There is a facebook page started to organize a demonstration at the DSC convention , been posting madly on it but keeping up with these radical lunatics is time consuming ,

https://web.facebook.com/event...nk/1680980232116055/


here is my general post message

Protesting for the welfare of animals is an honorable thing , what one should take into consideration is if your action will have unintended consequences . In Africa the average person lives on less than 1$ a day and is in an every day fight to survive just that day. One elephant in a maize field could wipe out a families life line for the year. Its not the USA or Europe where there are many options - the family will starve and children will die. They therefore see wildlife as threats to their lives not as animals to take photographs of - that is restricted to wealthy westerners. For westerners to say its wrong to say wildlife must have value or provide benefits is a reflection that you are not familiar with life in rural africa. In one district in Zimbabwe under the CAMPFIRE program - the Community Based Natural Resource initiative provides food for 1 million children who have no other source of protein and benefits to over 750 000 families , the trust received $850 000-00 to be used to build schools that governments dont , clinics which government cannot. These benefits come from the proceeds of a scientificaly managed hunting program. The people willing to spend these dollars in Africa are sport/conservation hunters who harvest a managed and sustainable surplus of old males beyond their reproductive ages. Does hunting serve conservation ??? lets look at some examples - in South Africa in the mid 1960's there was an estimated 500 000 head of wild animals mainly in government national parks , most of the wildlife had been exterminated to make room for agriculture - wildlife was seen as vermin. . Today there is a estimated 18 million head of wildlife - this is a staggering increase - but its not due to government parks - its the private sector setting aside over 20 million hectares of land for wildlife and managing them as a natural resource. More land is available to wildlife today than ever before all funded and protected by hunters dollars. But do endangered species not suffer greater declines if they hunted , let us look at the Bontebok , White Rhino and Black Wildebeest as well as Cape Mountain Zebra and Tiger - in the early 1980's the Bontebok was considered nearly extinct a few animals remained - the authorities decided to allow the private sector to aquire small groups and allow hunting of some to pay for the rest - today the bontebok is no longer threatened with extinction and more bontebok are found on private hunting areas that in National Parks . In the early 1950's the white rhino numbers were below 100 and confined to the Umfolozi game reserve - again the authorities took the decision to have the private sector take groups of 4 - 2 males 2 females - allow one male to be hunted to pay for the other three - White rhino numbers increased to over 25 000 on the back of hunters dollars , all this while the Cape Mountain Zebra and Tiger were closed to hunting - today the Tiger and Cape Mountain Zebra remain endangered and are accelerating towards extinction - Hunters pay to ensure wildlife does not become extinct. But is is cruel ??? , domestic animals are treated a lot worse than any animal hunted - duck liver pate is created from force feeding ducks to such an extent their livers explode , chickens are dunked into boiling water while alive to stun them so they can be striped off of their feather while alive ( hot skin allowes easier defeathering ) egg laying chickens are kept in cages they cannot even turn around in and the lights left on to ensure they lay an unnatural number of eggs a day . While wild animals are left to live a free life in the wild untile they have mated and passed on their genes and a quick hopefully one bullet ends their long and free life . ( every hunters strives for a one shot harvest) , so what is more cruel - eating eggs / bacon / pate / steak , wearing leather useing soap eating tuna , or allowing a wild animal a full life ??? But what about blood thirsty hunters only wanting to kill - the hunters I know are all about the adventure - the preperation for the hunt , its the anticipation of the walks in the wilderness , the camp fires and african staff , its the looking at animals through binoculars , watching the way they move , the direction of the wind , the lie of the land is a stalk possible . Some hunts go for 21 days with no success but the hunter go's home with a sun burnt smile and a heart full of africa . So when you try to stop hunting you are actually trying to stop conservation - conservation in Africa needs hunters dollars to protect wildlife from poachers - look what happened in Kenya when hunting was banned - poachers went into the disbanded hunting areas and killed off 85% of all of Kenya's wildlife because hunters where no longer there to protect them. When the wild animals destroy rural African's fields and crops and the wildlife has no value - they will poisen them and kill them but when they get benefits from hunting programs they tolerate the wildlife as they are worth more than their subsistent crops. Stop hunting and the local people will resort to killing far more wild animals than will ever be hunted . This is the law of unintended consequences .

