You don't have any barn cats, do you ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowwalker
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You don't have any barn cats, do you ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowwalker
FYI,anti-hunters,anti-gunners and animal rights groups regularly troll these threads. I respect your opinion,but,comments like this can be re-printed and used against us. Think it all you like,but,please don't print it.Quote:
Originally Posted by GrizzlyAdams
Trimmer21 spot on!
No doubt Zimbabwe is a mixed up place and corrupt. I visited Victoria Falls last year and you don't have to go far from the tourist area to see that first hand. Zimbabwe used to be the bread basket of Africa, not anymore and not likely to change anytime soon. We shoot coyotes here to thin their numbers and protect our deer. Over there it's lions. Here our "plainsgame" deer, moose etc ... are protected by laws and we are fortunate enough to live in a society that is not completely impoverished and willing to shoot anything for meat or money. The funds generated through the sport hunting protect the parks and animals within. The government is not in a position to fund this and without the sport hunting the parks are finished. If Zimbabwe ever manages to achieve economic stability to the same level as North America (not likely) than we can apply our style of conservation/hunting to the wildlife management problems in the Zim parks.
It's not my cup of tea. I like beer anyways.Quote:
Originally Posted by GrizzlyAdams
To keep the lands, protect them, the animals, hire anti poachers and all of the things required to keep these animals alive it takes money. Donations to WWF aren't going to cut it. Hunters pay the bill to keep these animals alive for the opportunity to hunt them. If you follow what happens you will see that just like hunters here nothing is wasted. The paying hunter will take his "trophy" to remember the experience and the locals benefit from getting the meat. There is a lot of money injected into the economy by this.
Conservation is more than protecting and hunting "edible" animals. And to be fair, we don't know that the meat from lion hunting isn't going to local villages (and yes, starving poor people in Africa will eat anything, google bushmeat). Hunting dollars have to go to protecting the legal game animals and their habitat. If the money doesn't go back into the animals, the animals won't be protected and they will be poached and wiped out (elephants are a great example of this, hunting dollars helps protect the herds in some African nations and those herds are strong and sustainable, other nations who don't have elephant hunting routinely see the animals poached because they aren't protected).Quote:
Originally Posted by GrizzlyAdams
Before this entire "Cecil the Lion" thing happened, lions were a legal game animal in Zimbabwe (probably still are) to hunt (no different than coyotes here in Ontario except our coyotes only take dogs and cats when they are hungry instead of attacking humans). I highly doubt the hunters who go out and hunt lions have any different feeling when it comes to hunting lions than North American predator hunters have. Just because you don't forsee yourself hunting a legal game animal doesn't mean you should condemn others who do.
Legal hunting of animals can't make us look bad to anyone except the die-hard, rabid anti-hunting movement because we follow the laws and regulations laid out for us and practice responsible and safe weapon handling techniques. What makes hunters look bad is validating the preconceived image of an "Elmer Fudd" type hunter who is so vastly incompetent that he should have never gotten a license in the first place. Condemning lion hunters because they hunt a legal species or because they pay big bucks to hunt that species is vastly unfair because they are following the rules and regs while hunting a legal species. Most guys want to do a get away trip (moose in Alaska, caribou in Quebec/Labrador/Newfoundland, pheasants in South Dakota, waterfowling on the Praries, etc), those are all trips those guys have to pay for. Are all of those hunters paying for those "adventures" ridiculous? Those trips fall under your criteria of commercialized hunting (after all "if they have an overpopulation than hire locals to get rid of them").
Yes, it does cost a lot for hunting those species but if a person choses to spend their money on what they want, who are you to criticize them? Would you like that done to you in return? Can we all look at your bank account and criticize you for your financial expenditures like you are doing to them?
As for your comment about poor excuse needing the money for income, have you been to some of the places and have witnessed how poor these people are? Do you have a sustainable economic plan they can use for employment rather than relying on a proven one (the hunting industry)? Is Mugabe corrupt? Sure, I will buy that but right now there isn't an alternative for the people.
Finally, the opportunity to hunt species for money model works all over the world (any government who charges a fee in order for people to have the privilege to hunt is using it, some species cost more than others) and you participate in it when you go an buy your tags/licenses here in Ontario.
Dyth
are they including the cubs in the cull?
Most likely mostly males, with a few older females. All lioness will suckle any cub in the pride so the loss of a nursing female would not be the death of her cubs.Quote:
Originally Posted by glen
You have some valid points I did not consider and you do seem to know a bit about this situation but seem to have missed my general point and instead went on a smear campaign and twisted my words. It makes sense for starving people to have access to food and boost their economy. No I dont have an economical back up plan for Zimbabwe but I believe their approach could be improved upon. I could never see myself going to shoot an animal that would not be used but if the locals eat the meat I agree that aspect is beneficial. I wasnt thinking about feeding starving people so I agree that is a benefit of the program. you may be 100% right but I wouldnt doubt that further investigation would more than likely show this system is being abused and somebody is probably making a small fortune for themselves. 1500$x200 lions=300000. Thats a fair chunk of change to "misappropriate" even by Canadian political "standards". If 1st world Nations politics are corrupt you can bet 3rd world are just the same but it is nice to reserve hope that they are honest in their means. And next time you reply to my posts please feel free to leave out the personal attacks...my opinions were not directed at any 1 person, and I did however learn something from what you posted.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dythbringer
Five THOUSAND square kilometres is a lot of bush to try and find your lion. We used to hunt 5000 acres, could never cover it all in a weeks deer hunt.
