The secret footage of the N.R.A chief's botched elephant hunt

I have written about this on another website so I won't repeat myself. In any case there is a video to watch and my thanks to The New Yorker. I have not watched the video. I can't watch this sort of video not because I'm squeamish, far from it, but because I don't think it is good psychologically to watch these sorts of videos. The images tend to stick in my mind and they return to me in idle moments which is upsetting.

LaPierre the NRA chief stands over the elephant he so inepty tried to shoot dead. Screenshot.

Wayne LaPierre is the name of the man that you see in the video trying to shoot this bush elephant which he fails to do despite trying several times. One of the other people there, a guide, actually dispatches the elephant because this inept, hopelessly inadequate man cannot even do that successfully.

On his watch, the NRA has descended into apparent chaos with claims against embezzlement by executives and the organisation has filed for voluntary bankruptcy as I understand it. This video was meant to promote the NRA but it was never aired because, I guess, it is a complete disaster and so embarrassing that they tried to bury it. However, The New Yorker got their hands on it and they allow people to embed the video into their websites.

Please remember, though, that embedded videos are held on other websites and therefore they are out of my control. If somebody deletes it on the server then it will stop working on this website.

The NRA vigourously lobbies the US government to maintain the proliferation of guns in America which results in the country having an abnormally high homicide rate by guns, almost the highest in the world which, as well, must be embarrassing to the government. And that habit of keeping guns and that attraction to guns spils over into trophy and sport hunting which is what you see in the video.

The NRA promote sport hunting. They do their best to keep it running and it is gradually dawning on people including Africans living in Africa who are in authority that it is not a means of conservation of wild species as they constantly proclaim to the world but it achieves the opposite, it gradually decimates these iconic species.

The decline in the elephant population in Africa is shocking and the same goes for lions and other iconic species. But the trophy hunters in America still come to Africa to shoot them for their entertainment and of course they do so with the cooperation of the governments of the nations of Africa including Botswana which is where this video was made (Botswana’s Okavango Delta).

They say that the heavy expenses of getting a licence to shoot one of these animals in Africa goes to supporting conservation but it is highly unlikely because most of that money goes in the pocket of corrupt officials. We all know that. There is no point in the NRA or corrupt officials in Africa trying to pull the wool over our eyes about this.

The sport hunters of the world normally come from America, Russia and the UK and perhaps Germany. Everyone of these people should be ashamed of themselves. LaPierre has been laughed at by animal advocates but with a sense of horror. The video elicits a sense of horror, shame and demoralisation in those people who want to genuinely save the iconic African wild animals.

Woman who hunts to eat says vegans and shooters have common ground

Rachel Carrie. Photo: her FB account.

Rachel Carrie says that hunters can eat meat without guilt because they have no problems of animal welfare. She is a woman who has currently hit the headlines and is a former vegetarian and a mum. She says that she has fed her family for a year on 125 pigeons, 80 pheasants and partridges and 40 ducks and 4 deer.

"Vegetarians and vegans, shooters and hunters need to be educated. We are not the enemy. We have common ground."

Rachel comes from Yorkshire, UK. As a girl she was a vegetarian because she was upset by factory farming. She remained a vegetarian for five years from the age of seven. She changed her views when her father acquired a hawk. He took her out rabbiting. She says that she was okay about eating something where she had seen where it had lived. She said that she hopes that makes sense. It doesn't to me.

She says that she feels no guilt or qualms abour shooting deer. She believes that it is not an act of cruelty.

"You place a clean shot straight through the heart and that animal never knew you were there."

She believes that the animals don't suffer when they are shot and that they are not scared. The animal is not transported miles and miles to an abattoir.

Further, she says that when you shoot an animal dead to eat it you don't waste the food as people do when they buy food at a supermarket.

She firmly believes that she does not have the animal welfare issues surrounding the usual livestock farming and killing in abattoirs.

She likes to pose for photographs of the animals that she has killed. Judging by the photographs she does not only kill animals in the UK.

Comment: her argument is based upon the fact that she always makes a clean kill straight to the heart. Can she guarantee to do that every time? I don't think so. It's a very poor argument. Looking at her face in the photographs I get the distinct impression that she enjoys killing animals. I wonder whether she is making an excuse for the enjoyment of killing animals. Is she justifying it? Is she finding a reason why she kills animals and masking the true reason: entertainment.

I have heard this argument before namely that when hunters kill animals to eat then what they do is justified. Another justification that they wheel out is that it is good for conservation. I simply don't get it. There has to be some cruelty involved because you cannot guarantee killing an animal instantly without any pain with a rifle.

I get the argument about animal welfare issues with respect to farming and abattoir. There are definitely big animal welfare issues in farming which drives people to be vegans or vegetarians. But the answer is not in hunting and pretending this is good for conservation or animal welfare.

This woman likes to kill, she likes to take photographs of herself and present them online on social media. She is all over social media. If she was genuinely concerned about feeding herself why should she publicise the whole thing so energetically? Why should she embrace social media? Why can't she just get on with it quietly? To me she enjoys the celebrity. The news media has picked up on this. She is a good-looking woman. You put her face with a dead animal and it turns some people on. It turns on the hunters and shooters who are normally macho type men in America.

It's all a lot of nonsense in my opinion. I am tired of hearing these false justifications for shooting animals. There is no need for it today and a lot more needs to be done to improve animal welfare in respect of livestock. One area would be halal meat. In the UK the authorities are far too soft with respect to how halal meat. They allow it out of political correctness. I disagree with this attitude.

Lack of Proper Oversight Of Cougar Hunting In America

Big cat rescue make a point that had occurred to me for long time which is that the state governmental agencies who regulate the hunting of the cougar are funded through the license fees that permit people to hunt. This must be an incorrect and ill-thought out process.

If the regulatory agencies are funded by license fees then they will naturally wish to hand out as many licenses as they possibly can which will lead to a tendency to issue too many licenses for the sake of increased income. If too many licences are issued then too many cougars are shot and in addition the regulatory agency is no longer doing its job in protecting wildlife and ensuring that there is a balance between people and cat.

Because too many cougars are shot, the agency then have to sell the idea to the public that there are plenty of cougars about. Do they concoct sightings and are the sightings of escaped pet cougars?

The fees earned through licences should go to the state treasury and the regulatory agencies should receive a fixed budget from the state government. There should be no motivation or bias created through income. Their role is not to be a business but to be a totally unbiased regulator whose underlying goal is to protect wildlife and maintain a balance between wildlife and people. Even that goal is impossible because the population of people is consistently growing and therefore the balance between people and wildlife is consistently changing in the direction of less wildlife and more people. So where is the balance between the two?

I can remember the shell oil spill. Do you remember that? It was a massive ecological disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The way I see it is that the regulatory authorities dishing out licenses to oil companies were getting backhanders to allow unsafe practices which in this instance led to this massive ecological disaster.

I have no evidence to support my allegation but that's the way it seems to me and it is very similar to what is going on with respect to the wildlife and fishery agencies. They simply are not doing their job.

I also reminded of the Florida panther. The population of the Florida panther is fixed and about 100 and they live in a fixed island (meaning enclosed and a fixed size) habitat. Commercial development continues to take place in Florida placing ever more pressure on the habitat of the Florida panther. There are more buildings, more roads and more people in the same space. What is the wildlife agency doing in Florida to protect their precious cougar? Is someone getting backhanders? And I'm cynical but that is the way it seems to me.