THEY SHOOT ELEPHANTS DON'T THEY

Apologies to the late Sydney Pollack 

In recent days I've discussed the Glenn McGrath "I have a small penis and compensate by killing large animals" incident with a bunch of different people, both in person and on social media. For the most part people agree it is abhorrent to kill elephants and to hunt as a "sport". But a few times during those discussions I have heard the comment, "yeah it's not nice but the money from these hunts goes towards preserving the animals".

I firmly call bullshit on that, especially in this case. McGrath went hunting in Zimbabwe at a time when a loaf of bread cost over a billion Zimbabwean dollars, the money from safaris was not being spent on the conservation of elephants in Zimbabwe. If any money at all was being spent, it was on conserving them to be shot for profit. Possibly still is seeing as the Zimbabwean dollar is currently worth around 3.5 Australian cents.

So I'm not buying that, sorry folks. Peter FitzSimons has a nice quote to back this in his latest piece for the Sydney Morning Herald... 

In response, I quote my friend Peter Allison who has more than 20 years experience as a safari guide in the African bush and is now an author and passionate advocate for conservation. 

"Hunting," he says, "works for conservation like slavery works for economic growth. A guaranteed but morally awful way to achieve a goal. There's an act where a man takes advantage of a woman just because he wants to, and is strong enough that he can. That's not a sport either. We stop kids from pulling the wings off flies because it is cruel, and a worrying way for them to have 'fun'. How is this any different?"

Peter also discusses the argument that hunting is a sport and destroys that nicely too. I mean a sport? Seriously? That's a huge stretch, I played sport for decades and sure sometimes we beat teams convincingly and sometimes we were beaten convincingly. But never was the advantage/disadvantage as wide as wild animal with claws v man with high powered hunting rifle. You can shove the sport theory right up the conservation theories butt hole.

For full disclosure I am not a vegetarian and I enjoy eating meat. But this isn't about that, it's about humans who need to over compensate for whatever reason at the expense of wild animals.