that, as with all bigots, his desire to engage them as anything but a target is insincere, born of the desire to display and rant for the privilege of hearing his own voice (or seeing his own tweets) and thus hunters give this ludicrous leviathan a big swerve. 

I suspect he actually expects his cloth-eared rants to be avoided. That is, after all, the traditional purpose a red rag serves when tied to the end of something – to prevent people walking into an enormous lump hanging out in public where it has no business being.

Lordship FitzSimons displays all the characteristics of a man who has taken to heart the compliments of friends who've assured him he's an articulate commentator and a talented writer of better than average intelligence, but who has chosen to give no gravitas whatsoever to the rider, “...for a footballer.”

His Lordship's claim that to suggest killing animals as a means of saving them is "tragically absurd" is indicative of the arrogant, little-picture intellectual simplicity for which his column has won renown. He of course knows better than the likes of University of Zimbabwe conservation biologist, Peter Lindsey, who recently had this to say about trophy hunting in his country:

"Trophy hunting is of key importance to conservation in Africa by creating [financial] incentives to promote and retain wildlife as a land use over vast areas.”

In an upcoming edition of the journal Conservation Biology Lindsey and an international team of colleagues call for a plan to increase the conservation benefits of sport hunting, including a certification program to more tightly regulate the industry.

"To justify the continued existence of [protected] areas in the context of increasing demand for land, wildlife has to pay for itself and contribute to the economy, and hunting provides an important means of achieving this," Lindsey said.

He even knows better than Peter Allison, the personal friend and supposed ally, whom His Lordship describes as a man who "has more than 20 years experience as a safari guide in the African bush and is now an author and passionate advocate for conservation"...

Oops, perhaps one should check with those one wishes to quote for their vehement opposition to trophy hunting in Africa?

It may well be that Lord FitzSimons' sole purpose in life is to serve as a sober (?) warning to others, but whether his decision to acquit his duties via the medium of journalism is a sensible one is, well, debatable. Take for instance the Sydney Morning Herald contribution that inspired me to put fingers to keyboard. 

His article deploys a total of 954 words, 26 of them an adaptation of Mark Twain’s admirable wit, 248 of them the work of Robert Borsak MP, 2 attributed to the Rev. Fred Nile, 23 attributed to a notorious wine aficionado and disgraced former Premier and 77 the work of His Lordship’s mate Peter Allison, making a total of 376 words. 

Subtracted from the 954 words of his ‘commentary’ on hunters, we are left with a grand total of 578 words, with which he strives to make his point, a point even I can encapsulate in three short sentences: 

I hate hunting, full stop!

Anyone who disagrees with me is scum!

I can’t hear you, la-la-la-la-la-la-la!

Is it any wonder sensible people avoid His Lordship on Twitter, itself a world renown wellspring of egocentricity, emotive pseudo-intellectualism and just plain ol' bullying?

Twitter, like Lord FitzSimons himself, is to productive debate what glow in the dark tampons are to feminine hygiene – amusing distractions perhaps, but in no way useful or productive and at the end of the day, not the slightest bit illuminating. 

Anyway, I’ll get outaya way now...

Those interested in some factual resources on the role of big game hunting in Africa’s conservation efforts, may be interested in the resources below:

Collegiate Outdoors - Uncertain future for Botswana  

Global Ecology and Conservation - Unexpected and undesired conservation outcomes of wildlife trade bans—An emerging problem for stakeholders? .PDF 

National Geographic -  Trophy hunting can help African conservation

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