There was a superb documentary on good old BBC this weekend about the future of lions. I mostly agreed with their ideas and views. The one thing that, although they didn’t endorse, they didn’t challenge was that hunting helps conservation.
They had this big game hunter explaining why hunting helps conservation. I couldn’t disagree more with what he said. The only chance that we as humans have to enjoy the natural brilliance and diversity that our planet offers us is if we learn to respect the natural world around us. You don’t learn to respect something if you can pay to kill it. Hunting produces “False Conservation” (like a False Economy) as a side-product, but it goes 100% against the true spirit of conservation. These people only care about the animals that they want to kill. In fact they don’t even care about that – they only care about killing the animals. This is why the deplorable practice of caged lion hunting is becoming more and more common.
The pro-hunting lobby always carry on and on about the manliness of hunting and battle and all of that crap, but essentially they are just killers who enjoy killing defenceless animals. Oh and the animals that they hunt are absolutely defenceless. There is no way that any animal is going to ever beat a gun. I can’t help feeling that anyone who wants to kill a majestic creature like a lion, must have some serious genital deficiencies! Also, being the “men” that they are, I would love to see what one of these guys would do after being shot with a 30-06 in the guts. I wonder if they will crap themselves or if they’ll try to dig out the bullets from their own guts like the animals do. I better watch out here, I might just be arrested soon!
Anyway, Kudos to Botswana for banning lion-hunting despite massive protests from some very influential people (George Bush Snr. included). I wish the SA government would follow suit. I’m going to try setting up a petition website to this end soon, so watch this space.
Attie Heunis's Journey 