Very long but interesting article regarding so called "trophy" hunting and meat eating. I wish that the author would have mentioned the consumption of legally hunted wild game in Southern Africa. With hyena and croc being possible exceptions, all of the wild game is consumed by the hunting clients, camp staff, game rangers, and local villagers. After a long and exhausting day in the jess, even the croc and leopard hors d'oeuvres (with a Zambezi beer or two) were delicious.

***
Joseph Lawrence (February 23, 2014)

Eating Trophies

Is there a meaningful difference between trophy hunting, and much of our meat eating?

Trophy hunting brings up strong feelings and moral intuitions. There have recently been some instances of trophy hunting making headlines in South Africa, amongst other places, and alongside the question of whether it is right or wrong, is the question of whether it is right, or wrong, or at least repugnant but acceptable if it benefits conservation efforts. Many people seem to feel that trophy hunting is abhorrent and morally wrong, and as a result, even if it is a practical method of benefiting conservation efforts, they feel it should not be allowed. Many of these same people eat meat for pleasure. I’m going to explore a few different perspectives on this observation, and ultimately pose two questions: ‘Is there a meaningful difference between trophy hunting and much of our meat eating?’, and therefore: ‘Can we sincerely claim that trophy hunting should not be allowed on ethical or moral grounds, but at the same time allow meat eating in the manner in which we do?’
‘Much of our meat eating’?

I say this because I don’t want to talk about all of the times that we eat meat. Sometimes we humans eat meat because we have to, to survive. This is true for some Inuit people, who don’t have other food sources. Whilst many hundreds of millions of people around the world are vegetarian (an estimated 40% of Indians alone — half a billion people — are vegetarian), it is arguable that there are some people who need to eat meat for optimal health. Even if it is the case that for absolute optimal health, everyone needs to eat a certain amount of meat, it is still also the case that the vast majority of meat consumption, especially in Western countries (South Africa included), does not fall within what is required for optimal health. It is this meat eating that is additional to what can be argued is necessary for life or optimal health, that I am referring to when I say ‘Much of our meat eating’.

This distinction is important, because it shows us that we often eat meat purely for enjoyment. If we break down this enjoyment a bit more, it transpires that partly it could be enjoyment of the taste and texture of the meat, and at least in some cultures part of the enjoyment can be derived from the increased social kudos gained from eating meat. In both of these cases it isn’t in any way necessary for us to eat meat, it’s just purely for the enjoyment of it. The question I am grappling with is how we can claim that this enjoyment is in any way meaningfully different from the enjoyment gained just by killing an animal, for sport.

Different kinds of enjoyment

It is a common fact of life that we all enjoy different things, and enjoy the same things in different ways. We do not base our ethical and moral judgements on the kinds of enjoyment different people have of things, but rather on the actual thing they are doing, if appropriate. We do not factor in the type of enjoyment (or any other internal feelings) someone gets from the same act, because it has no relevance, and no consequence outside of their own private experiences.

Animals certainly don’t care whether the person that kills them is doing it for the pure enjoyment of killing them, or for the slightly later enjoyment of eating their flesh — the animal is committed to the cause either way, and the nature of enjoyment to be gained from their death is inconsequential.

It would also I think be unfair and unreasonable for us to require all acts of killing animals for food to be done without enjoyment. To claim that a abattoir worker is being immoral when he enjoys his job, but morally good when he does not is absurd, and we don’t base any of our ethical judgements, or laws on people’s internal emotional states, or levels of enjoyment of different acts.

Emotional reactions vs. Ethical reasoning

I think it is important before delving deeper, to recognise a difference between our emotional reactions to something, and our rational, ethical or moral reasoning about something. The two can often be linked, but we cannot fairly base societal rules and laws on our emotional reactions to things. The reason is that we know that our emotional reactions are not necessarily fair, and they can be highly influenced by a given individual’s community, family, upbringing etc. For example, many Americans of European descent feel a negative emotional reaction (e.g. disgust) to the typical Chinese habit of hawking up phlegm from the back of their throats. Despite this nearly universally negative emotional reaction, we can recognise that this is mostly a result of being brought up to find hawking up phlegm to be impolite and unpleasant, and so we don’t make a rule or law against doing it. There’s no proper argument against it, and people that find it disgusting probably recognise that there are some things they do that Chinese people would find equally disgusting.

