http://news.nationalgeographic...ica-australia-cites/



But Ian Michler is confident that worldwide change is inevitable, as people come to see captive hunting—and sport hunting in general—as ethically wrong.

“I don’t expect any overnight successes,” he said. “We’re involved in a major philosophical deep-rooted debate here. This is going to take time.”

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An very interesting read.

I would be interested to know from the RSA hunting community what PHASA and the other bodies are doing domestically and moreover internationally to further promote and back hunting and ( assuming they are behind it ) the hunting of released lions.

- Rhinos long tabu
- USA on elephant products
- Oz on lions
- Emirates banning transport of hunted trophies
as cargo

What next - outright ban on imports of any African sport hunted animal trophies / products?!

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My 85yr old Grandmother maintains to this day, that the majority of mental patients are NOT inside !

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Charlie64:
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An very interesting read.

I would be interested to know from the RSA hunting community what PHASA and the other bodies are doing domestically and moreover internationally to further promote and back hunting and ( assuming they are behind it ) the hunting of released lions.

- Rhinos long tabu
- USA on elephant products
- Oz on lions
- Emirates banning transport of hunted trophies
as cargo

What next - outright ban on imports of any African sport hunted animal trophies / products?!
__________________________________________

Hutty:

To answer your question:

I lived and worked in foreign countries for 14 years in South America, Africa and Asia. And hunted all of them.

As to the big cats I personally would NOT shoot any big cat if my life depended on it. That was not always the case. It was the pre war era in Vietnam. The French were relinquishing their colony and pulling out. Before I could book a hunt the PH folded and went back to France. None the less the French rubber plantations had a great abundance of game available. Most of you probably don't know what a Gaur is. It's a beast somewhat similar to a cape buffalo that stand 7 feet tall at the shoulder. And the pigs that were prolific on the rubber plantations eating the nut droppings. The tigers were terrorizing the native Montanards, the primitives living up in the mountains in long grass shacks communally.

Little story:

When I was in Ethiopia, based in Addis Ababa, as manager of a drilling company, one of my co-employees was stationed up in Eritrea in the north. He told me that he had a "contact", an Italian that had many leopard skins including rare black leopards. I flew up, and visited. The abundance of skins was awesome. Everywhere. He has over a dozen of black leopards. And scads of the normal.

Back in those days a black leopard skin was $200. It took 6 skins to make a coat. I asked my wife if she wanted one and she said she didn't like black, So I passed. But one of our VP's Don Cameron &( Who is surely deceased by now )did buy skins and somehow got export permits. He shipped them to France where the furriers made a coat for his wife. He told me that it was valued at $12,000.

Ethiopia was and probably is still wild and wolly. It was overrun with all sorts of game. I travelled alone into many remote areas, foolishly, and saw an amazing abundance.

Unfortunately it was also an extremely dangerous place to venture particularly in the low land east of Addis where the rebels were rampaging and killing indiscriminately back in those days.

Ethiopia I just North of Kenya where game shooting has been prohibited for many years. And where the herds are proliferating in great abundance destined to die of old age.

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Here's the Gaur:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaur

70% decline since my stint in Vietnam 1959 -1964

Water Buffalo;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_buffalo

Little kids in Asia, 10 years old, lead them around by the nose but in the wild they are dangerous agressives.

At least some of them were honest...

They admit it's "moral and ethical" issue to stop the killings of the great cats.

That dip Joubert is their in house expert... It amazes me that Nat Geo is as even handed as it is (which IMO is not very...)

I find it humorous that they state the U.S. will be the last place to put restrictions on, yet they admit that the Far East is where all the poached products seem to be headed. Doesn't that indicate the Far East will be the last place to regulate?

Personally, I applaud the South African and Texan game ranchers. If genetic diversity is important, they are doing us a favor.

I can also understand the point that if we banned canned hunting it would increase the prices for wild hunts and thus increase the revenue for habitat conservation... But I don't buy it fully.

We really need to get science back as the main subject in western education. This article further shows the horrible amount of emotional thinking that folks engage in in the developed world. This current push to validate feelings is going to doom the planet.

Quote This current push to validate feelings is going to doom the planet.Unquote

That and political correctness !

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quote:

Originally posted by crbutler:
At least some of them were honest...

They admit it's "moral and ethical" issue to stop the killings of the great cats.

That dip Joubert is their in house expert... It amazes me that Nat Geo is as even handed as it is (which IMO is not very...)

I find it humorous that they state the U.S. will be the last place to put restrictions on, yet they admit that the Far East is where all the poached products seem to be headed. Doesn't that indicate the Far East will be the last place to regulate?

