Shooting animals for ‘sport’
- Shot by a hunter (c) Campaign Against Canned Hunting Inc South Africa
Hunters are prepared to pay large sums to kill wild animals. Should Kenya allow trophy hunting to begin again? The debate is on, as Winnie Kiiru reports.
The trophy hunting debate continues in Kenya and other part of Africa. Those of us who cannot understand how people take pleasure in killing animals are puzzled by this debate. Even more disturbing are the flawed arguments used to promote hunting as beneficial to conservation. It’s said to generate more income per client than tourism while having a limited environmental impact.
Hunting operations do not rely on the elaborate infrastructure required for tourism and can generate incomes in remote and degraded areas not viable for photographic tourism. The truth is, however, that the ethical, social and biological problems associated with trophy hunting far outweigh any positive contribution the industry can possibly make.
Hunters can engage in canned hunting¹, shoot animals from vehicles, shoot young and uncommon animals, lure animals from protected area using spot lights and hounds … the unethical list is endless. Hunting revenues seldom reach rural communities due to flawed benefit sharing structures. Corruption by hunters and government officials leads to leakages in the revenue stream and communities are left holding the short end of the stick. The impact of hunting on wildlife populations is largely negative as the establishment of quotas is based on guess work. For some vulnerable animals such as lions, removal of young males has a huge net negative effect even where quotas appear conservative. The emphasis on ‘trophies’ leads to problems including genetic manipulation of animals, fencing of ranches, and intolerance to predators on private ranches.
In Kenya, hunting was banned in 1977. Photographic tourism is highly successful and generates 12% of Kenya’s GDP². Numerous opportunities still exist to develop Kenya’s tourism industry.
Re-introduction of hunting can only serve to divert the government from this important goal and undermine Kenya’s role as top tourism destination and a global leader in wildlife conservation.
¹Hunting in an enclosed area from which the target animal cannot escape.
²Gross Domestic Product
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