I think a lot of people (including myself) have a strong emotional reaction to trophy hunting, but we should recognise that this is not the same thing as a reasoned argument as to why it shouldn’t be allowed. Any rational member of society will admit that a reason for not allowing something cannot simply be that ‘I don’t like it’. I’ll deal now with a few of the arguments that come up, but I’m sure I will have overlooked some, so please comment if you can think of one.

Different kinds of animals

There are a few variations of this line of thinking. One is that the animals we kill to eat are generally bred and raised specifically for that purpose, as opposed to wild animals, which evolved and survive without intervention from humans. The first thing to realise here is that this type of difference is not absolute, but one of degree. All farmed animals are the descendants of once wild animals. Many ‘wild’ animals are also the products of environments in which humans have played an important role over the past few thousands of years, so it’s not the case that ‘wild’ animals all exist in total independence from humans. How would we classify a group of captive, farmed animals that were bred from wild animals just three generations ago? How about one generation ago? Drawing a distinction between a ‘wild’ animal and a farmed animal is not easy, and there doesn’t seem to be a line at which we can meaningfully say that animals on one side should be treated differently from animals on the other, at least not in terms of how and under what circumstances we are allowed to kill them.

Another distinction that people draw is on the grounds of aesthetics, but I don’t think anyone can intend this argument with sincerity. A lot of the bemusement around trophy hunting goes something like this: “I don’t understand how someone can want to kill such a beautiful/majestic/powerful animal just for fun!”. We all know that people generally find lions to be more majestic than sheep, and elephants to be more beautiful than pigs, but I can’t think how this is a reasonable argument for allowing one to be killed and not the other.

The same is true for arguments relating to intelligence. There are farmed animals (e.g. pigs) that have higher levels of average intelligence than many animals that are trophy hunted (e.g. Kudu), so there’s no argument here that some animals have more of a right to life based on their levels of intelligence (and therefore perhaps conscious experience).

There seem to be no grounds on which we can claim that an animal that is to be trophy hunted has an inherent right to live, whilst at the same time eating meat in the way that we do, and therefore denying many other, farmed animals the right to live, purely for our enjoyment.

Endangered animals

Another distinction often made between animals that are trophy hunted, and animals we farm to eat, is that the populations of some trophy hunted animals are endangered, or even close to extinction. The immediate response to this is that trophy hunted individuals are rarely actually part of the endangered populations. They have often been bred exclusively for hunting, or at least exist in populations of animals in private reserves, where their populations there are maintained either for hunting, or game viewing. Because of this, we can’t claim that trophy hunting is a direct threat to conservation, in the sense that it is depleting the numbers of endangered populations of animals.

Could it be that we think that by allowing the trophy hunting of individual animals that are members of endangered species, we are condoning the killing of actual ‘wild’ individuals, and somehow damaging conservation efforts by endorsing the message that it is okay for these animals to be hunted for fun? This is a fairly reasonable line of argument I think, but it isn’t one based on morality, but rather on practical considerations. It accepts that it would be okay to trophy hunt an animal if all things were equal, but since it comes from an endangered species, even though this individual has been bred to be hunted, it is of practical advantage not to allow it to be hunted. The ‘practical advantage’ being in conserving its ‘wild’ cousins by putting out the message that it is illegal to kill individuals of this species, no matter the circumstances. We can look at it another way and take an animal that is regularly culled — the elephant. It is arguable whether or not the elephant is a threatened species at the moment, but it is certainly not endangered, and this is irrelevant to the point I am trying to make: A lot of people would have the same negative moral intuitions and feelings about an individual elephant being trophy hunted, even though it is not from an endangered species. Therefore the argument that trophy hunting is wrong because it endorses the hunting of animals from endangered species is not always valid, and even when it is, it is only a practical argument, not an ethical one.

