Guys and Gals.
I'm stirring up some anti's on another site and have drafted a reply to what I know is going to come . I'll post it below. Please have a look and see what you think. If you can add to it let me know. If I have some facts wrong or you can add some stats let me know. I want to get it as "right" as possible.

Here it is-You tell me one species of animal that has been hunted to extinction by trophy hunters? The biggest threat to animal populations is habitat destruction, climate change and poaching, not “sporting huntersâ€

Lets look at a few examples-

America- All wildlife is controlled through the fish and game departments of the various states. These people set quotas for the harvest of things like deer and bear and ducks etc. The money raised by the selling of tags and licenses goes back into game management and habitat creation. The White tail deer population has boomed since the introduction of proper management, because the sexes are kept in a healthy ratio. Elk, Lynx and wolf have been re-released into areas they were hunted out from by farmers in the early 1900’s all with the proceeds from hunting. Numbers have to be controlled as there is a limited area for animals to live in. Gone are the days where they could run around every where without a care in the world.

Africa- If it wasn’t for trophy hunters there would be NO wild animals left in Africa. Safari hunting supplies jobs and meat (worth more than gold to the locals) and brings in foreign currency. When a hunter goes home with his trophies he also takes carvings and other touristy stuff. African farmers are now getting rid of cattle and breeding wildlife because there is more money in it. If you make wildlife pay for its self, you’ll never have extinctions.

India- Has banned trophy hunting for decades and still the tiger population falls. Poachers make a few hundred dollars from a tiger BUT you put a price of say $20,000 on one tiger and offer a job to the poacher so he can feed his family and I bet the poaching stops and the populations rise.

Australia- Duck hunters in VIC have, out of their own time and money, bought swamps that were full of carp and devoid of other life. They have built locks on the swamps (to keep the carp out), drained them, killed the carp, replanted vegetation, built nesting boxes for ducks and other bird life and re-flooded the swamps. And these are swamps that are set aside for the birds, NO shooting allowed. You don’t hear about that in the media do you? All you hear about is the dickhead anti hunters! And what do they do for the ducks? Paddle around keeping them in the air till they drop from exhaustion. Then they take them to their vet where they are put down, not one shotgun pellet in them!!!

Croc hunting, these crocs are going to be shot anyway by the stations. Why not let the stations and aboriginal landowners make some money from them and also create jobs? A station hand given the task of shooting a problem croc will grab a rifle and blast it. He won’t care if it dies or not. If he wounds it so be it. Now a bloke that has spent a couple of grand for the croc will MAKE SURE it dies quickly. Every body thinks trophy hunters are Rambo’s that will blast everything that moves and are terrible shots, what a load of crap. Trophy hunters are some of the best shots around with very accurate rifles, because even if you wound and animal you still have to pay for it so it’s in his best interest to make the shot count.

Roo’s, As I said there are more roo’s around now then when we first came here. If they aren’t culled they will breed out of control and the population will collapse. (like it did with White tails deer in the US).

How would you like to have a pack of dogs break down your fences, shit all over your lawn, eat your dogs food depriving it of a meal so it slowly starves. You would be jumping up and down whinging to council to do something. Now think of the farmer who watches roo’s do this to his fences, eat his crops and fodder, causing his stock to starve. He has to buy in feed, production cost go up so he decides to sell off some stock. Now there is a glut of meat on the market and prices fall. So does he sell his stock and loose money of watch them starve? All because of uncontrolled roo’s eating him out of house and home.

I’m a hunter and proud of it. I believe in the sustainable use of wildlife. I’m not a fence sitter who tries to justify my “sport†by saying “I’m a hunter, but I only hunt ferals†So what, does that make it better? Give me a break!!! I’m also a conservationist, I have a vested interest in my environment.

