But the balance of nature has shifted in Asia, thanks to wider availability of affordable ultrasound equipment, which detects gender as early as 15 weeks, and widespread abortion.
This is so unfortunate. Who knows if one of these girls who has been aborted could have been the one who discovered a cure for cancer or created some new revolutionary technology.
Three thousand kids! That's a 9/11 every day!
This is a shocking comparison. It did a great job of grabbing my attention and caused me to be more invested in the rest of the article.
Countries that have taken the step of banning trophy hunting have found mixed results. In 2014, Botswana president declared a ban on all commercial hunting, a move hailed by animal rights activists as an example to the rest of the continent. Although Botswana ecotourism industry is flourishing, bringing in an estimated £227 million ($354 million) last years, according to The Guardian, the loss of millions of dollars trophy hunting brought in has cost livelihoods. Poaching is also on the rise. Additionally, locals are complaining about their farmland being destroyed by elephants, who are no longer seen as a benefit to the community, according to Business Insider.
This bit skims the surface of how some economies and more specifically peoples livelihoods have been impacted negatively by a ban on trophy hunting. I think that I would do well to include some extra info and insight into this particular area.
According to a poll published in an opinion piece on behalf of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), "70.4 percent of Americans would pay to view lions on an African safari, while only 6.6 percent would pay to hunt them." Those numbers suggest wildlife tourism has a significantly larger potential audience than trophy hunting.
This shows a large difference between who would pay to view lions vs hunt them, but doesn't articulate the very large difference in cost between the two.
And it's not just SCI that suggests trophy hunting and conservation can go hand-in-hand. Some conservation groups, such as the World Wildlife Fund, somewhat reluctantly support the idea that trophy hunting within limited contexts "has demonstrated environmental and community benefits."
This shows that even though trophy hunting may not be well liked or appreciated. Even some major conservation groups concede that it does have benefits within certain contexts.
The hunting community likes to portray their sport in an altruistic light. Eighty-six percent of hunters surveyed in a study published in the journal Animal Conservation in 2006 "would prefer to hunt in an area if they knew that a proportion of the proceeds went to impoverished local communities."
This same study is cited in another article I am using. It tends to add some credibility to this particular study since I have found two different articles using it.
Big game hunters who operate within the law are often adamant that their sport can be an investment in conservation. Palmer, in fact, paid $45,000 at an auction in 2009 to hunt elk in Minnesota, the proceeds of which went to preserving the elk habitat, as the New York Times reported.
This bit shows just how much some people end up paying for the opportunity to go on a trophy hunt. It also goes on to explain what the money is then used for.
Sources: Leader-Williams N., Milledge S., Adcock K., Brooks M., Conway A., Knight M., Mainka S., Martin E.B. & Teferi T. (2005). Trophy Hunting of Black Rhino: Proposals to Ensure Its Future Sustainability, Journal of International Wildlife Law & Policy, 8 (1) 1-11. DOI: 10.1080/13880290590913705
This is a great extra source to glean some extra info from.
It is noteworthy that the Leader-Williams’ 2005 paper recommended that legal trophy hunting for black rhinos be focused mainly on older, non-breeding males, or on younger males who have already contributed sufficient genetic material to their breeding groups.
This is something that I believe if followed more strictly would help alleviate some of the issues brought up by critics of trophy hunting.
In a 2011 letter to Science magazine, Leader-Williams also pointed out that the implementation of controlled, legalized hunting was also beneficial for Zimbabwe’s elephants. “Implementing trophy hunting has doubled the area of the country under wildlife management relative to the 13% in state protected areas,” thanks to the inclusion of private lands, he says. “As a result, the area of suitable land available to elephants and other wildlife has increased, reversing the problem of habitat loss and helping to maintain a sustained population increase in Zimbabwe’s already large elephant population.
This is some good info to include in my paper. It shows that when hunting is done in a controlled way, it is actually a benefit and not a hindrance.
Lindsey’s team also discovered that hunters were more sensitive to conservation concerns than was perhaps expected. For example, they were less willing to hunt in areas where wild dogs or cheetahs are illegally shot, in countries that intentionally surpass their quotas, or with operators who practice “put-and-take hunting,” which is where trophy animals are released onto a fenced-in property just before a hunt. Together this suggests that hunters were willing to place economic pressure on countries and tour companies to operate in as ethical a manner as possible.
This emphasizes just how much most hunters care about being ethical. It also shows that they will go out of their way to be as ethical as possible.
In 2006, researcher Peter A. Lindsey of Kenya’s Mpala Research Centre and colleagues interviewed 150 people who either had already hunted in Africa, or who planned to do so within the following three years. Their findings were published in the journal Animal Conservation. A majority of hunters – eighty-six percent! – told the researchers they preferred hunting in an area where they knew that a portion of the proceeds went back into local communities. Nearly half of the hunters they interviewed also indicated that they’d be willing to pay an equivalent price for a poorer trophy if it was a problem animal that would have had to be killed anyway.
Although it is a small sample size this info at least gives some insight into how much hunters want to do their best to contribute back the the communities where they are hunting.
The issues here are complex and highly politicized. There are several questions that science can’t help address, primary of which is whether or not the money raised from the sale of hunting permits is used for conservation, something often promised by hunting tour operators. But empirical research can help to elucidate several other questions, such as whether hunting can ever help drive conservation efforts.
This is a great bit to try and include in my paper. It asks several good questions that lead you into further digging for more and better information.