Hmmmmmm......... yes I think we may see a ramping up of anti-hunting protests at the shows this year. They are on a roll and they will keep at it while they have momentum.

Hopefully I am wrong, but I doubt it.

I wonder if they would feel comfortable having 2000 open carry advocates mixed in with them, not saying anything, not doing anything, just standing and watching.

Will have to look for some of those open carry people milling around with the protesters.

Have a booth outside about poaching. big screen tv with videos, lost of large photos, information about groups on the ground fighting poaching, information about who buys illegal animal parts. maybe Ivan's show running. Hunters against poaching!

I will not attend another show ... it'a a matter of time before one of these loonies sets fire to the facility and I don't want to be there when it happens (not to mention my guns ...)

We need to evolve and do business on the internet.

SBB

Well written!!!
The only problem is you used facts and logic.

I have seen no sign of them on the ground.

Total friggen nut jobs. Why the hell don't they go and demonstrate outside the Embassies of Vietnam or the PROC.
One could have a better discussion a 4 x 4 piece of lumber. They are born ignorant, and they work hard at remaining ignorant.

At the show. No sign of protesters.

Good lets hope it stays that way.

One never knows. I quit doing shows years ago for a number of reasons....... on of which is the nut jobs. At one show in California we had to all exit the building every single day of the show due to bomb threats. It was a royal pain in the ass.

It appears that they have scheduled it for Saturday at 2 PM. When the rhino auction was
going on a couple of years ago I only saw about a dozen protesters.

I was told there were about 20 protesters today.

quote:

Originally posted by Russ Gould:
I will not attend another show ... it'a a matter of time before one of these loonies sets fire to the facility and I don't want to be there when it happens (not to mention my guns ...)

We need to evolve and do business on the internet.

Don't let them win!

If they were there...they did not make much of a splash. I never saw any and watched for them as I left in the evening.

All right, I will protest DSC.

I protest that the dang thing is always at a time I can't go.

quote:

Originally posted by Russ Gould:
I will not attend another show ... it'a a matter of time before one of these loonies sets fire to the facility and I don't want to be there when it happens (not to mention my guns ...)

We need to evolve and do business on the internet.

Go get em tiger!

quote:

Originally posted by Scriptus:
Total friggen nut jobs. Why the hell don't they go and demonstrate outside the Embassies of Vietnam or the PROC.
One could have a better discussion a 4 x 4 piece of lumber. They are born ignorant, and they work hard at remaining ignorant.

You are forgetting one very important thing!

Ignorance and stupidity got hand in hand, which means common sense goes out of the window!

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:

quote:

Originally posted by Scriptus:
Total friggen nut jobs. Why the hell don't they go and demonstrate outside the Embassies of Vietnam or the PROC.
One could have a better discussion a 4 x 4 piece of lumber. They are born ignorant, and they work hard at remaining ignorant.

You are forgetting one very important thing!

Ignorance and stupidity got hand in hand, which means common sense goes out of the window!

So sorry, I forgot the definition of a liberal, "One whose mind is so open that that all common sense and brains have blown away with the wind."

Hmmm...Time the African villagers who are deprived of a livelihood or other income by the antis filed class action suits...

Someone should politely tell those who are organizing the protest that their red splotches on the elephant's head are not the proper place for a frontal brain shot. Close but not quite.
Cal

A few years ago in Reno there was a demonstration so i thought I would try engage them , I approached them and Asked to see their leader , the woman who confronted me said it was hunters who had made white rhino extinct - I quietly told her they were not extinct and was about to explain how hunters where the ones that funded their return from the brink of extinction - at which point she was shouting at me "hunters made the rhino extinct" - all I could get in was when they did their homework I would gladly talk to them until then it was useless and left

quote:

Originally posted by Safaris Botswana Bound:
- at which point she was shouting at me "hunters made the rhino extinct" -

Yes, they've acquired their debate techniques by watching 4 year olds.

