Showing posts with label trophy hunting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trophy hunting. Show all posts

Tuesday, 9 April 2024

Giles Coren jokingly suggests trophy hunters should become the prey

Yes, Giles, in his Times column today jokingly suggests that a good way to treat trophy hunters is to make them the prey animal and to hunt them to death and then turn them into a trophy (lop off the head and mount it 🤢). I'm pleased to read it because he obviously detests trophy hunters just as I do; as do many others.

Giles Coren. See base of article for the image credit.

So who is Giles Coren (if you don't know)? He is a British columnist, food writer, and television and radio presenter. He is multitalented and very very funny. I think he could be a stand-up comedian; he's that good. His column is always amusing even if he is writing about serious stuff. His latest column, today on April 9, 2024 is, "My modest proposal to cater for the trophy hunt".

He had just spent a fantastic holiday in Botswana in the Kalahari Desert where he and his family spent "a week stargazing, quad-biking and meeting lovely people".

He saw elephants. He writes that, "While we were there, watching baby elephant cycling and whole herds going tonto at the waterhole", Botswana's president Mokgweeki Masisi suggested that he should gift 20,000 elephants to Germany because Germany is one of those countries where the legislature is debating whether to ban the importation of trophy hunt items. The same as happened in the UK.

The fact is that Botswana is the African home of the elephant. There are 130,000 elephants in Botswana. In the world, the entire population is 415,000. Giles Coren makes the poignant point that in 1900 there were 10 million and in 1500 there were 25 million elephants. 

You can only come to the conclusion that humankind is gradually working its way with meticulous precision towards zero elephants in the wild across the entire planet. One day there will only be some elephants in zoos for the kids to look at. I will be dead by then thank God.

But the idea from the president is that elephants are an asset to be used, and in the words of Giles Coren they are "a disposable natural source for them, and they feel entitled to sell them to the highest bidders to do with as they please."

This leads him to the next observation which is trophy hunting and the "sort of sick, heartless, teeny-bollocked dentist from Iowa who would take pleasure from ending any animal's life with his gun..."

I think he is referring to Dr. Walter Palmer who actually comes from Minnesota but who cares. He's a heartless, sick pain in the bum. 

And Coren wants to "turn the cull over to the grotty incels who think slaughtering elephants looks like a giggle, charging them the standard £40,000/head to help the conservation effort, and then let sell licences to hunt THEM (I have capitalised that word for emphasis).

He says that he would be willing to pay £10,000 to "blow the arms and legs of a bloated, sunburnt trophy hunter with a .577 Nitro Express, a large-bore centerfire rifle cartridge designed for the purpose of hunting large game such as elephant.

Yes, I have exactly the same feelings by the way. But then again, as mentioned, millions of other people do as well. It's just great that Giles is criticising trophy hunters in his inimitable way.

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Photo credit: By The British Library - The Fast Food Flood with Bite Back 2030, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=125524290

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Wednesday, 13 April 2022

Arguments against animal rights - a discussion

Arguments against animal rights are likely to come from people who feel that their interests are negatively affected as a result of granting animals rights. These sorts of people are likely to be business men making a profit out of animals (or businesses ancillary to that kind of business), or people involved in the wholly unacceptable business of sport or trophy hunting, or indeed politicians connected with these businesses. In short opponents will be people who feel that their human "rights" will be eroded by an extension of animal rights.

A hunter who would be against animal rights
A hunter who would be against animal rights. She is Renee Sullivan with the 3 kittens she killed for the hell of it. Montage: MikeB

My thoughts on the montage above:

This is an Australian female hunter, aged 20, who likes to kill cats of any age which includes kittens with a compound bow and arrow. She believes that she is carrying out a service on behalf of the nation and her community. Her behaviour enrages cat lovers and animal rights advocates. She can't understand the criticism. There is a chasm between cat lovers and hunters who like to kill cats. That chasm is the comprehension that when you shoot an animal such as a kitten with a bow and arrow you are going to cause a lot of pain. It is an inhumane way to kill an animal no matter what justification you wish to put upon the action. Cat lovers find this deplorable and criticise them on social media very heavily. The hunter can't understand.
There is a natural competition between animals on the planet and that includes the human-animal competing with non-human animals (apologies to the people who think we are special and created by God - the creationists). 
"When humans give rights to animals, they give away some of their rights" - Michael (and if it is true, it is acceptable and a good thing).
Granting rights to humans gets in the way of unscrupulous business people who wish to abuse human rights to turn a better profit. Think about people trafficking, for example, or wages that are too low, or child labour. At a more fundamental level human rights abuses will be instigated by politicians against people who threaten their power. 