Waste

A point often raised when comparing trophy hunting to killing animals for food is that trophy hunting is wasteful. I think the claim is that it is okay to kill an animal for the enjoyment of eating it, since we are using its body in the best way possible (eating it). Trophy hunting, on the other hand, can result in a dead carcass that is not eaten, and this is therefore wasteful, and wrong. Well, firstly many trophy hunted animals are in fact used for food. Of course however some are not, so let’s continue on the assumption that they are not eaten by people. First we must properly define ‘waste’: It can be defined as ‘use or expend carelessly, extravagantly, or to no purpose.’ Well, trophy hunting is certainly not careless, nor is it extravagant, at least not when compared to much of our meat eating, and it certainly has a purpose, as much of our meat eating does (the personal enjoyment of the person hunting, or eating). A trophy hunter pays to hunt one animal, and then does just that. Many millions of animals are bred and killed for us to enjoy eating them above and beyond any amount that is necessary for health. I don’t think that we can claim then that trophy hunting is extravagant, if we do not also admit that our meat farming and killing practices are as well.

As far as the literal waste of the bodies of individual animals that have been trophy hunted is concerned — the animals will be reused by the earth’s natural cycles in the same way that any other dead animal is. The only difference is that it does not pass through the digestive system of a human first. Unless we define anything that has not been consumed by a human, as waste, this argument doesn’t really work.

In conclusion

So to recap, there doesn’t seem to be any meaningful difference between ‘wild’ animals that are trophy hunted, and the kind of animals we farm to eat — no difference that could result in us saying that we should be allowed to kill/eat one of them, but not the other. There also doesn’t seem to be any sound moral argument on the grounds of conservation — trophy hunting is generally done with animals bred for the purpose, and trying to curb instances of wild animals from endangered species being hunted by making any hunting of them illegal is a practical measure, not a judgement that killing them for sport is actually wrong. We may well have very strong emotional reactions to trophy hunting, but they often turn out to be on aesthetic grounds, or based on peculiarities of our culture that are not shared in lots of others, and these are not strong enough reasons to say that trophy hunting is wrong, but rather just that we do not like it.

People who trophy hunt, do so for the pure enjoyment gained from the killing of an animal. There is a living (‘wild-ish’) animal, a human kills it, and extracts enjoyment. Every time someone eats meat above and beyond what they need for optimal health, they also do so for the pure enjoyment of eating it (or being seen to be eating it). There is a living (farmed) animal, a human kills it, and extracts enjoyment. Since there is no meaningful difference between the animals here, and no meaningful difference between the different kinds of enjoyment, I ask: ‘is there a meaningful difference between trophy hunting and much of our meat eating?’, and therefore: ‘Can we sincerely claim that trophy hunting should not be allowed on ethical or moral grounds, but at the same time allow meat eating in the manner in which we do?’
***

The main reason I never took the step and went on a hunt in Africa, is because I view them as "Trophy Only" hunts.

Yes, I know that while I would be there, I could eat as much meat off of the game I killed as I wanted, but for me, the best trophy is being able to go to the freezer 3 or 4 months after the hunt and pull out some chops or steaks and grill them over some mesquite.

Kind of like Larry The Cable Guy, I ain't going on a hunt in Africa to feed all the starving pygmies, and no matter the size of a critters horns/antlers, those things don't cook up worth a damn.

Every animal I ever shot in Africa was consumed by people desperately needing the protein.

I also sampled both buffalo and elephant, just for the experience.

I eat the animals I shoot in the USA even though I actually prefer beef, lamb, pork, and chicken, out of a sense of responsibility to the taking of the animal's life.

That's why I don't shoot prairie dogs, marmots, etc.

JMO.

BH63

quote:

Every animal I ever shot in Africa was consumed by people desperately needing the protein.

That is about the thousandth time I have read that remark. With ME personally, other than coyotes my hunting philosophy revolves around meat first, Trophy second.

