I guess that, like me, you thought that trophy hunting was only for the rich and well-connected and therefore it didn’t happen that often despite being highly objectionable in the modern age. You would be very mistaken. Trophy hunters kill every three minutes according to a British parliamentary report. And it is interesting but sad to note that British shooters are the deadliest. Some British shooters boast of shooting monkeys and cats in trees. The enquiry by the UK Parliament over six months found UK firms selling trophy holidays and getting rich. As usual, the shooters claim that their cruelty helps conservation but it’s all BS.
British trophy and sport hunters have won prizes for shooting more than a hundred different species. They include the highly endangered lion and polar bears. The all-party Parliamentary group (APPG) has written a report on banning trophy hunting. It was a six-month enquiry.
Businesses are still selling trophy-hunting holidays for tens of thousands of pounds. They include canned lion hunts which are disgusting to be frank. They take place in South Africa where they breed lions to be shot. They are placed in an enclosure where the shooters travel around in a vehicle with an adviser taking pot shots at a sad captive lion who dies in acute pain. The human goes home with a big smile on his face believing that he is a big white hunter in the tradition of the British Raj, 100 years ago. He is, in truth, an ignorant fool with a self-esteem problem.
The chairman of this Parliamentary group, Sir Roger Gale, said that their findings “kicked the bottom” out of the claims of these hunters that what they do is an act of conservation. The motivation, as we all know, is, in the words of Sir Roger Gale, “self-gratification of the most revolting kind”.
And this disgusting business is dripping with inequalities. Some of these hunting company owners make millions of pounds annually. They hire local people who are paid just a few hundred.
The private member’s bill has been introduced to ban the import of hunting trophies into Britain. It has been presented to Parliament. The bill has been tabled by Tory MP Henry Smith. The objective is to stop trophy hunters bringing their trophies into the UK such as severed heads and skins.
It is sad that it has to be a private members bill. Why can’t the government introduce such a bill? It really is very bad of this Conservative government to shilly-shally around with banning this objectionable practice. This government is reneging on their promises to deal with the protection of nature.
One shooter is Kenny Snr of the Scottish MacLeod clan who runs the housing firm MacLeod Construction. He taught his son to shoot animals for fun. He told the Daily Mail that hunting was a way of life in Africa. He said: “The companies employed a ton of local people, workers and all the meat of the animals was getting eaten and shared at night. It isn’t a cheap thing to do either, so all that money is going to go back into their economy.’”
Well, under that argument, the killing of iconic endangered species such as lions in Africa is carried out for commercial reasons to benefit the economy of the country where the lions are shot. Is that justifiable in the modern age? Isn’t it time to protect these animals rather than kill them for fun? Are there other ways that the economy can be boosted which are more humane and decent and moral? Kenny Snr is an idiot.
One shooter describes himself as the “sickest man in Britain”. He openly admits he’s mad and his name is Ryan Seaman. He openly boasts of his kills. He shares horrible pictures of their carcasses on Facebook. He smiles next to a blooded baboon while grabbing hold of its head to keep it upright for the photograph.
Seamen comes from Bristol, UK. In one Facebook post he kneels next to 57 dead foxes and rabbits. He claims to have shot them all in one night. He brags that they will provide “loads of moleskin shirts”. Someone should shoot him I reckon.
My thanks to the Daily Mail. This is a news/opinion article.
Some more articles on sport hunting if you can bear it.
