Rhino hunting

leadcounsel said:

I'll be the voice of dissent in this dialogue.

I am a carnivore and eat meat.

Prematurely ending the life of a creature for pleasure is an illogical and deplorable act and one that I personally would not only feel NOT proud of, but particularly ashamed.

Pretty tough to ride that high horse when you eat meat. You eat meat because you find it "pleasurable". You could survive without the consumption of flesh therefore through your eating of meat you kill animals (have them killed for you actually) all the time for the purpose of pleasure.

"Yay, look at me. I shot and killed one of the last of a species." That is illogical and cruel.

By definition you can only hunt if there is an excess. In this case these bulls were excess animals who were doing more harm than good. Therefore the health of the herd was improved by them being removed.

Why not, instead, Mr. Moneybags, just DONATE the money to this cause allegedly wanting to support? And buy the life of the creature and not kill it, but let it live out its days.

PETA, HSUS, Fund for Animals and multiple other animal rights groups bring in tens of millions of dollars a year from misguided souls. Yet they spend almost zero money on wild life conservation or the well being of wildlife. They are more interested in bilking millions from people through the use of anthropomorphic guilt and emotions than actually doing anything productive in regards to wildlife or any animals for that matter. Hunters always have been and always will be the heavy hitters when it comes to floating the bill for conservation.

I've heard the arguments that being shot is more humane than living out it's natural death. Baloney. By analogy, we recognize as humans that ending a human life, even prematurely by 1 second, is murder. I'm not saying these animals are humans. I am saying that the concept of ending LIFE (any life) prematurely should be taken quite seriously. And for anyone thinking being shot today is more human than living many more weeks or months or years is a good way to go... I'd suggest that being shot would be a horrible way to die. Extremely painful and frightening.

But getting hamstrung and getting your guts ripped out and being eaten alive by hyenas isn't? This is reality not a Disney cartoon

That's the difference between selfless conservation and selfish "conservation." Selfless conservation is donating the money to the cause without anything in return. Selfish "conservation" is a trophy kill and a prize photo...

Seems hunters only want to save them so they can hunt them - which is particularly ironic. ..

But what is really ironic is the refusal to acknowledge the incredible benefit that hunting as a management tool has brought to wildlife and wild country worldwide. Hunting as a management tool is about herd health, and proper land management, humans have been doing it in one form or another since they could first wield a sharpened stick. Without healthy herd populations producing an excess number of animals every year sustainable hunting does not exist. Properly managed hunting decreases the huge population swings that occur due to the cycle of overpopulation and rapid mass depopulation that occur in nature. Humans being part of the niche we occupy have been managing game since the dawn of time. Improperly managed game used to mean mass starvation of people.

You seem to think that if sport hunting were suddenly stopped in Africa that there would be a miraculous rebound of rhino and other critically endangered species. That is a misguided fantasy. Sport hunting and professional hunters are the ONLY thing that stand between saving these species from extinction. You don't understand the dynamics or the politics of the situation. The situation is that crooked on the take politicians in Africa get paid off by international crime syndicates to turn a blind eye and even provide support for commercial poachers to come in and kill every single rhino they possibly can for obscene profit. Professionally managed sport hunting is the ONLY other substantial income stream these animals provide to protect themselves from poaching. Properly managed under a professional program, herd number grow and become healthy the excess is taken off every year decreasing herd stress and improving health, selling off the excess numbers providing funds for the management of future generations.

If you stop the professional hunting these animals are wiped out almost immediately, as you have now removed their last and most powerful protectors and those who are directly benefited from nurturing and growing their populations into sustainable levels . This happens because we are not dealing with well intentioned committed conservationists in these African countries parliaments. We are dealing with money hungry, greedy, criminal politicians who will look into the camera with tears in their eyes and and sob about the poaching and the decimation going on in their countries. All the while reaching behind their backs to take in bribe money from criminal international poaching rings.

The reality of the situation is, when you support animal rights groups you are defacto supporting international poaching. This has been proven time and time again whenever legal professionally managed sport hunting has been stopped in African countries. The same can be said for Asia and India. According to your "logic" the Asian and Indian tiger should be at record high populations as legal hunting was stopped on that species nearly 5 decades ago. And of course the truth of the matter that they are in worse shape as a species now than they ever have been. Which can also be said for all other major Indian game species in the India and most of Asia. These game animals are however doing fantastically well on Texas game ranches where they are properly manged through professional sport hunting. Imagine that!!

In a nut shell to HELL with your feelings! Feelings and "logic" like yours are primarily responsible for the destruction of game animals the world over. The problem is you refuse to see it. People like you are loving animals like the rhino and the tiger to death. Your "logic" is highly flawed and jaded by your emotional response and complete misunderstanding of the realities of the poaching problem.

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Snejdarek said:

Now, gentlemen, this being the last male of its species, and considering that he seems to be interested in mating as little in Africa as he was in the Czech Republic, would you also support its shooting for conservation purposes? I understand that it is different with the OP's case where there are 2.000 black rhinos, but where is the line?

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Snejdarek said:

No, the question was about where is the line between the 2.000 and 1. (Actually it is 1 male + 9 females alive now, so if the ratio is about the same, than it might be 200 v 1 )

The issue on 1 was to kick it off.

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