There are as I recall, only 2 instances of hunting causing extinctions.
#1 the dodo
#2 the carrier pigeon

with the anti's in Vic, you missed the by-kill, of swans, cygnets, coots etc that the greenies also pester and then catch and are put down by the vet. No self-respecting duck shooters in going to shoot anything non-game. Yet the greenies kill theses birds anyway. it could be argued that greenie antis are actually causing MORE damage to wildfowl than shooters.

Since joining F&G I have put in lots of time in surveys, restoration of wetlands etc. I have yet to see ONE grennie do anything about habitat, except whine in front of tv cameras.

Cheers, Dave

Good points mate. But from what I have read about the dodo was crap to eat and was wiped out by rats and pigs eating the eggs (they were ground nesters)

Instead of America- why don't you say the US and Canada and the states and providences. The wildlife is held in public trust for all of it citizens to use and enjoy.

I'm in total agreeement with the drift of your argument. I trust you're in this to change a few minds.
"All you hear about is the dickhead anti hunters! And what do they do for the ducks? Paddle around keeping them in the air till they drop from exhaustion. Then they take them to their vet where they are put down, not one shotgun pellet in them!!!"
The only thing the above will do is polarize the penilecephliacs, and negate any progress that you may have made in changing their misconceptions of hunters.
Try and phase your argument in a fashion that can't be taken as a personal attack by the people that you're trying to win over to your (and my own) side and you will probably succeede, at least with some of those who can think and reason.
Passenger pigeons: there numbers had bee seriously depleated by market hunting and live trap shooting. In the last days of their existance several million birds were migrating south and were roosted in southern Ohio when a severe freeze hit and killed them all. ( I could be wrong about the location of the roost).
Good luck.
Bob

I knew someone would remember the damn pigeons name! Passenger, not carrier!
And quite right it was the rats and dogs that finished off the dodo.
Bob K also raises good points about how to phrase your argument. The greenies hate us, as loud mouthed 'rednecks', who get out there and just blast away. calling them dickheads (even though they are) is just re-enforcing their stereotype of us.
We despise them as mindless idiots (which they mostly are) who can't see the woods for the trees (mostly true).
I have tried on numerous occasions to reason with them, never worked, they always have their preconceived ideas, and are certain of the rightness of their cause. Some however, may be influenced by your argument, these are the ones that a careful, reasoned approach might reach.
Hope you have more luck than me!

Cheers, Dave.

Bob K, 'Penilecephalics', Love it!!!!!!


Cheers, Dave.

I'll tone it down (good point) I did have a few bourbons when I typed it

if the greenies want to live in a perfectly "natural enviroment ", then that would put us all (incliuding them)back to when we were all hunters and gatherers.
Just like them some of us are not happy with all the modern lifestyles, therefore we escape todays reality and continue to practice our natural pastime "hunting".
They are not that diffrent from us and in fact you should tell them so, After all we contributre and care about forests and wildlife habbitat more than most. Explain to them how strange it is that they don't hunt themselves, and just maybe they are indeed a little weird as it is well known that man is a predator by nature( foward facing eyes) and that they are trying to stop us from acting naturally.

Bakes,how about we provide some support on said 'other site' by our own posts? I am sure there are those among us who are serene and articulate enough to provide a reasoned argument for what we do, without reinforcing their redneck preconceptions.

Thaks for the thought Garry. But the site (a reptile forum) is tightly controlled by the administrators. They actually ring you at home and have a chat to you before they let you on. As yet no one has replied,but I will check it soon.

Bakes,

Just be careful on how you state your case. Be sure to use "sport hunting" rather than just plain hunting when addressing extinction or near extinction for critters in NA.

As stated earlier, there have been several brought to extinction or close by COMMERCIAL or sustenance hunting. In some cases Mother Nature and habitat degradation also played a part when the population dropped below sustainable numbers. Ridding the predators also came into play.

