Let's look at canned hunting

The moral turpitude of canned hunting

To get involved in an internet discussion about hunting in general and canned hunting in particular invites comments that range from the thoughtful to the downright nonsensical.

But let’s at least be considerate of opposing points of view, and here are some of the categories:

A) It is greatly hypocritical to eat meat bought in a supermarket from cows, pigs, and chickens, which are often kept under conditions much worse than species that are captive-bred for hunting. Slaughter in an abattoir is more cruel than a fast kill with a bullet, and if you oppose taking life of an animal bred on a ranch and owned by the rancher, you should become a vegetarian, or better yet, a vegan (hunters usually classify people with those dietary preferences as bunny huggers and therefore low on the scale of human evolution). Hunters and wildlife breeders say that if it is OK to captive-breed some species it should apply to all; they are merely expanding the repertoire of captive-bred species to include more than the usual farmyard animals.

B) It is also greatly hypocritical to focus the canned hunting debate on a few species (lions in this case). In the UK, at least deer, pheasants, and quail are captive bred and then released on hunting “estates” for the pleasure of the weekend hunters. Oh, and what about all those hatchery-raised trout that are stocked in streams for the entertainment of fishermen?  In the USA, the list is a bit longer – there are over 1,000 private reserves where the sum total offering is quite amazing: a partial list includes Addax, Sable Antelope, Blackbuck, Blesbok, Eland, Grants, Dama, and Thompsons gazelles, Gemsbok, Impala, Kudu, Nilgai, Scimitar and Beisa oryx, Springbok, Sitatunga, Waterbuck, Cape Buffalo, Water Buffalo, Barsingha, Axis, Fallow, and Red deer, Mouflon, Aoudad, Four-horned sheep, Wild Boar, Rhino, Zebra – take your pick among those exotic species. Of course, you can also hunt native American species like Bison and others if you so wish. Prices range from hundreds of dollars for some sheep species to many thousands for a rhino. And how much would a posh weekend on a UK country estate cost for you and a few friends to go and fire away at some tame pheasants?

C) Canned hunting relieves pressure on the wild members of the species, so is it not better to shoot a captive bred lion than a wild one? Estimates vary, but there are thought to be about 3,000-4,000 lions involved in breeding programs in South Africa alone. So that means 20% of the estimated wild lion population is behind fences in South Africa – why not let people have their sport with them and save the wild ones?

To be realistic

Arguments noted and rejected.
First, the ploy that only vegetarians and vegans are capable of speaking out against hunting is a clever deflection, but does not address the issue. Hunting for sport is not the same thing as rearing animals domesticated for millennia. Pol Pot (remember him?) murdered over 1.5 million Cambodians. By extension of that kind of reasoning, only the Dalai Lama could speak out against that genocide.

Second, the fact that a canned hunting industry has blossomed all over the world does not particularly justify the existence of the practice. It really is killing for fun. Pheasant hunters don’t really hunt pheasants. They are taken to a field, a body of people are recruited to drive the pheasants towards them, and then the hunters let loose. The same applies to all canned hunts. The hunters get taken to animals that are unable to escape as they are behind fences. This is against the ethics of hunting based on the concept of “fair chase”, meaning the intended target has the chance of avoiding the hunter. Ethical hunting occurs on foot, and requires stealth, endurance, preparation, tracking, and possibly a long stalk – only to result in the animal detecting the hunter and running away. Quite a bit different from beaters driving the pheasants to a stationary hunter and hunters driven to a field full of semi-domesticated animals raised on a ranch and used to humans. Or, you can sit in a comfortable hide and shoot animals that come to drink at a water hole or those are attracted by a feeding station. Lewis Black, a wonderful comedian, probably said it best – it’s like a fisherman walking up to a goldfish bowl, grabbing a fish, and then exulting in his catch. Gotcha! Yet the Safari Club International, a major hunting lobbying group, allows animals shot on canned hunts to be entered into their record books and indeed awards prizes for the biggest trophies.

Third, the concept of “relieving pressure on wild species” should really not be brought up, as in the case of lions, there should be no pressure. Ethical hunters should realize that this is a species in freefall decline and should not provide additive means to continue the decline. Ethical hunters should be opposed to all forms of canned hunting as this is basically equivalent to shooting ducks in a pond. If there are ethical hunters, they should not only distance themselves from canned hunting but actively and through their associations take aim at the practice. If there are ethical hunters, they should reject the continued trophy hunting of endangered and vulnerable species and end their cynical practices of employing tame scientists to “prove” that there are actually more lions than originally thought, so a few more years of killing is in order. In reverse, this is like BP saying 5,000 barrels spilled into the Gulf every day from the ruptured oil well rather than the more likely 20,000 barrels estimated by independent sources. In reality, it is an attempt to cover up actualities rather than deal with them directly. Canned hunting is a bargain basement approach to a lion trophy, and once you bring back a rug from Carpetright, you might next be tempted to shop at Harrods.

To be optimistic

Lions have become a major focus of exposing the moral turpitude of canned hunting and so have rhinos. Proponents of the practice have voices, but they lack reason. Canned hunting in no way contributes to the conservation of their wild relatives, and the sooner Safari Club International (as other hunting organizations already have) distances itself from the practice the better. This could actually be a subject that ethical hunters and conservationists could agree on – and it is up to the hunting organizations to take the first steps. If hunters see themselves as conservationists (and not by donating a pittance to rhino conservation by hunting yet another one) they should act accordingly and here is a chance to repair a small section of their tarnished image. In addition, hunters with lion trophies in their dens could be asked to pay restitution for a species they helped drive to the brink. That has an even lesser chance of happening than a Martian invasion of Earth, especially if those trophy owners are not vegetarian. 

Picture: advocacy.britannica.com/blog/advocacy/wp-content/uploads/canned-hunting-

Comments