Personally, I applaud the South African and Texan game ranchers. If genetic diversity is important, they are doing us a favor.

I can also understand the point that if we banned canned hunting it would increase the prices for wild hunts and thus increase the revenue for habitat conservation... But I don't buy it fully.

We really need to get science back as the main subject in western education. This article further shows the horrible amount of emotional thinking that folks engage in in the developed world. This current push to validate feelings is going to doom the planet.

the Far East is heavily regulated. they just bribe their way around the law. money talks and China is awash in it....

quote:

Originally posted by Charlie64:
Quote This current push to validate feelings is going to doom the planet.Unquote

That and political correctness !

.

BINGO!

quote:

Originally posted by Charlie64:
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An very interesting read.

I would be interested to know from the RSA hunting community what PHASA and the other bodies are doing domestically and moreover internationally to further promote and back hunting

.

PHASA has met with USFW and the criteria that they are aiming at ,as I understand it,is that the hunting must be beneficial to the species aswell as the local community.

So a suggestion by PHASA is that they are looking to try and get a voluntary donation contribution of $ 500 for every SA lion hunted to go to their conservation and empowerment fund that will go directly to wild lion research and conservation.

USFW wants to close ALL lion imports , so we got a fight ahead of us

I don't have a problem with hunting captive bred lions and I'm going to try it myself later this year but the breeders have got to come up with better justifications for these hunts if there is any real reason for justifying them which I don't see. There is a demand and the breeders are simply filling this demand. Saying that hunting captive bred lions takes pressure off the wild lions and that these lions can be introduced to bolster wild populations doesn't seem to wash and I think all but the truly naive don't believe this. My feeling from talking to clients is that if a guy can afford a wild lion and wants that experience that is what he will do. The guy that can't afford a wild lion hunt might opt for a captive bred lion just because he wants a lion. Also some folks just can't or don't want to take 21 days to dedicate to a full blown wild lion hunt. In both cases I see no reason to criticize these folks or to bad mouth breeders as horrible human beings.

It has been said many times that captive bred lion hunting gives the antis more ammunition. That might be true but the antis get more ammo everytime any hunt is introduced. Lions, wolves etc generate more emotion but the truth is these captive bred lions are bred to be shot and the shooting of these lions is no different than shooting a kudu that was bought at auction so the anti's objection boils down to they just don't like it. Well! Tough! That's a shame. I don't like a bunch of stuff but that's life.

So why am I doing a captive bred lion hunt? The answer is simple in that I think it will be loads of fun. The hunt will be strictly tracking in heavy bush and the lions (yes plural male and female) will be anywhere in the 50,000 acres. I'm not expecting a wild lion experience. I've had 4 of those and killed 2 lions. I'm expecting this to only resemble a wild lion hunt in that a lion is involved.

Mark

To each his own. I wouldn't knowingly hunt a captive bred anything. 4 acquaintances of mine just returned from Namibia (Omujeve) on a leupard hunt. No offense, but they are older couples, about 65 yrs old each, and couldn't hunt their way out of a paper sack, but they are first rate folks. Anyway, they had 4 leopards killed within 1 1/2 days.....wonder why?

Another acquaintance came back fro SA last year with pics of his lion hunt. His wife followed along with a camera. After seeing several pics of the lion backed into the corner of a high fence, then one of the lion climbing a nearby tree, then the lion laying under the tree......well, you get the idea. Just not my thing, but to those who like it, more power to you.

I've repeatedly stated this....
Canned lion hunting is doing more harm to ALL hunting then good and does NOT relieve the pressure on the hunting demand for wild lions.

No argument I've heard or read thus far has change this view.

Hunting, in all its forms, is under attack.

Whether it is called "canned" or not, the general brain washed masses are totally against it.

It is PC gone totally mad.

It is OKI to have millions of goats, cows, sheep and pigs packed like sardines and killed every day, to satisfy the humanity.

But, some of us get upset because a farmer breeds lions and gets one shot every now and then!!

I have been hunting all my life, and I have absolutely nothing against the so called "canned" hunting.

How about some of the hunts in the US?

Aren't they canned too??

The attack on canned hunting is just the first step for these bastards.

I got a lecture from a mate of mine, who is a shooter, when I showed him a pic of an elephant taken by a PH friend in the Caprivi 10 days ago. It was a magnificent 80 pounder. Another guy at the table who is NOT a shooter, chipped in and said to him; is the life of an elephant worth more than a roo? Where is the moral equality here? The critic's circuit breakers opened and he shut up.

But the anti hunters are more vociferous than ever and they are in it for the long haul.