They are not interested in debate or any form of enlightenment. They are Zealots and no amount of facts will sway them from their ideology. Educating non-hunters who are without an agenda is our single best hope of spreading hunting as conservation.

quote:

Originally posted by Russ Gould:
I will not attend another show ... it'a a matter of time before one of these loonies sets fire to the facility and I don't want to be there when it happens (not to mention my guns ...)

We need to evolve and do business on the internet.

I think this is what the antis hope for. I saw none yesterday. Where were they?

quote:

Originally posted by butchlambert:

quote:

Originally posted by Russ Gould:
I will not attend another show ... it'a a matter of time before one of these loonies sets fire to the facility and I don't want to be there when it happens (not to mention my guns ...)

We need to evolve and do business on the internet.

I think this is what the antis hope for. I saw none yesterday. Where were they?

Can't afford the bus fare.

quote:

Originally posted by Russ Gould:
I will not attend another show ... it'a a matter of time before one of these loonies sets fire to the facility and I don't want to be there when it happens (not to mention my guns ...)

We need to evolve and do business on the internet.

True, but the face to face interaction is lost.

I made several trips in and out of the DSC Show both Friday and Saturday at different times from about 09:30 to about 17:30 and from both the Omni entry, and from the lower street level, and I didn't see any kind of protest or a single protester of any kind.

I fed a couple of homeless guys at the McDonalds a couple of blocks away up the street on Saturday morning and I asked them if they saw any "protesters" and they said "huh?"

It wasn't like no one could find it with D S C lit up in 100 foot tall letters all along the Omni Hotel.

One can only hope we flooded the site with so much information on hunting some lost the motivation but these lunatics are radicle to the extreme.

The one point one of them made was that the way forward was to work on law makers politicians and the general public - all soft unenlightened targets - and that is why we need some sort of dedicated centre to react to negative media - its all very well having DSC and SCI -political section but they are really quiet , we need a social media office that trolls the internet and puts out these fires with facts and information and a panel of experts that can send links to studies - this is the only way to silence them and make them loose traction .

I saw a handful around 4pm as I was driving home yesterday. Only sign I can recall said something to the effect of "stop the legal poaching."

quote:

Originally posted by Sevens:
I saw a handful around 4pm as I was driving home yesterday. Only sign I can recall said something to the effect of "stop the legal poaching."

So some do know the difference, but come at it from the same mind-set that taking guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens somehow stops crime.

Friday at show closing time . . .

I was in and out as well and saw no one. It was too windy and cold for these idiots to play outside. Rather cowardly, but that's par for the course

quote:

Originally posted by Russ Gould:
I will not attend another show ... it'a a matter of time before one of these loonies sets fire to the facility and I don't want to be there when it happens (not to mention my guns ...)

We need to evolve and do business on the internet.

Seems a bit wussish to me. Maybe we should stop traveling too . . . only a matter of time before some terrorist gets us, a plane crashes, we contract Ebola, . . .

I was there every day from set-up on Wed afternoon til we packed up and loaded the BVC booth this evening...just got home now.

Never saw the first protester.

Here is the update

A few of us went full out on this page posting threads to scientific studies and countering every argument they put forward , eventualy as always happens they loose control and start swearing and exposing their madness and horrific lack of knowledge. John Martin Venter , Martin Pieters and others thanks , we made them look like the monkeys that they are.
They did actualy get a mention in Fox news and the Dallas Daily News - they posted photos and links.
The point that sunk their ship on this thread was that they invited 500 people to the protest , 127 showed an interest 41 said they were going and roughly 14 showed up ( Facebook page statistics) so I pointed out that if only 14 turned up how could they ever understand turning up to fight poachers and remove snares in the field in Africa. The main point is I am sure we reached those 400 who were invited but did not take any further interest as we flooded the page with links to conservation funded by hunting , including the link to Buzz and Miles's great anti poaching work in Zim , as well as Martin's

I believe that is where we could start to turn things around , we need to counter every negative media platform that the anti hunters use by keeping civil and posting links connecting the readers to the facts about how hunting pays for conservation.

quote:

Originally posted by Safaris Botswana Bound:
Here is the update

A few of us went full out on this page posting threads to scientific studies and countering every argument they put forward , eventually as always happens they loose control and start swearing and exposing their madness and horrific lack of knowledge. John Martin Venter , Martin Pieters and others thanks , we made them look like the monkeys that they are.

