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Hunting trophies do not furnish a room

As a number of countries introduce bans, our columnist reflects on the fate of his inherited stuffed owl, Edwardian ostrich egg and monster pike





Jonathan Guthrie 2 HOURS AGO



Once upon a time, a hunter slew a mighty lion. If he had been an Assyrian king, a bas-relief would record the feat. If he had been a Victorian colonialist killing a maneater, his book would have been a bestseller. If he had been a Maasai youth, he would, within living memory, have completed an important rite of passage.

Alas, none of those conditions applied. The bowhunter who shot the lion at the edge of a Zimbabwean nature reserve in 2015 was American tourist Walter Palmer.

The lion was called Cecil. He had met Socrates’ injunction to live a well-examined life. A radio collar recorded his every move. Foreign visitors had taken millions of photographs of Cecil, who was habituated to humans.

The slaying triggered outrage in the US and Europe. Palmer would have attracted less opprobrium if he had muscled into a kids’ petting zoo and dropped a brick on its most popular guinea pig. And what was a Minnesota dentist doing hunting lions anyway? Surely he should have been playing golf?

The Victorians had an excuse: they did not have David Attenborough. TV documentaries tell us more about the natural world than dusty specimens could

France and the Netherlands have banned import trades in certain hunting trophies. The UK government plans to do the same this year.

It is understandable that many people in these relatively urban, liberal Northern European countries regard trophy-hunting tourists as jerks. I think poorly of them myself. Most conservationists abhor trophy hunting. Only a small minority, some of whom are funded by pro-hunting groups, are vocally supportive.

I also believe the inhabitants of countries with charismatic wildlife can decide how to manage populations best. Broadly, wildlife tourism is a better business than hunting tourism. Following Cecil’s demise, I estimated a lion was worth some $180,000 to an African economy as a living tourist attraction, compared with less than$60,000 as a dead trophy.

This annoyed trophy hunters, who seem quite thin-skinned for rugged survivalists. It angered fellow animal lovers, who thought only a brute would quantify a magnificent creature financially. And it perturbed an accountant, who questioned my discount rate.


Trophy hunting is an emotive subject. But at its core is a most peculiar home decor conundrum: is it a good idea to adorn your home with dead animals?

Go online and you can see the trophy rooms created by recreational hunters. Many dwell in the US, where hunting is deeply rooted in popular culture. Here, glassy-eyed bighorn sheep scramble among artificial boulders. Here, grizzlies are posed in attack posture, even if they were rootling for earthworms when they died.

Collections of hunting trophies seem entirely weird to me. But I am in no position to criticise. The study where I write these columns contains a stuffed owl, deceased circa 1872. There is also an Edwardian ostrich egg in a giant egg cup. Our vestibule is home to a monster pike in a glass case. Other parts of this fish were incorporated into parsley quenelles by a piscatorial relative in around 1957.

I inherited these items, which I cannot bear to throw out. The owl belonged to my grandfather. I imagine it is the same if you own old hunting trophies. That 14-pointer stag’s head is not just a handy hat rack. It is also commemorates Great Uncle Archie, who stalked up a freezing burn in the Cairngorms to shoot the animal in 1922.

That 14-pointer stag’s head is not just a handy hat rack. It is also commemorates Great Uncle Archie, who stalked up a freezing burn in the Cairngorms to shoot the animal in 1922

I once visited an old lady who lived on a hill in a big patch of English woodland. She and her dear departed husband, a former officer in the colonial Indian army, had turned this into a nature reserve. As I sat chatting to her about her beloved fallow herd, I noticed a pelt draped across the back of the sofa. I realised what this was with a jolt of surprise: the skin of a snow leopard, by then one of the most endangered animals on the planet.

There are two problems with hunting trophies. First, they imply that killing a wild animal is a praiseworthy achievement. This idea is anachronistic, at least to most Northern Europeans and urban Americans.

Second, having an animal taxidermised is a curiously self-defeating practice. Nothing is quite as moribund as a critter that has been given the immobile semblance of life. Artist David Shrigley made this point ironically by equipping a stuffed Jack Russell with a placard proclaiming “I’m Dead”.

Animal remains mounted in a case or on a plaque are shorn of the essentials that once gave the organism meaning: its complex behaviour patterns and the environment of which it was an expression.



The Victorians had an excuse: they did not have David Attenborough. TV documentaries tell us more about the natural world than dusty specimens could. These are on their way out. A few celebrity corpses will linger on in museums. We can probably count for a while longer on the vast walrus at the Horniman in London and Sir Roger, an elephant with a neat bullet hole in his forehead at Kelvingrove in Glasgow.

My monster pike will not survive another house move. Sooner or later the ostrich egg will break. My children are hardly vying to inherit the owl. I hope they will get more pleasure from seeing the real thing.

Jonathan Guthrie is the head of Lex

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Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

At least this fellow sees that. He doesn’t agree with it, but at least acknowledges that others do.

As to Cecil being worth $180,000 a year as a photo attraction, that’s dreaming.

Most of this article is 10 lbs of bullshit in a 5 lb bag….. Pathetic journalism.

quote:

Originally posted by jdollar:
Most of this article is 10 lbs of bullshit in a 5 lb bag….. Pathetic journalism.

^^^^^ This ^^^^^