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Further implications
There is no easy answer to the question of how best to alter the complex of factors that are leading to the potential extinction of many iconic African species.
Trophy hunting is periodically condemned as a principal agent of this destruction; however, even in African nations where such hunting has been banned wildlife numbers have continued to drop to disturbingly low levels.
The two additional causes of the decline in wildlife numbers are poaching (illegal, unregulated hunting) and the dramatic increase in the human population of Africa (with the resultant competition for habitat and resources this creates between humans and wild animals.)
Namibia has been held up as an example of how carefully regulated trophy hunting can both conserve wildlife and contribute to the wellbeing of African communities. In Namibia communities are placed in control of the management of the wildlife in their territories (or consultancies) and are able to set quota and sell licences to kill the animals occurring there.
Supporters of this practice note the increase in the numbers of species such as the black rhinoceros, apparently, in part as a result of such locally managed trophy hunting.
The claim has been made that practices such as these give local communities an incentive to conserve their wildlife as an ongoing source of income and meat. Without this incentive, such animals are simply viewed as unwanted competition for land and a threat to livestock and sometimes, as in the case of lions, to human populations.
Critics, however, note that even under the Namibian model, once the international price attached to the by-products of animals such as the black rhinoceros reach a certain level the profits to be made from killing them illegally and selling rhino horn, for example, (outside the regulation of local quotas) become too great to be easily resisted and wildlife numbers begin to fall again.
It has also been claimed that the range of animals that exist in Namibia and the opportunity to harvest them in a profitable but potentially sustainable manner do not exist in all African countries where trophy hunting occurs. In these countries the profits are shared far less equitably among local populations and the killing occurs with local communities having far less incentive to ensure that individual species are not over-exploited.
Even where quotas are being conscientiously observed it has been noted that trophy hunting is not the conservation neutral practice some of its supporters claim it to be. Where the oldest dominant males are taken out of the population pool, this leads to instability within the surviving animal communities with other younger males becoming more aggressive and potentially more harmful to each other, to immature animals in their pride or herd and to human beings. Thus, removing specifically targeted animals, according to an approved quota system, can have a seriously damaging effect on the survival prospects of those animals which remain.
The only conclusion to be drawn is that with or without trophy hunting the continued survival of many iconic African species seems highly problematic.