I believe that is where we could start to turn things around , we need to counter every negative media platform that the anti hunters use by keeping civil and posting links connecting the readers to the facts about how hunting pays for conservation.

This is true! Access their social media sites and inundate them (both professionally and respectfully) with scientific studies, successful conservation stories (e.g. - Omay, DAPU, BVC, Save, Royal Kafue, etc), ongoing hunter funded social initiatives, etc. Almost without exception, when the anti-hunters are confronted with overwhelming facts, their emotion based diatribe/narrative "folds like a cheap suit" eventually resulting in swearing and name calling.

The odds of converting a rabid non-hunter are slim and none. However, many non-hunters access the anti-hunter social media sites in an effort to obtain a much better understanding of the ongoing wildlife related issues (e.g. - Cecil debacle). I seem to recall an ole say'n: “He who controls the narrative controls the debate".

For example, the following verbiage was posted (on the protesters' Facebook) by Ms. Carolyn:

"I have been keenly following this discussion. I live in the States far removed from the front line, but have always connected deeply with animals and abhorred hunting. That said, I have been keen to fully understand all aspects of this issue before coming to any conclusions myself. I find the links and info provided by Graeme to be valuable in offering a perspective/information from the pro-hunting side of this argument. But seems the more I read about this issue the less clear it becomes and basically just falls back again on the fact that there are conscientious people fighting against hunting, and conscientious people fighting for hunting/conservation - and African countries who manage this issue effectively and those that have completely dropped the ball. Not to mention that there are highly dubious people on both sides, also. This is not simply a black and white issue, but highly complex. What I fear is that our hearts sometimes take over and end up doing more harm than good. My suggestion is to research the other side of the coin that you are on before making a firm decision. While it may not (and possibly should not) change your mind, it will give you a better understanding of why this is such a hotly debated issue. In a perfect world, we would all live in peace (and that "all" includes animals). But this is anything but a perfect world. I really really really wish that these animals could be left in peace, but I'm not sure that is remotely possible in large part due to poaching, loss of habitat, etc. I came across the following article which seems to fairly present both sides of this issue. Graeme, I would be very interested in your opinion of the article. And if anyone got to the bottom of this far-too-long comment, thank you for listening."

A dozen double rifles, some custom bolt guns, and some nice shotguns easily worth half a million. Logistically impossible to rescue in the event of an evacuation due to fire. I think a couple of years ago the sprinklers came on at DSC and there wasn't even a fire. Fire, water and firearms don't get along, sorry.

If any of you macho guys want to underwrite my guns I will be happy to put them on display. Until then they will stay in my gunroom out of sight and out of mind.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Cajun1956:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Safaris Botswana
This is true! Access their social media sites and inundate them (both professionally and respectfully) with scientific studies, successful conservation stories (e.g. - Omay, DAPU, BVC, Save, Royal Kafue, etc), ongoing hunter funded social initiatives, etc. Almost without exception, when the anti-hunters are confronted with overwhelming facts, their emotion based diatribe/narrative "folds like a cheap suit" eventually resulting in swearing and name calling.

The odds of converting a rabid non-hunter are slim and none. However, many non-hunters access the anti-hunter social media sites in an effort to obtain a much better understanding of the ongoing wildlife related issues (e.g. - Cecil debacle). I seem to recall an ole say'n: “He who controls the narrative controls the debate".



well said
+ 1

quote:

Graeme, I would be very interested in your opinion of the article. And if anyone got to the bottom of this far-too-long comment, thank you for listening.

I sure hope Graeme replied to Ms. Carolyn. She seems to have approached this very logically and read each side and summed it up well with "This is not simply a black and white issue, but highly complex. What I fear is that our hearts sometimes take over and end up doing more harm than good."