Just a few:

Passenger pigeon
Bison
Gould's turkey (Ariz.)
desert bighorn sheep (Ariz.)
Merriam's elk (Ariz.)
wolf (lower 48)
grizzly bear (lower 48)

Even the whitetail deer, RM elk and pronghorn numbers dipped dramatically in the late 1800s before regulations and game management became reality. -TONY

I was under the impression that the elimination of the Bison was a tactic in order to deprive the Plains Indians their primary food souce, and end the indian wars?
As such (if true) it was a Political decision, rather than hunting, thet was the cause.

Cheers, Dave.

That was but a small part of it, Dave. But the government never really got involved in any meaningful killing itself except for feeding the troops, etc. Nonetheless it was "hunting," just NOT sport hunting. That's why I mentioned to Bakes to be quite clear on phrasing it in that context.

Here's an excerpt from an article I did on bison many years ago after thorough research. -TONY


According to the historians, the American bison might have existed in Arizona during prehistoric times. In contrast, estimates of their numbers living in the rest of the country during the 19th century often mention billions. In reality a truer estimate would be in the millions. When Lewis and Clark explored westward, they told of masses of buffalo, sometimes numbering more than 20,000 within sight of their wagons. The explorers also related how the huge herds darkened the Great Plains and seemingly made the land look like it was constantly moving. Other accounts tell of the concern the settlers had for their own safety as they occasionally used up several days moving their wagons through a single herd.

Before the white man began his move West, the buffalo's only enemy was the American Indian. For them, the big mammal meant survival. The meat from one could feed an entire village for days. The hides became clothing and shelter. Because the buffalo provided these basic necessities of life and were so numerous, the tribes depended on them. They followed a particular herd for months at a time and developed ways to harvest the beasts with the primitive weapons available to them.

Stampeding a herd to its death was a favorite technique. Indians on horseback drove the animals off a steep cliff or into dead-end canyons where they systematically dispatched them with spears or arrows. Some indian hunters covered themselves with a buffalo hide and stalked into the herd or waited patiently for one to come to their imitation call of a calf in distress. Yet, while the Indians used the buffalo to survive, the white man was responsible for its downfall.

Expeditions, made up of hunters from eastern America and Europe, came out west with the express idea of slaughter in mind. To them, the final tally of dead bison on the ground was a sign of their success.

When train travel across the Great Plains later became a reality, the slaughter continued. While crews laid the tracks for the iron horses, hired buffalo hunters kept them supplied with meat. Usually, they removed only the choice parts and left the rest to rot or as food for scavengers. Buffalo Bill Cody once claimed to have killed more than 4,000 bison in one month to feed the railroad workers.

Once completed, the railroads provided a new sport. Shooting the animals from a slow-moving train turned into the entertainment of choice for westward-bound passengers. Naturally, given the weapons of the day and inexperience of those shooting the large creatures, many buffalo died a lingering death after being wounded. Bison tongue also became a much demanded delicacy in eastern U.S. restaurants, and bones were ground into fertilizer.

In the mid 1800s, a new boom helped put the American bison closer to extinction. With the advent of a revolutionary tanning process, the trade in buffalo hides expanded. The leather was far more durable than cowhide, and the grand buffalo population made it fairly easy to obtain. Both the white man and Indian quickly entered the hide-trading market. While the Indians continued to use the entire buffalo, the white hunters usually removed the hide and left the rest. Most were shipped off to Europe for tanning.

Throughout the decades of slaughter, the U.S. government supported the indiscriminate killing because it knew the Indians had a great dependence on bison for their survival.

In 1884, congress finally passed legislation protecting the buffalo from further damage. Unfortunately, by then it was too late. The slaughter had taken its toll earlier. Already in 1883, few bison remained on the Great Plains. Some historians say the population in the U.S. had dropped below 800. Since then, the buffalo population has increased to about 30,000 in North America.

Thanks Tony. Good post.

