TROPHY HUNTING
Trophy hunting is arguably the most divisive issue to date in conservation biology. Its surrounded by the opinions of passionate people but all this seems to do is cause arguments rather than educate the interested. So that’s what this post is for. It’s to provide an educated, informed and scientific assessment of the current state of trophy hunting in southern Africa. I’d love to know your opinion on this topic so comment below, as the only way for us to truly understand an argument is to learn both sides of it.
Before I get into it, I need to point out that I’m not talking about canned hunting or illegal trophy hunting. Neither of which offer any way for biodiversity conservation to advance sustainably. I’m also not talking about subsistence hunting. The impact of which is extremely minimal. Here I’m talking about the selective practice of singling out and shooting individuals in a population for a physical attribute. Like any good scientific debate I can break this up into environmental, socio-economic and ethical debates.
Ethical Arguments for and against trophy hunting
The ethical arguments are overarching. Those against trophy hunting say that there is no ethical justification for killing an animal unnecessarily. Argument won and over, right? Wrong. It gets way deeper. Those in favour of the sport go into the ‘greater good’ argument. No-one likes a long, wordy blog post so we won’t get much deeper into ethical arguments than that at the moment because I could write novels on the ethical debates around trophy hunting. So let’s dive into environmental arguments for and against this activity - and for this, environmental means ecological, zoological, genetic…basically anything that isn’t a person or money.
“IN AFRICAN TROPHY HUNTING COUNTRIES, MORE LAND HAS BEEN CONSERVED UNDER TROPHY HUNTING THAN UNDER NATIONAL PARKS”
Dickman et al. 2019
ecological arguments for and against trophy hunting
A key argument against trophy hunting is that by targeting specific individuals it influences everything from a population, to a community all the way up to an entire ecosystem on both short and long term scales. Trophy hunting targets individuals for visible (aka phenotypic) traits. Removing these individuals from a population could result in unknown evolutionary consequences which may lead to genetic skews, loss of the population’s ability to cope with pressures such as climate change and potential extinction - removing the very species that the hunters are targeting. But that loss is only notable if the individual didn’t breed before it was shot. Generally, the ones with the fantastic manes and long tusks are the most genetically fit (to a point, after which really long tusks can just weigh you down!) and are the most likely to breed in a population. So supporters of trophy hunting make the argument that they are only removing the oldest and least productive individuals from a population which actually allows the population to remain genetically diverse - offering an ecological grim reaper service if you like.
Now we can start to bring in the human touch. Very few trophy hunts take place in reserves where populations are entirely wild and un-augmented. Most hunts are of wildlife stocked in a reserve to be shot. Aside from the potential to bring in disease, parasites and invasive species, this stocking of wildlife is expensive. To ensure the highest return on investment there have been reports of wild carnivore persecution to prevent predation on imports - of course, this is mostly the case with introduced herbivores, less so with other carnivores. Frankly, wild carnivores have enough on their plates trying to deal with conflict coming at them from all sides and the last thing they need is a trophy hunting outfitter persecuting them too. This could have negative impacts on carnivore populations across southern Africa. But, in a strange parallel, we actually have trophy hunting to thank for some the spectacular species around today. The population of the southern white rhino for example increased 10-fold from 1,800 in 1968 to 18,000 in 2018 thanks to the desire for its trophy. Trophy hunting also has another positive ecological benefit which allows us to segue nicely into socio-economics.
socio-economic arguments for and against trophy hunting
As human wildlife conflict continues to rise, trophy hunting places a value on wildlife and wild places which local people in particular can justify. No one can claim to be more closely linked with or affected by wildlife than those who walk home at night scared that they may be predated upon by a lion or that their crops will get raided by elephants. When your livelihood is subsistence based then removing threats to this livelihood is only natural. Through removing one individual for a high cost, trophy hunting provides a way to prevent the loss of an entire population of individuals. Essentially, it gives wildlife, and in turn the land on which they live, an economic value which does not pale in comparison to that of farming or development. This value allows land to remain wild, habitats to remain in tact and species to thrive.
“IF REVENUE CANNOT BE GENERATED FROM TROPHY HUNTING, NATURAL HABITATS WILL BE TRANSFORMED TO OTHER FORMS OF LAND USE THAT PROVIDE HIGHER RETURN ON INVESTMENTS COMPARED WITH CONSERVATION, BUT HAVE NEGATIVE IMPACTS ON BIODIVERSITY”
- Di Minin, Leader-Williams & Bradshaw, 2016
Unfortunately, biodiversity conservation has costs which can rarely be balanced by tourism alone. There are very few places in the southern African region which attract enough tourists to cover their management and running costs. And in our world of photo-tourism, less attractive or less ‘instagrammable’ places are less popular with tourists. They receive fewer visitors and therefore struggle to cover the costs of reserve management. It is here that trophy hunting has its place. Trophy hunters are less concerned with beautiful landscapes and they demand less infrastructure than commercial tourists. Which means that more habitat is conserved and less is degraded. In fact, the limited ecological impact of one hunter compared to thousands of tourists cannot be ignored. One hunter, in one vehicle, obeying the rules of the reserve, is easy to control and manage. Thousands of tourists, all of whom have the potential to place significant stress on animals, discard their litter inappropriately and take their vehicles off road into extremely ecologically sensitive areas just for a photo is more of a challenge. But you could easily counter that by saying, yes some tourists do stress animals, but none of them intentionally kill an animal.