It doesn't take a lot of math when you project birth rates versus hunts that are booked years in advance to see the problem at the door.
GrizzlyAdams,Quote:
Originally Posted by GrizzlyAdams
At no point in my posts were my comments meant to be directed or taken as a personal attack or a smear campaign. My questions were simply direct questions and because tone can't be conveyed across the internet (at least not yet) often comments are taken the wrong way. I wasn't twisting words or smearing you. I was responding to and quoting you from your post and asking follow-up questions because, to be honest, you had different points in your post (denouncing lion hunting/hunters, the economic abuse in Zimbabwe, denouncing "commercial" hunting) which were very scattered when in your first post. My questions were not coming from a place of attack. For example, I wanted to find out if you considered guys who pay for hunting trips in NA (fly in moose hunt for example) different than guys who pay for hunting trips in Africa regardless of the species (what you termed as commercialized hunting). Because most people will say they are different and try to defend the double standard they have in their minds.
Could rural people in Zimbabwe's situation be changed for the better? Absolutely but how? Most of the people who we are talking about earn yearly what you and I do in a day, they receive little to no education past primary school so they work at jobs which require little education (farm hands, labourers). The country relies heavily on it's natural resources and the cost of items we get for a reasonable price are astronomical. Most of what the country gets goes to the people at the top and short of invading the country to fix it, what alternatives do we have? In 2013, the GDP of Zimbabwe was $13.49 US billion with a GDP per capital of $953 US (which most people in Zimbabwe actually see much less of that). Honestly, the abuse in the system is much greater than simply $30 000. We get mad at those figures because our politicians are supposed to honest and above board. However, in countries like Zimbabwe, those at the top take the lion's share (I couldn't resist the pun). Getting our britches in a knot over $30 000 when there is a lot more abuse is like worrying about a single rat in a vermin infestation. And saying that $30 000 is the only amount of money involved is untrue as well when the safari ranches provide employment to locals as the lodging is added onto hunting safari's as well. My question about "if you have a sustainable economic plan rather than the current one" was valid because you are advocating shutting down one of these people's financial lifeline without having mentioned an alternative is doing them a great disservice as you would leave them poorer than they already are.
Will I ever lion hunt? I highly doubt it. It just isn't my thing. I really don't like to fly. But I don't think we should condemn lion hunters when we don't condemn coyote/wolf/bobcat/mountain lion hunters here in North America. That is a double standard and hypocritical of us. People who have desire to hunt lions work hard for their money (just like you and I do) and they should be able to spend it as they choose to without sniping from the rest of us as long as it is legally done. If they want to hunt a lion and it is legal, I wish them the best of luck. The same as I would wish someone the best of luck on a polar bear hunt or a deer hunt or a waterfowl hunt, etc. If they choose to spend even more of their money on mounting the lion's head on the wall, how is that different than mounting a person's first buck on the wall? The notion that one type of hunting is less noble than another so it must be wrong or stopped is very dangerous to us because it weakens us as a group as it invites groups who have an agenda to ban a form of hunting to use hunter's words for their own agenda. For example, there was a safari show which was protested in Concord (which had to be moved twice because the venues kicked them out because of pressure): http://www.insidehalton.com/news-sto...-hunting-show/. Now the group involved didn't even have to use a hunter's words to get what they wanted but could you imagine how impactful their statements would be if they said "we want to shut down Africa safaris and we have North American hunters who agree"?
I have an Australian friend who has two jobs. His first job is in the dairy business. His second job is a professional kangaroo culler. He gets paid to shoot kangaroos because they are a massive problem. And make no mistake, he doesn't hunt them. He spotlights them (legal as they only come out at night) and other allowable practices which NA hunters aren't allowed to do. The Australian government even sells the meat at domestically and internationally to offset the cost of the cull. That I think is way more commercial than a lion hunt. However, this is the solution to the kangaroo over-population problem in Australia that the Australia government (people) have come up with and we can't condone it because we don't live there and to be frank, I don't think there is a better solution.
Again, allow me to re-iterate that what I am saying isn't a personal attack towards you but a vastly difference of opinion and I would like clarification on your comments. I am not shouting you down by disagreeing with you and I want discussion about topics like this because disseminating information is valuable and it will help us when we come up against people who rely on personal opinion rather than hard facts.
Dyth