Bakes,
Do let us know how it goes trying to reason with the tree fairies
Bob

Bakes ,
A couple of minor suggested edits .
Change the sentence about Africa having "no" game to something like "virtually no" game .Probably more technically correct .
Change "loose" to "lose" (spelling) .
Go easy on the slang eg. roos , crocs , blokes , grand (thousand) .Change "shit" to "defecate".
Little things I know but may make it read a little better . The other site may well harbour a few academics that would love to label you as an uneducated redneck by virtue of your grammar .
BTW , I'm not suggesting that they'd be correct .
Always best to keep the emotion out of this type of arguement IMHO .

Thanks BC, I'm not that good of a speller I've changed it a fair bit BUT can't post on that particular topic! Hmmmmm I've contacted the administrators. Have to see what they say.

A lot of the greenie websites don't like to hear the "enemies" point of view and quickly censor or ban people that try to.

The popular opinion for many years was that the passenger pigeon was wiped out by unregulated market hunters, but later research found that the main cause was actually the cutting of the old growth deciduous forests in the eastern US where the birds nested.
In the case of the bison, whether or not the military actually took part in the killing off of the bison, it is of little consequence, the government encouraged it to pacify the indiams and the military helped to protect them while they did it and in no case was regulated sport hunting involved.
Kenya is a great example, game animal populations have dropped ENORMOUSLY since hunting was banned, now they are starting to talk about bringing it back.
I find it very ironic that here in the US, bird watchers, hikers, horse riders, picnicers etc. will complain about hunters using the same public areas as them, when in fact it was the hunters licence dollars that BOUGHT that land in the first place and continue to pay the support of it, while those other groups use it at NO CHARGE.

Here's some ACCURATE info on the Passenger Pigeon as prepared by the
Department of Vertebrate Zoology, National Museum of Natural History. Below is the key part. -TONY

Because the passenger pigeon congregated in such huge numbers, it needed large forests for its existence. When the early settlers cleared the eastern forests for farmland, the birds were forced to shift their nesting and roosting sites to the forests that still remained. As their forest food supply decreased, the birds began utilizing the grain fields of the farmers. The large flocks of passenger pigeons often caused serious damage to the crops, and the farmers retaliated by shooting the birds and using them as a source of meat. However, this did not seem to seriously diminish the total number of birds.

The notable decrease of passenger pigeons started when professional hunters began netting and shooting the birds to sell in the city markets. Although the birds always had been used as food to some extent, even by the Indians, the real slaughter began in the 1800s.

There were no laws restricting the number of pigeons killed or the way they were taken. Because the birds were communal in habit, they were easily netted by using baited traps and decoys. The birds were shot at the nesting sites, young squabs were knocked out of nests with long sticks, and pots of burning sulphur were placed under the roosting trees so the fumes would daze the birds and they would fall to the ground. Hundreds of thousands of passenger pigeons were killed for private consumption and for sale on the market, where they often sold for as little as fifty cents a dozen.

By 1850 the destruction of the pigeons was in full force, and by 1860 it was noticed that the numbers of birds seemed to be decreasing, but still the slaughter continued.

One of the last large nestings of passenger pigeons occurred at Petoskey, Michigan, in 1878. Here 50,000 birds per day were killed and this rate continued for nearly five months. When the adult birds that survived this massacre attempted second nestings at new sites, they were soon located by the professional hunters and killed before they had a chance to raise any young.

quote:

the government encouraged it to pacify the indiams

Huh? How would killing off the buffalo pacify the Indians???

Here's some good reading material about the bison's history and near demise as recommended by the Smithsonian. -TONY

Dary, D.A. - The Buffalo Book, 1974
Haines, F. - The Buffalo, 1970
McHugh, T. - The Time of the Buffalo, 1972
Roe, F.G. - The North American Buffalo, 1970

DIdn't really pacify the indians.

they depended on the buff's for food and hides for teepee's. When there wasn't any, they starved to death.

Prime example of using the wrong word.