Big reason why I hunted in Canada twice and never made the trip to Africa, I could bring the meat home with me, for myself and my wife to enjoy and to share with family and friends.

So you brought your musk ox home? That must have been a logistical nightmare.

Nope, brought 90 pounds each of Musk Ox and Barren Ground Caribou back home.

The only flights I had was from Edmonton thru Yellowknife to Cambridge Bay and then back the same route, all on Air Canada and that was in 2000, before 9-11.

I had taken all the stuff necessary with me to get the meat, heads and hides back to Edmonton.

Upon getting back to Edmonton I dropped the hides off with a taxidermist there to be tanned, found a processor and had the meat cut, wrapped and frozen. We had driven up to Edmonton from Texas so all we had to worry about was keeping enough ice on the meat to keep it and some buffalo meat we bought from a rancher outside of Edmonton cold.

Did pretty much the same thing on the Moose/Woodland Caribou hunt me and Lora and my youngest step-daughter went on in Newfoundland in 1996.

quote:

Originally posted by Crazyhorseconsulting:

quote:

Every animal I ever shot in Africa was consumed by people desperately needing the protein.

That is about the thousandth time I have read that remark. With ME personally, other than coyotes my hunting philosophy revolves around meat first, Trophy second.

Big reason why I hunted in Canada twice and never made the trip to Africa, I could bring the meat home with me, for myself and my wife to enjoy and to share with family and friends.

Hi Randall,

You're right on with this. I too have fed many "villagers" with my kills. But to say that's why anyone goes is complete and absolute bullshit of the highest order.

MOST (over 80 percent) of the guys on this forum strictly go to kill stuff to take its picture.

Here, I'll even offer up some proof.

http://forums.accuratereloadin...091096822#4091096822

I have certainly done my share of killing, but I have never, and will never kill something "for the experience" or to simply take a picture.

I tried eating a few trophies but could never get past the wood base and cheap plastic figurine. Mine were all participation awards, the winners' trophies I'm sure taste better.

I never have had a problem with folks that are merely after trophies, it is just something I never got into.

Fact is I am more of a collector myself, not of "Trophies" but of "Species".

Even if it is a female of a species, at least I can claim to have killed a specimen of the species.

I know that is more of a "Naturalists" concept of hunting.

Because I can't bring meat back from an African trip, it also, and this sounds dumb, is why I have not made an effort to hunt any of the various African exotics here in Texas.

The only exotics I have hunted in Texas have been axis does, because they are DAMNED tasty.

To me though a Greater Kudu killed on a high fence place in Texas would be indistinguishable from one killed in Namibia, except I do not think it would taste the same due to the difference in the food it had eaten. Silly I know.

I love cull/management hunting for the thrill of the hunt. If I want to bring a trophy home, I will. If I don't, I won't. I will lose no sleep over it.

Other people's opinions on my legal hunting activities are irrelevant to me.

quote:

Originally posted by Crazyhorseconsulting:

To me though a Greater Kudu killed on a high fence place in Texas would be indistinguishable from one killed in Namibia, except I do not think it would taste the same due to the difference in the food it had eaten. Silly I know.

It's very "silly" to compare a TX high fence kudu hunt to one (Namibia) you know absolutely zero about. You're just guessing, and way wrong.

+1

I don’t apologize for hunting and make no excuses
Hunting is hunting and that’s that
Love it so I will hunt until I can’t
Hunting in Africa is awesome and every hunter should experience it
BESIDES IM A TROPHY HUNTER - OLDER THE BETTER

Crazyhorse and I could not be more opposite from the Kudu comment to wanting the meat.

I don't want the meat; I am glad others do.

I want big horns.

I prefer not to shoot females.

Different strokes for different folks. Makes the world go round.

Each country has its own laws when it comes to utilization of the carcass (meat) and in Africa, in general, the carcass gets utilized in the best manner, conditions permitting.

The only state beyond the East African countries to include Zambia, Mozambique and some areas of Zimbabwe where meat from hunted game is utilized at its fullest is likely to be South Africa where most of the game is farmed and SOLD to the public.

