when an idiot "Save the animals, screw the people!" movement goes on.
Since Botswana banned trophy hunting two years ago, remote communities like Sankuyo have been at the mercy of growing numbers of wild animals that are hurting livelihoods and driving terrified villagers into their homes at dusk.
The hunting ban has also meant a precipitous drop in income. Over the years, villagers had used money from trophy hunters, mostly Americans, to install toilets and water pipes, build houses for the poorest, and give scholarships to the young and pensions to the old.
And a very important thing Capstick used to point out in his books:
“Before, when there was hunting, we wanted to protect those animals
because we knew we earned something out of them,” said Jimmy Baitsholedi
Ntema, a villager in his 60s. “Now we don’t benefit at all from the
animals. The elephants and buffaloes leave after destroying our plowing
fields during the day. Then, at night, the lions come into our kraals.”
You can deal with some livestock losses and such when you know hunters bring in money that more than covers it; when you're losing the livestock and making nothing, and worrying about your crops being destroyed, and you maybe getting eaten, not so much.
Controlled sport hunting has proven to be the best thing that can happen to preserving wildlife; but the "Oh, no, don't hurt the poor animals, just let them live and roam!" idiots cannot or will not understand the matter.
2 comments:
Indeed.
I like animals, and prefer the idea of a world where big dangerous things like those exist, but that requires that they are managed and useful to the humans living with them, and to humans in general. The bloody stupid conservationists in the west can't get rid of the humans there, no matter how much they would want it (unless we assume some ecoterrorists learning to weaponize something like ebola and using it there instead of here...) and unless they learn to take that into account they will end destroying what they claim they want to protect. Will probably blame that on their own people too. We didn't send enough money there or something.
Goddamn idiots.
Way Capstick put it on leopard was something like
If a farmer or rancher can lease hunting rights on his property to a safari company, the money he's paid makes it worthwhile to put up with some livestock losses. And the company, and the employees, make money, the government makes money on fees and licenses, etc.
Make it illegal to hunt them, or illegal for someone to bring a lawfully-obtained trophy back, and
No licenses and fees,
Safari company & employees lose out,
Farmers and ranchers, since they don't get anything to compensate for their losses, start trapping or poisoning the leopard so they don't have their herds damaged too badly.
Because nobody is going to pay those costs to go hunting for a trophy they can't bring home.
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