Right: many hunters favour the bow and arrow over firearms, despite claims of unnecessarily cruel deaths among trophy animals.
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Arguments opposing the controlled trophy hunting of animals
1. Many species numbers are too low to allow even regulated trophy hunting
Iconic African species are declining at a startling and unsustainable rate. In its promotion of the Big Cats Initiative, designed to halt the drop in the large cat species, National Geographic has stated, 'Lions are dying off rapidly across Africa. These cats once ranged across the continent and into Syria, Israel, Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, and even northwest India; 2,000 years ago more than a million lions roamed the Earth. Since the 1940s, when lions numbered an estimated 450,000, lion populations have blinked out across the continent. Now they may total as few as 20,000 animals. Scientists connect the drastic decreases in many cases to burgeoning human populations.'
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has noted, 'Since 1979, African elephants have lost over 50% of their range and this, along with massive poaching for ivory and trophies over the decades, has seen the population drop significantly.
Back in the early part of the 20th century, there may have been as many as 3-5 million African elephants. But there are now around 470,000.'
This decline is continuing up to the present time. A National Geographic article published on July 8, 2015, stated, 'Mozambique's elephants, poached for their ivory for the illegal trade to Asia, are in a precipitous decline. Between 2009 and 2014, their numbers fell from an estimated 20,000 to 10,300, according to a survey by the Wildlife Conservation Society as part of the Great Elephant Census.'
Critics of trophy hunting argue it has had no effect in reducing the decline in numbers and is actually worsening the situation. On October 6, 2015, the conservation site, The Dodo, published a comment by Ameena Schelling in which she stated, '[T]here are around 20,000 to 35,000 wild lions left in Africa, depending on whom you ask, and big game hunters legally kill around 600 each year. That's an annual population loss of 2 to 3 percent, which is entirely unsustainable, even if you don't add in deaths due to poaching and livestock protection.'
Schelling has summed up the situation in this manner, '[T]rophy hunters...kill around 105,000 animals in Africa every year, including 600 elephants and 800 leopards, at a time when every individual is crucial to the survival of the species.'
2. Regulations supposed to control the number of animals taken are not adequately enforced
It has been claimed that because there is substantial money to be made from trophy hunting there are significant incentives for both tour guides and officials to inadequately enforce the regulations.
It has been noted that safari tour guides are under great pressure to give their high-paying foreign clients the experience they want. Julian Rademeyer, the author of 'Killing for Profit', a book about poaching in southern Africa, has claimed that professional hunting safari organisers face huge pressure to ensure that foreign hunters bag the big trophies they for which they have come to Africa.
Rademeyer has stated, 'They will do pretty much anything to get your trophy. There's immense pressure on hunting outfits to get those trophies. It's meant to be regulated use and sustainable hunting. In instances where you have widespread corruption and regulations are not adhered to, it just becomes a killing frenzy and that's what's happening in Zimbabwe.'
The shooting of Cecil has been condemned as an instance of this behaviour, with the suggestion being made that Cecil was deliberately lured out of a national park so that he could be shot on nearby farm land.
On August 21, 2015, in an article published in Blood Lions, Don Pinnock stated, 'In Zimbabwe and Namibia, problem animal permits can be obtained even before the animal to be killed is selected. A variation, in Namibia, is a "snipe" hunt where a hunter with a permit can shoot any elephant a community declares to be a problem, often because they want the meat. Several rare desert elephants have been shot this way. Strangely, "problem" animals always seem to have the biggest tusks or largest, darkest manes.'
It has also been claimed that legalised trophy hunting acts as a screen behind which illegal hunters and poachers can go about their business.
It has been stated that criminals presenting themselves as legal hunters have become involved in trophy hunting. They use the business to illegally trade horns. They sell these animal parts for high prices on black markets in countries such as Vietnam and Thailand.
South African officials say that since 2009 false hunters exported about 300 rhino horns illegally. Because of this, South Africa has stopped giving hunting permits to citizens from the Czech Republic and Vietnam where the illegal trade is rife.
Namibia has also been offered as an example of a country where trophy hunting has ultimately acted as a cloak for poachers. Namibia's endangered black rhino's initially seemed to benefit from the country's regulated trophy hunting; however, as prices for rhino horn continue to soar, the animals' fragile recovery is being undermined by a dramatic increase in poaching. In an article published in The Guardian on May 21, 2015, it was stated, '[I]n the first months of 2015, Namibia's rhino population has been hit by 60 poaching deaths.'
3. Trophy hunting destabilises animal communities and encourages further decline in numbers
One of the guiding principles that governs the setting of quotas for trophy hunters is that they should take older animals toward the end of their reproductive lives, on the assumption that these animals are of less value to the wildlife population. However, the idea that older individuals are no loss to their herds is countered by a study published in the Journal of Wildlife Management by researchers Jeanetta Sellier, Bruce Page, Abi Vanak and Rob Slotow. They found the selective removal of a few large trophy or older males from carnivore and antelope populations led to the destabilisation of social structures and a loss of essential social knowledge. The consequences were infanticide, reproductive females using sub-optimal habitats and changes in offspring sex ratios.