The hunting venues outside of RSA are mostly government-controlled areas being hunted on a quota basis and wherever possible, the carcasses of hunted animals are unconditionally DONATED to the nearest villages, distance permitting.

As an example, hunting in any of the Game Reserves in TZ does not foresee the outfitter being under obligation to supply villages with meat as there are NO villages permitted within any Game Reserve. The same would apply to Wildlife Management Areas (WMA) whose primary gain from the wildlife in its area would be a percentage of the trophy fees and the occasional carcass finding its way to the nearest village would be considered a bonus.

The "compulsory" utilization of meat from hunted game therefore is really applicable to geographical areas beyond Africa where animals are "harvested" in limited numbers by single or double tags and not by the truckload as would be the norm for any reasonable African safari where a large part may end up as bait, some to feed the camp and the rest going back to "nature" (vultures, hyenas, etc.).

Those are the facts.

If you golf, quilt, woodwork, paint, fly fish, etc. do you REALLY care what it means to someone else? Aren't you likely to want to do it your way, within legal/esthetic/moral bounds, even if you happen to enjoy competitive aspects like ribbons, scores, not just participating?

Questions like the article attempts to answer simply feed the current dynamic that says we must all agree on every topic out there. Silly!

For myself, sampling the meat, cooked by someone who knows how to prepare each type, is "meaningful". Viewing a trophy on my wall is meaningful to me, for my own reasons. I am ecstatic to have been privileged to hunt and would do far more if financially able. Taxidermists and butchers alike have been happy to accommodate (as would all merchants associated with any of the pursuits or hobbies in which we indulge ourselves.)

If eating it is your personal requirement, then don't kill it if you can't. Also, don't wound it, make bad shots, waste bullets, ad infinitum.

2 cents

For your consideration.

Excerpt:

"For me being a hunter is not about killing, is about experiencing nature at its best while trying to be conscious and respectful of the environment and its animals."

***
Paolo Marchesi Blog (March 24, 2017)

Why I hunt

How did an animal lover like me become a hunter, a cold blooded killer? Has my heart gone rotten?

After over 13 years of hunting and photographing the sport I decided to post a dedicated gallery to hunting. It was always somewhat of a secret having clients who are very “green”. Being the environmentalist and animal lover that I am I always felt the controversial nature of exposing these images. I decided to do it and explain how I became and hunter.

Here is the story.

I grew up in Italy reading books by Jane Goodall, Konrad Lorenz, Gerald Durrell. By age 14 I had read Darwin’s “The Origin of Species” two times. Animals and nature were my passions and love. As a kid, I marched on protests to abolish hunting in Italy. I marched against animal testing. If there was such a thing as PETA, back in those days, I would have been one of their best allies. I was raised by parents who didn’t tolerate a crying child but I remember vividly, when at age 4 or 5, my parents bought a live lobster from a fisherman and were about to boil it live in a pot. I remember the uncontrollable sobbing, even though I knew crying was going to result in my father’s military style whipping. They ate the lobster but somehow I escaped my father’s punishment for crying. I still remember how I felt at the idea of this lobster being killed in such a horrible way.

All my allowance went to paying for food for my many animals I raised, in my small room, in our apartment in the heart of Turin. Half of my room was filled with cages. I had birds, squirrels, hamsters, fish, turtles, you name it. I even had a chicken at one point. Every injured animal I took home, like a mourning dove with a broken wing. She never was able to fly but she lived with me for many years until my mother complained about her incessant calling while I was at school “cooOOoo-woo-woo-woooo “. She felt lonely while I was gone. Apparently my mother gave her away to a farm where other animals would keep her company. I wonder now if that was true.

After realizing that keeping animals in cages was inhumane I never acquired an another pet and started freeing caged animals. One time I broke into a rabbit farmer pens and opened all the cages and ran. I am not sure how they knew it was me, I got caught. Fortunately rabbits were not that smart and just hangout by the cages or I would have had to pay the farmer for all the rabbits lost.