In other words, unscrupulous people will tend to abuse people or animals that get in the way of things that serve their interests.

Arguments against animal rights will therefore be founded on a shaky premise. But turning a profit is not in itself bad, it is what makes the world tick. It is just that people have got to be managed to prevent excesses. Often, it seems, we get lobbying from, for example, people of the sport hunting fraternity (these people are probably connected to the gun lobby people). 

These people want their voices to be heard in government and the former president, Bush, was one of those presidents who tended to listen. What his government did was more likely to be against both the environment and animal rights (the two go together and can stand in the way of business profits).

Animals don't have a voice. We give them a voice through animal rights. People like to use animals to their advantage. One day we will see this as unacceptable. Animal rights exist in the West but not in the Eastern countries of the world to the same extent (Japan excepted). 

This shows that this is a developing area, still. For cats it is a long time coming as they were domesticated some nine thousand years ago. They still do not have true animal rights and some people (the chief exec. of Peta, Ingrid Newkirk, being one) think that there should be no companion animals as the only way to ensure true animal rights.

There are no arguments against animal rights that truly stand up. We share the planet with our fellow animals. They enhance our lives in many ways and provide us with food. Even on a commercial basis we need to protect them in the long term. Businesses tend to think short term and ruin things in the process (think over-fishing, for example). 

The only question is about how many rights we allow, their nature and extent and whether we can find a balance. In a perfect world, animal rights should be granted at a most fundamental level. Where there is a break down in animal rights there will usually be a corresponding loss of human rights, the two are linked.

The counter argument: If you were one of those "masters of the universe" alpha male types, you might argue that humans are the top predator, that we rule the world and that animals are on the planet to do with as we please. You might argue that humans are the direct creation of God and we have the right to use animals for our benefit. That 'man' has dominion over animals as per the bible. Here is a direct quote from the bible. Christianity is to blame for a huge amount of animal abuse and it has worked against animal rights for centuries.

Genesis 1:26 - Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."

Such people would say that if we gave animals to many rights, it would run counter to these biblical arguments. We would be stopped from using animals, which is our God given right. That is the only argument against animals rights and it doesn't stack up on so many levels.

Religion: I believe that all animals are equal and that includes people (the human-animal). I do, though, understand the high numbers of religious people in the USA. I think the bible is bad doctrine in respect of animal rights. Did you know that the cat is never mentioned in the bible? And unspeakable cruelty has been perpetrated in the name of religion against animals.

Arguments Against Animal Rights to Cats and the Law

Wednesday, 18 August 2021

The people and organisations who killed lion 'Mopane' a favourite among tourists

Mopane was a 12-year-old male with an enormous black mane (lionesses like black manes). He was dominant over 2 lion prides. He was well known to local guides. He was a favourite among tourists. Allegedly he was shot with a bow and arrow by an American businessman trophy hunter. He was lured out of a reserve (Hwange, Zimbabwe) into a private hunting area (Antoinette farm) where he was shot on Aug 5th 2021. He survived for one day until he was finished off with another arrow or a bullet. It is very reminiscent of Cecil's killing by Walter Palmer the Minnesota dentist.

He was killed yards from where Cecil was killed using a similar technique as you may recall some time ago. There was uproar about that as well.

Of 64 Hwange lions tagged by Oxford University 24 have been killed by trophy hunters.

Mopane
Mopane. Picture in the public domain.

The people and organisations who worked together to kill Mopane for their pleasure or financial profit are listed below together with their photographs. PLEASE CROSS-POST THIS PAGE TO PUBLICISE WHO THESE WICKED PEOPLE ARE. 

This is from a Twitter post:

ZIMBABWE LION KILLER!! MOPANE! Trophy Hunter KILLER Exposed! 

  • The killer who paid $30,000-$40,000 to kill Mopane: PHILLIP SMITH of 4210 Phillips Farm Rd, Suit 103 Columbia Missouri 65292 USA. He works as a physical therapist.
  • The killer was guided by Dennis Nyakane of CHATTARONGA SAFARIS.
  • They also used DINGUZULU SAFARIS.
  • Mopane is being stuffed by Matabelel Taxidermy. His body is in salt.

Here they are:


Thursday, 29 April 2021

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
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.

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