Still, the economic impact of one hunter compared to the thousands of tourists is worth a mention. In South Africa alone, trophy hunters spend US$250 million annually which equates to US$28,270 per hunter per trip - a total which is far greater than the average photographic tourist spend. The industry in South Africa has generated more than 17,000 job opportunities and this is a key point. One only has to look to Namibia to see that sustainably managed trophy hunting can play a key role in livelihood development and rural poverty alleviation. Trophy hunting not only provides jobs, it encourages and supports local community autocracy and at the end of the day provides large quantities of food for families. This is true, but we can counter it with southern Africa’s dirty little secret - corruption. There are many cases reported of the financial benefits of trophy hunting rarely making it down to the household level and therefore the socio-economic benefits and development potential being far overemphasised.
the dark side of trophy hunting
Corruption is a scourge across southern Africa which has created numerous kleptocracies. This means that even in well-meaning and well-designed situations, money can be (and is) captured by corrupt parties at every stage of the activity leaving local communities with measly amounts. This also links to another argument against trophy hunting and that is its potential links with criminal activities through illegal permitting and exporting. I get in to this by looking at the lion bone trade and rhino horn trade. But it’s safe to say that there are weaknesses in the political fabric of this region that means corruption is never too far from the surface and it takes extra effort to ensure that trophy hunting activities are carried out legitimately and legally.
Where does thatch and earth stand?
In our society that can only seem to understand value through economic terms we must ensure that biodiversity conservation has an economic value. We need to ensure that reserves and wildlife can contribute to the economy, so they don’t become settlements or agricultural land. Wilderness areas are key to conservation. They provide an incredible amount of ecological value and service, however that is not enough to stop these areas from being bought out. As soon as ecological value is recognised on the same platform as economic value then trophy hunting will have no place in conservation management. However, until this point, trophy hunting will remain part of our discourses, as it has for centuries. Photo-tourism is beneficial and the educational value of this form of tourism is one that cannot (and should not) be ignored. However, the positive balance of hunting also cannot be ignored. For the moment hunting has to be part of southern Africa’s conservation management plan. However, this hunting needs to be carried out in the most sustainable way possible through using continuous population viability analyses of targeted species, actively involving local communities and employing professional hunters to ensure that animals are killed on the first shot. Corruption is a global problem, however if trophy hunting can take place in legal, corruption-free realms then it has a key role to play in southern African biodiversity conservation. Until we are willing to value wildlife and wild spaces just for their presence then trophy hunting is here to stay, because out of all the options that we’ve got, ironically it seems to be the least destructive.
And I suppose that’s really what we’re doing here at Thatch and Earth. We are trying to ensure that wildlife and wild spaces are valued just for being there. If we can ensure that all nature-based tourism is practiced in a sustainable manner, focuses on biodiversity conservation, contributes to scientific knowledge and provides a value for wildlife and wild land then we may be able to remove trophy hunting from the picture.
WANT TO GET EVEN DEEPER INTO THIS TOPIC, HAVE A LOOK AT THESE ARTICLES BELOW WHICH COVER THE MAIN ASPECTS OF THE DEBATE:
DICKMAN, A. COONEY, R. JOHNSON, PJ. LOUIS MP & ROE, D. 2019. TROPHY HUNTING BANS IMPERIL BIODIVERSITY. SCIENCE. 365(6456). P874.
DI MININ, E. LEADER-WILLIAMS, N. & BRADSHAW, C.J.A. 2016. BANNING TROPHY HUNTING WILL EXACERBATE BIODIVERSITY LOSS. TRENDS IN ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION. 31(2). P 99-102.
NOWAK, K. LEE, P.C. MARINO, J. MKONO, M. MUMBY, H. DOBSON, A. HARVEY, R. LINDSAY, K. LUSSEAU, D. SILLERO-ZUBIRI, C. AND 71 SIGNATORIES. 2019. TROPHY HUNTING: BANS CREATE OPENING FOR CHANGE. SCIENCE. 366(6464). P432-435.
RIPPLE, W.J. NEWSOME, T.M. & KERLEY, G.I.H. 2016. DOES TROPHY HUNTING SUPPORT BIODIVERSITY? A RESPONSE TO DI MININ ET AL. TRENDS IN ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION. 31(7). P495-496.
SAAYMAN, M. VAN DER MERWE, P. & SAAYMAN, A. THE ECONOMIC IMPACT OF TROPHY HUNTING IN THE SOUTH AFRICAN WILDLIFE INDUSTRY. GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND CONSERVATION. 16. P 1-9.