How did an animal lover become a “heartless” animal killer? Has my heart gone rotten? Have my feelings changed towards animals and nature?

During hunting season when I post images of me with dead animals, on Facebook, I get bombarded by comments of my friends animal lovers. Especially the ones in Italy, where the culture of hunting is not as prominent as it is in the US. They will say things like “How could you possibly smile after killing this beautiful creature?”. My brother in Indonesia who is opposed to hunting once wrote me “What happened to you Paolo? You used to love animals…”. I don’t even try to defend myself, in truth, nothing changed in my heart. The reason I became a hunter is because of my love and respect for animals and nature. Moving to Montana in 99 introduced me to hunting and I was educated and learned about such a misunderstood sport which has become an important part of lifestyle now.

Let me start by saying that everything I write on this post is pertinent to hunting in the US. I support hunting in this country, where regulations are strict, very well regulated and the resources are managed correctly (most of the time). The other very important factor about the US is that people follow these regulations (most of the time). An that is really the most important part of the equation. If you make great regulations and people don’t follow them, then you are out of luck.

I am not supportive to hunting in general, like hunting in Italy. You need the right regulations and the right people to follow them. No one follows regulations in Italy and that’s the problems with hunting there.

All this said, let’s get to the nitty gritty about why I started hunting when I moved to Montana.

When people criticize me about hunting the first thing I ask is “Do you eat meat?”. When they say yes I ask them “Do you know anything about the way the majority of domestic animals are raised?” Without even mentioning all the crap that is injected in their bodies to grow big and fat quickly, like growth hormones. And more crap injected so that they don’t get diseases from living in their own feces. So crammed up in tight spaces with many others that they can’t even move. Look at feedlots and chicken factory farms. Fortunately there has been more awareness of cruelty imposed to domestic animals for our consumptions and things are changing to improve conditions. I love animals but I also love meat. I am not going to stop eating meat but I can assure you that when I take down an elk with my bow and eat healthy lean meat for a year or two I feel a lot better then when I take a bite off that plastic wrapped piece of beef. I know the elk I killed lived a good life and I am also very aware that the population of elk and deer and many other animals need to be controlled. I watched videos of deer and elk dying of starvation from overpopulation in areas that couldn’t be hunted for various reasons. We have messed up the ecosystem and with the lack of predators is making natural balance impossible. We need hunters to control the population of many animals and fortunately Fish and Game does a very good job at figuring just out how many.

I then get the hard core animals lovers who tell me. “I don’t eat meat, I would never do that and let an animal die for me”. Then I ask them. “Do you know why the ecosystem is so screwed up that there aren’t enough predators to keep the natural balance intact? The reason is simple. To grow those sprouts and soy bean for your tofu we have turned wildlife habitat into barren land and killed and are killing many animals in the process.” Let’s not talk about all the chemicals and pesticides that are dumped into the earth. To make that piece of Tofu, all animal lovers are eating, many animals have been killed. Even eating fish is bad as Oceans and Seas are being depleted and raped. Now, am I starting to sound like the little activist kid that I used to be? Yes, I am still the same person with the same love for nature and animals. I am just wiser. Hunting for me is the most humane, most environmentally friendly, most animal and nature lover way to eat. I know for a fact that killing an elk has less impact in the natural world than eating anything else I can buy in a grocery store.

Am I just hunting to provide food for myself or do I actually like it? Do I like to kill?

The first time I killed an animal was with my brother Giuseppe. I also remember that incident very vividly, I must have been 7. We were somewhere in a dry part of the country. Maybe southern Italy. We had seen a Gecco for the first time. We were both a little repulsed and fascinated by it. We watched as it sat immobile on a rock. For some reason we decided to tap it with a stick on the head just to see what it would do. We tapped it too hard. The poor gecko put his paws over his head and started rolling in pain. It looked like a human. My brother and I horrified started beating it on the head trying to kill it to take it out of it’s misery. Was traumatizing and I didn’t kill an other animal until I moved to Montana.