One of my uncles told me how they used to sit and shoot the pigeons by the hundreds. Had some friends that cleaned them for sale to the meat stores here in COlo. They'd buy .22 shorts by the case for a couple bucks and go to it.

Great posts Tony.

Buffalo tongue was a delicacy. The thing you left out was they'd kill the animals by the hundreds per day and take nothing but the tongue. Not even the hides at that time.

the hide hunters killed as many as their skinners could handle a day. Fifty to 300 depending how hard they'd work for the .25-50 cents per hide.

Still, this was a great post Tony.

George

quote:

Originally posted by Outdoor Writer:
Passenger pigeon
Bison
Gould's turkey (Ariz.)
desert bighorn sheep (Ariz.)
Merriam's elk (Ariz.)
wolf (lower 48)
grizzly bear (lower 48)

The original post asked for species that were wiped out by TROPHY hunters. I think the above listed species were were wiped out by commercial hunters who sold meat for profit. Bushmeat is sold in Africa today under roughly the same conditions. (I'd be interested to see what impact North American-style hunting regulations might make on non-game species in Africa.) I think a couple of species of waterfowl were shot out of existence on Chesapeake Bay in the late 19th century by punt gunners, but again, they were not trophy hunters.

Other species are made extinct or nearly so because of the threat they pose to humans. Nobody will mourn the passing of the tsetse fly, the syphillis bacterium, the AIDS virus or even the common cold. But then there's the case of the black rhino. After the British forced the Masai to stop raiding Wakamba villages, stealing Wakamba cattle and selling Wakamba people into slavery, the Wakamba population skyrocketed. The British had to open up new land for the Wakamba to farm, most of which was in rhino country. The rhino attacked workers who were clearing land for the railroads in those areas, and was hunted to near extinction as a result.

Again, trophy hunting was not involved.


Okie John

Thanks, George.

Okie John,

I'm well aware of what caused the demise of the list I posted. Perhaps you didn't read the following in the same message with the list? -TONY

Just be careful on how you state your case. Be sure to use "sport hunting" rather than just plain hunting when addressing extinction or near extinction for critters in NA.

As stated earlier, there have been several brought to extinction or close by COMMERCIAL or sustenance hunting. In some cases Mother Nature and habitat degradation also played a part when the population dropped below sustainable numbers. Ridding the predators also came into play.

Just a few:

Echo the above 'toneing down' bit, don't seem too irrational.
Also, to say that there would be NO wild animals in Africa without sport hunters really is not true. I would avoid making huge factual statements, just so it doesn't seem you have 'supernatural' facts to present without proof, rather state that there is a good deal of spin off effect from hunting, eg campfire, private game reserves etc etc, this seems more sophisticated and plausible, which it is.
Its a good fight you have there!
Don't underestimate the anti's though, some of them really know their stuff and coming in rushed, wound up and 'on fire' can turn on you!
Check and double check, then enter the fray!

Good stuff!

You should read about the Prarie dogs of north america..

Only 1% of their habitat still remains.. and its funny when farmes say their destroying the land, when you think of how the buffalo lived there, when both of their numbers where in the hundres of millions.. you should think that farmers could have cattle there, when the buffalo could live there.

With the increase of available water on game farms, parks etc, ie man made "water holes", bore's and pumps, water tanks etc, it may well be the case a lot of game is present where they never used to be at all, especially in the numbers they are. With the best land now often farms and shambas, perhaps there is a lot of game where they wouldn't be in the past.

This is certainly the case in Australia so I don't see why Africa would be different ie wildlife in large numbers in arid areas where the natural water sources would not sustain them.

Also a lot of game viewing tourist ventures are only a smaller propertion of the revenues they game farm realises. They run photo safaris on smaller non hunted areas which are surrounded by larger hunting concessions. Of course the photo tourists usually don't know this. Without the hunting revenues the tourist operation would not be adequate to fund the business.

There's a saying that goes something like this: "You cannot reason prejudice out of a man because it wasn't reasoned into him."

