The Wild Life
Observations
and Reflections on Africa's Wildlife
VII
- Elephant Bull
Hunting ranches and
preserves are dependent upon large healthy populations of many species of wildlife running free on equally healthy lands;
in other words, a fully functioning ecosystem that includes mankind – and the more wildlife, the better. The game ranching
community spends most of its resources on the improvement of habitat, game quality and biodiversity. Their lives depend upon
it. They prosper as the wildlife prospers. The hunt itself is only part of the benefit. A healthy environment, of which we
are a living part, is the real reward.
Conversely,
much of the environmental community has become dependent upon an enduring perception of a world in imminent danger of ecological
disaster; upon species being endangered. A good example is their wanting to sterilize elephant populations to keep their numbers
down, even as they raise millions to save them.
They
are energized by the existence of unhealthy environments, but have little use for healthy ones, other than to exercise absolute
authority over them. Their power and influence grows where wildlife declines, and they are loathe to give up control over
the land once they have gotten it – no matter how healthy it is.
Witness the insatiable lust for more land (albeit outside Africa) by The Nature Conservancy
and the way so many tribal peoples in Africa have been displaced to create national preserves. The World Wildlife Fund spent
millions over decades to protect the black rhino and elephant, but their decline only accelerated as the WWF’s own paid
rangers got involved in the poaching. In those countries where hunting was banned, the safari outfitters moved out, the poachers
moved in, elephant were slaughtered by the thousands, and rhino virtually wiped out.
Was it a valiant effort in a lost cause, or did the WWF unwittingly help finance
the extermination of these magnificent animals through their own misguided approach to conservation? How much waste, failure
and carnage is acceptable in the name of a good cause? In the world of non-profit environmentalism, good intentions simply
outweigh any sense of accountability. To this day, in an astonishing display of arrogance, the WWF looks back with pride at
its efforts, and continues to raise money to support its causes. It is more than a hoax; it is a crime against nature.
Eighty percent of the elephants
in Africa are in those countries than not only continued to allow safari hunting, but encouraged it as a necessary aspect
of game management. Now, in some of those countries there are too many elephant. The facts speak for themselves, but the environmental
community is driven less by facts than by their vision of what the relationship between mankind and the environment should
be – a vision that, in its purest form, excludes the killing of any animals, under any circumstance. It is a vision
that greatly appeals to the general public, particularly in urban areas where there is little understanding of wild life and
wild places, but a passionate desire to make the world a better place; to save the environment; to make a difference in the
world.
The difference,
when it comes to the African elephant, is between those countries that banned hunting, and could not control poaching –
and those countries that promoted hunting, defeated the poachers, and have now huge, thriving elephant populations as a result,
in many areas, an overabundance.
But
that is only half of the story. Too many elephant will destroy their habitat, affecting not only the elephant themselves,
but the antelope that share it, the predators that follow the antelope, and eventually every living thing. Proper game management,
including hunting, has proven to be the only approach that works. Yet the environmental community, with the backing of the
general public worldwide, once again misinformed and misguided, is fighting tooth and nail to ban all hunting. As a result,
large areas of Africa’s pristine wilderness are being devastated by growing herds of elephant. It is another tragedy
in the making, driven once again by the environmental movement’s illusory vision.
It’s not hunting that’s the problem, it’s the ideas that have
replaced it.
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Notes* - CITES - The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora
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Next Page: Lion
I