My friend Chuck took me duck hunting for the first time. I really didn’t want to do it but I decided to tag along because I wanted to experience it. After multiple failures at trying to jump some ducks sitting in some slews, I started feeling an urge to kill one. Was a very strange feeling and realized that deep inside me there was still the hunter instinct that kept the human race alive. I finally killed a duck. I didn’t feel good at killing it but I felt the satisfaction of harvesting an animal I was going to eat, I felt the satisfaction of holding that duck in my hands. That same year I killed my first deer and I had the same feeling. My heart went with both animals but somehow I had fulfilled an ancient instinct that was hidden deep inside of me. The difference between the gecko and the duck and deer is that the killing had very different purposes. The first incident was to kill the later two were to provide. I became a hunter.

Now, let’s be honest. Is really not all about harvesting and providing or I could get a deer or an elk with a rifle and make the process as quick as I could. Instead I choose to bow hunt for them. Killing an elk with a bow is probably one of the hardest things I have ever done. Took me 6 years of hard work to get my first elk with a bow. Most bow hunters will never get an elk in their lifetime. I spend the majority of September deep in the woods of Montana to get my elk and I spend a good part of November to get a deer. Why?

The reason is simple. My love for nature and animals. There is nothing as intimate and as close to nature and its animals than bow hunting. You have to become part of nature to get close enough to a wild animal with a bow to be able to release an arrow. I have ran into Grizzlies, I have been surrounded by wolf, I have been so close to elk that I put my hand over one. I have been so close to a massive bull elk staring at me face to face that I could smell its breath. I watched mama deer nurse her fawn. I watched buck deer and bull elk fight for their ladies. The things I have seen, while quietly moving through the woods, could fill the pages of books. When I release that arrow and make the kill the fun has ended. I always feel sadness when I see the animal laying on the ground. A piece of my heart always goes with my kill. I am thankful for the gift the animal has given me and I feel the appreciation of having healthy meat in my freezer. I bird hunt with my dogs and bird hunting is about the relationship with my dogs. Is such an incredible bond with my little partners that only bird hunters and dog lovers can understand. For me being a hunter is not about killing, is about experiencing nature at its best while trying to be conscious and respectful of the environment and its animals.
***

quote:

It's very "silly" to compare a TX high fence kudu hunt to one (Namibia) you know absolutely zero about. You're just guessing, and way wrong.

You missed my point completely. I was not COMPARING a free range hunt in Namibia or anywhere else in Africa with a high fence ranch in Texas, other than a Greater Kudu is a Greater Kudu and whether from Africa or Texas it will be the same basic animal.

The hunting would NOT be the same and did not in any way claim that it would be.

I was simply explaining that while I could go to a high fence ranch here in Texas and kill one, and it is one of the few African species I would like to kill, It would simply not be the same thing and I Do Not believe the meat would taste the same.

I am not "Guessing" on anything, there is no way I would even attempt to compare a hunt in Africa to any type hunt in Texas or North America for that matter.

A kudu doesn't know what continent he lives on. The smaller the size of the property, the closer he is to livestock.

The ones I saw in a "600" acre pen at the YO didn't look much different than the wild ones from the Khomas mountains in Namibia. But they were tame.

I wish everyone would quit getting their panties in a wad every time they read something on the internet unfavorable to hunters. It is going to happen. Make sure you call the local news when hunters do something positive for the community and get it documented, even if you have to buy the writer or producer a steak dinner and a couple cases of beer.

quote:

Originally posted by jdollar:
So you brought your musk ox home? That must have been a logistical nightmare.

When I hunted Musk Ox and CCBG Caribou, I drove from my home in Montana to Edmonton, then flew Air Canada to Inuvik, and then a twin Otter to camp. I have a house full of my animal "trophy" mounts (70) but I have also lived on wild game meat for the past 50 years.