This was never truer than with anti-hunters.

You cannot convince them with facts that hunting is morally acceptable, sometimes beneficial, and seldom detrimental with proper controls.

Cleveland Amory, if still alive, would blow us away by saying, "So you're killing animals for their own good, are you?"

I gave up debating years ago.

BillQ

quote:

Originally posted by billrquimby:
Cleveland Amory, if still alive, would blow us away by saying, "So you're killing animals for their own good, are you?"

That is an easy one to answer.

The answer is YES of course.

As man has interfered in the natural order, unsustainable breeding requires management and culling of populations in order to minmise damage of overpopulations on food resources,, starvation, disease, etc

Examples are bison (historically) in a park in the USA which bred to unsustainable levels, resulting in starvation and weakened animals, creating an environment where disease flourished and large numbers of the population of bison died. Many more than if managed hunting / culling was permitted to maintain a reasonable population only.

Another example is the elephant populations in Zimbabwe right now where 100,000 plus elephants reside in areas that might sustain only say 60,000 elephant. Witness unsustainable damage to forests and bush, creating less food resources for future generations. Increasing raiding outside of parks and increased human/animal conflict.

quote:
Originally posted by billrquimby:
Cleveland Amory, if still alive, would blow us away by saying, "So you're killing animals for their own good, are you?"
That is an easy one to answer.
The answer is YES of course."

Of course the only answer is, "Yes!" However, it simply continues the debate and you cannot change their minds with facts. IMO the best way to handle anti-hunters is to not give them credibility, which you do by trying to debate them.

Bill

I'm in favor of the point being that trophy hunting never caused an extinction. Ah, an anti will define commercial feather, fur, and horn hunting as trophy hunting. How about sport hunting as someone suggested. Well, an anti might lump in market meat hunting and equate private citizen buffalo shoters on flatbed rail cars with...

I think you make really good points. You know going into this you're not going to change everyone's mind. You'll at least send one anti out looking for the exceptions to your premise, and they will be surprised how hard it is to find actual exceptions, given all the Bambi they've believed their whole life.

You've put more work into this than I ever have. My pet argument is that if you've got twice as many deer as can live off the available mast, they all eat for the first half of the winter, and then what do you think happens?

H. C.

Good post Bakes. As an aside, don't forget to mention the many small communities that rely on income from hunters to survive.

Has anyone ever changed an anti-hunter's mind about hunting in a debate using facts?

An anti-hunter doesn't care if game populations must be controlled, or that hunting is not detrimental to the species, or even if hunting is something we've done since the beginning of time.

I have never known one to budge from her/his position that a human must not kill an animal. Period.

BillQ

Bakes,
There is another point in th Passenger Pigeon's demise. They simply could not coexist with agriculture. The huge flocks would descend on a farmer's small plot and strip a season's work in minutes. The killed them because the two could not survive together. When the numbers got down to a level of ineffecient reproduction the mating habits got strongly into consideration They mated in huge swirling flocks and breeding was a very hit and miss proposition in the air. When the attempts didn't match the success needed for maintainance,then the population was on an irreversable course. To the delight of the farmers. The last one died in the Cleveland Zoo in 1909 as I remember.

Also bison in America got in the way of farming and ranching- they simply won't honor rudimentary fencing. As the saying goes "if they can get their nose over it they'll get over it." To have farming and ranching meant no bison and that lead to no Indians, except tame ones on reservations.

Turkeys have to be included in American wildlife successes

Tony, I didn't mean to repeat your info. I missed your excellent post on the subject.

Well I don't know about changing the mind of any antis but these post have been very informative. Well done all

Bakes, Just a small one. Your mention of the Victorian duck hunters & their efforts to repair & regenerate the habitat. Referring to the word lock is actually spelt loch. I think ?

All that aside you have put a great deal of time & research into the letter. More power to you.

Cheers Morton