KILLING ELEPHANTS AIN’T SPORT

I read with anger that the Trump Administration is going to rescind the regulations on importation of elephant parts that were put in place during the Obama Administration.  Too bad.  The phony story that goes along with this decision is that the two countries that were impacted: Zimbabwe and Zambia will now be able to attract rich Americans who get their jollies from killing innocent wildlife —cutting off their heads and bringing them home to the USA to hang on the walls of their palatial mansions.  Hinting “trophies” like this are just a monument to the stupidity and ignorance of the so called “hunter”.  The funds they spend will supposedly be used for “wildlife preservation”.   This policy may have had some legitimacy thirty years ago. But today elephant herds are so reduced in numbers that each and every individual is a precious genetic component of our world natural heritage.  No one person has the right to reduce it,    Such acts are reprehensible in light of the fact that almost all wildlife is existentially threatened by loss of habitat, poaching, and loss of genetic diversity.  There can be no adequate “management” of wildlife which are suffering from collapsing populations, shrinking habitat and poaching.

There is no explanation for such stupidity.

If these nouveau-rich types want to do something worthwhile they might invest some money in efforts to prevent poachers from killing elephants indiscriminately and for the ivory trade which sadly still goes on.

The days of so called “game” hunting are long gone.  When I was a youngster in the 1950s there were millions of elephants in Africa. Hunting might have been a “sport” then,  Today there are only 350,000 left.  Perhaps only 5% or 10% of their natural total population.  Elephants have complex social interactions within their herds and killing trophy tuskers has a detrimental effect on the survival of the entire herd. There is no place in our modern world for “trophy hunters”.

The answer to the population crisis of the African elephant (and other wildlife) is a moratorium on all hunting, protection from poaching, and protection of habitat.

No to importing elephant parts into the USA from Africa!