So when I went on this Canadian hunt I packed all of my gear, including a duffle bag in a hard sided cooler. For my trip home I packed all of the backstraps and tenderloins of my Musk Ox and both Caribou plus as much additional meat that would fit into the cooler. I then put the Musk Ox cleaned skull and all of my personal gear into the duffle bag and my backpack. My rifle was in my Cabellas aluminum case. We figured that one of my Caribou would exceed the B&C minimum, so I didn't split the antlers, but nested the smaller set inside the larger one. I had also planned to have the Musk Ox mounted life-size and was going to do shoulder mounts on both Caribou, so we had all of those hides in a large 3'x3'x3' cardboard box.

For all of that baggage the airlines charged me an additional $25.

Times have changed!!

Last week I flew back to Denver from a Québec-Labrador Caribou hunt in Québec. It was a 7 day hunt and I shot my Caribou on the first day. We got the head and meat back the first day, but we didn't get the head fleshed out and the cape salted until the end of the second day. Bad weather then extended our stay in camp an additional 3 days, and I wouldn't fly out of Montreal until the day after we got back there. I was also planning on spending a few days in Denver with family before I drove back home to Montana.

So I then decided that too much time would pass before I would get beck home and process everything, so I donated my meat to one of the guides that also flew back from camp with us. The Outfitter had a taxidermist meet us at the hotel when we got back to Montreal, so I gave him my Caribou cape for him to have tanned and then ship to me at home (for $278). He also wanted $700+ to ship me antlers home to me, but I declined that. There was another guy there that was helping to organize us and he told me the airlines would charge $1068 to carry unsplit antlers, but I decided to take a chance at the airport.

The guides had green scored my Caribou at 400+ inches, so I didn't want to split the horns. I found some cardboard behind the hotel, and I bought a couple more rolls of tape and a couple rolls of bubble wrap, and spent several hours wrapping my antlers.

I had arranged a direct flight from Montreal to Denver, and checking in wasn't too difficult. Air Canada charged me $25 for my first checked bag (my suitcase with my ammo), $35 for my second checked bag (my gun case), and $100 for my third checked item (the antlers). They also charged an additional $175 handling fee for the antlers.

Everything arrived OK in Denver.

Ive shot more than my share of trophies over my years..Big bucks and bulls in good fat eat just fine, only a couple of complaints that being rut killed animals..They may be a bit tougher, you just have to chew a little longer!! cowboy up!!

Today, mostly from advise from my heart doctor who detest my beef consumption, I mostly shoot cow elk, and spike or doe deer and leave the trophies to those who have not been so lucky.

Bottom line is the subject is without a lot of substance as most are going to do what the please, me being one of those..There is no meaningful difference as far as Im concerned..

BTW I feel good feeding the indigenous of Africa, they are a good people and we took their spears away from them, so the African people feed them and one elephant doesn't need to go to scavangers totally..A Safari company feeds a 1000 people in the course of a hunting season, young children not to mention babies on milk, that would otherwise suffer malnutrition. On the off season these same people do suffer, life is better during the hunting time, and the staff takes home biltong at the end of the season..basic stuff without writing a book on the subject.

This is a very simple thing to define! Humans are omnivores, and as such are natural hunter, gathers regardless of what anyone thinks!

I hunt because I'm a hunter, no other reason, and I don't apologize for that fact. Even if I do not eat all the meat, everything of the body of an animal I shoot is utilized by nature in one way or another!

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I was born a hunter, I will die a hunter. I have known that since before I could understand it. My Dad did not hunt, he would from time to time go out and shoot a few cottontails when I was a kid, but his having been born in 1897, he grew up during a time when hunting meant helping feed the family.

Yes humans are omnivores, something we have in common with pigs, bears, raccoons and some of the primates.

Whether a person hunts for meat or just trophies, it is part of what makes us human.

If the animals did not feed someone that I shot in RSA, I would have not hunted any animals.

We eat all the trophies and non-trophies on our ranch.
The only reason not to eat a trophy (but give it away to someone who will) is because of the way the meat has been treated. One of the golden rules I have is that the animal must be gutted immediately, something too many PH's never do. Not gutting spoils the meat much more than anything to do with the age of the animal.
I am not talking about a gut-shot or wounded animal, etc.