Not that I would ever hunt big game in Africa, but there is another side to this. If big game hunting is conducted in a sustainable manner, allowing wealthy foreigners to kill a relatively small number of animals each year can actually
increase conservation efforts as it provides a financial incentive for African countries to maintain the natural habitat of the animals in question.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...ng-africa.html
Quote:
Trophy hunting can play an essential role in the conservation of African wildlife, according to a growing number of biologists.
Now some experts are calling for a program to regulate Africa's sport-hunting industry to ensure its conservation benefits.
[...]
Trophy hunting has a bad reputation in the developed world, due in part to indiscriminate hunting by early European settlers, Lindsey observed.
Reckless hunting resulted in the extinction of species such as the quagga (a cousin of the zebra) and led to the massive decline of others, including the elephant and black rhinoceros.
But hunting has also been credited with facilitating the recovery of species, Lindsey's team argues in its paper.
The southern white rhinoceros grew from just 50 animals a century ago to over 11,000 wild individuals today, because hunts gave game ranchers a financial incentive to reintroduce the animal, the authors write.
Trophy hunting has also driven the reintroduction of cape mountain zebra and black wildebeest in South Africa, Lindsey said.
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Beaten by Maccalus above.