It has been claimed that social destabilisation is a particular problem for elephants which are extremely communal animals.
Sellier, Page, Vanak and Slotow have noted, 'Older bulls have a social network with high centrality and strong bonds. Consequently, the elimination of older bulls may negatively affect social cohesion in bull elephant groups, increasing the reproductive tenure of younger males. This can increase their length of musth, leading to elevated aggression, killing people and killing white rhino.'
Similar destabilisation occurs in lion prides. In an article published in National Geographic on August 4, 2013, Jeff Flocken stated, ' The adult male lion is the most sought-after trophy by wealthy foreign hunters. And when an adult male lion is killed, the destabilization of that lion's pride can lead to more lion deaths as outside males compete to take over the pride.
Once a new male is in the dominant position, he will often kill the cubs sired by the pride's previous leader, resulting in the loss of an entire lion generation within the pride.'
Flocken also notes, 'Trophy hunting is also counter-evolutionary, as it's based on selectively taking the large, robust, and healthy males from a population for a hunter's trophy room. These are the same crucial individuals that in a natural system would live long, full lives, protecting their mates and cubs and contributing their genes to future generations.'
The impact of killing such dominant male lions can be seen in what has happened since Cecil was killed. On August 9, 2015, it was reported that one of Cecil's cubs had been killed by a rival male who was trying to mate with his mother. On September 5 it was reported that another of Cecil's cubs had been killed by a young male seeking to take over his pride. Experts have warned that the pride - originally made up of three lionesses and eight cubs - has only a five per cent chance of survival after several solitary male lions were spotted prowling near their abandoned den in Hwange National Park.
4. Eco-tourism is more economically valuable than trophy hunting
Opponents of trophy hunting typically note that it is a short-term and inefficient way to generate income for African communities and that eco-tourism is more profitable as well as being sustainable into the future.
On October 6, 2015, the conservation site, The Dodo, published a comment by Ameena Schelling in which she stated, 'An individual animal, particularly if it's a member of the more iconic species, is worth far more to a country alive over the course of his lifetime than dead.'
Schelling went on to demonstrate the point, noting, 'Need proof? Look at Botswana. Beginning in January 2014, the country banned almost all hunting after comparing the conservation cost of big game hunting with the income generated from photo tourism: The photo tourism season is longer, makes better use of animals and employs significantly more locals. In the first year of the ban, the country brought in around $344 million from nonlethal tourism.'
Similarly, in an article published in Think Progress on August 3, 2015, Beenish Ahmed stated, 'Trophy hunting generally cuts short the earning potential of a living animal. For example, the ivory of a single poached elephant can earn about $21,000 on the black market. That's a small fraction of the $1.6 million that same elephant can rake up through ecotourism over the course of its life.'
Jeff Flocken, North America regional director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare said the revenues from hunting, which one study found to be just 1.8% of the overall tourism revenue in nine African countries, were immaterial to the conservation of species.
Flocken stated, 'Non-consumptive nature tourism-like wildlife viewing and photo safaris-is a much greater contributor than trophy hunting to both conservation and the economy in Africa. If trophy hunting and other threats continue depleting Africa's wildlife, then Africa's wildlife tourism will disappear. That is the real economic threat to the countries of Africa.'
5. The economic benefits of trophy hunting have been exaggerated and are not widely disseminated within impoverished communities
It has been argued that the impoverished communities living in the areas where trophy hunting takes place get very little financial benefit from the hunts. Most of the fees paid by hunters are skimmed off the top by tour organisers and others further up the organisational chain. Little, it is claimed, is actually paid to those most in need of income.
In an article published in Think Progress on August 3, 2015, Beenish Ahmed stated, 'The amount of overall revenue from hunting big game that goes towards community development is only around three percent. That number might even be lower since many of the countries where game hunting is most widely practiced are plagued by corruption that may well undermine the amount of earnings that reach local communities from collectively-held land.'
The argument is also made that the amount of income generated by these hunts has been exaggerated. While some researchers have claimed that trophy hunting is a $200 million a year enterprise in Africa, more recent assessments suggest that the number is far smaller. According to Economists At Large, a Melbourne-based organisation, the figure is based largely on unpublished tallies by hunters' associations which have been accused of supplying inflated figures.
Beenish Ahmed from Think Progress has also noted that trophy hunting generates relatively few jobs compared to the amount of land given over to hunting preserves. Ahmed has stated, 'The number of jobs generated by trophy hunting across the continent of Africa has been put at around 15,000.' Some researchers, however, point out that the jobs created by the industry are rather low considering how much land is used for the sport. For the 11 countries where big game hunting is most widely practised, hunting preserves take up about 15 percent of national territory, but account for less than one percent of their respective country's GDP.
In South Africa, there are more than 160 farms breeding big cats such as lions and tigers. Killing animals specifically bred to be hunted is called 'canned hunting'. The animals are released into enclosed areas and shot by hunters who pay anywhere from about $8,000 to $40,000 for the 'hunt'. The profits made from these hunts are even less likely to be shared beyond individual companies.