QuoteI am specifically NOT talking about wildlife management, controlled professional culling. There are good reasons for this.
You cannot separate these things though. and anyway I was previously talking about food. But I will expand since you asked. Please bear with me...
Where I live some people hunt for food because thats how they get a large part of their meat. Some do it because they have to, but most do it because they prefer it (among those who hunt I mean). I just want to give you some context so you will understand better my position.
In the state I live people come from all over the world, pay/spend lots of money to hunt and fish the lands here. It is a HUGE source of revenue for my state. The money funds our state parks, and helps to finance preservation projects. The money sustains many many livelihoods in many different ways.
In my state and I think several others particularly, but in most of the country to some degree, hunting is a human right.
Where I live it is a means of teaching young people about land management, liberty, gun safty, and even various spirtual perspectives depending on the people and their own traditions.
And of course clean natural food!Hunting fishing and farming are, almost if not equal, to God Country and Family here for just about everyone north of the state capital.
Where I live even vegans and peta tread very lightly on this subject.
Now I realize you wanted to narrow your topic and not talk about some of the things that I mentioned. But where I live
they are inseparable. Just as I imagine they must be in places where you can hunt a lion or some other "exotic" animal.
I am sure that there are a number of places in the world where hunting trophy animals (anything that is hunted for reasons other than food) are the primary sources of income for large amounts of people. Big game hunting is not cheap! Nor should it be. And when properly managed as a natural resource I am for hunting for trophy for the sake of the people who depend on the resources of the lands and animals in question. We can hunt Bear here, we also have wolf and cougars (but we cant hunt the last two yet). It is very very hard to get a bear tag, and not cheap.
Now let me go just a little deeper please.
You have suggested a moral dilemma. lets assume that there can be such a thing as morality and right and wrong. If the lives of people (not just quality, but the very lives) depend on trophy hunting as means of survival (income and such), then how can you in your developed secure life in the UK pass judgment? How can you say that you won't associate with a charity group because they do not condemn something you have no right to judge your self? I mean, you don't have to, so how can you understand the need? I am not just talking about understanding a intellectual idea or question. Im talking about watching your family starve, what that must feel like. OR here, having to take handouts when you could just hunt for your dinner (as people here do, regardless of it they have to).
Now for me personally, I more than likely would never hunt an animal like in your scenario. I don't need to and I don't want to. But I see no difference between a 12 point buck (stag) and a lion. Except that the deer would be tasty and the lion would only make for a really nice rug. Otherwise, its pretty much the same thing.
I say this because you proposed the moral perspective in the first place. You see, if there is such a thing as morality and right and wrong, then it must be a question of degrees. (a word I much prefer to color schemes like "grey area"). Because however majestic an animal may be, or however rare, there is not one that I would not kill to save my son. So how can I hate another man (in say Africa for example) for helping someone else to kill a animal, so he can feed his family by participating. And how can he do that if people don't want the trophy? That hunt may be all he knows or has to trade/sell... and in many places being a hunting guide is not just good work, its the only work.
All animals must be managed just as any other resource. Because there is no such thing as a sacred animal, to me. And there is no way to separate out the idea of resource control from the hunting of any animal be it for food or sport. You want to remove from the conversation fundamental aspects of the subject so that you can have your moral perspective. But I think that is impossible.
Again, where I live hunting is regarded as a human right. The right to provide by ones own means, to hunt fish and farm any lands that you have access to. So from my own experience, and from my observations of the world around me here, its very hard to understand your problem. Unless you are trying to say that killing a giraffe is worse than killing a... duck, deer, fox? If its different, its only because you want it to be, not because it is *in my opinion*.
One day there may be no need for this kind of industry (sport hunting) But that time is not yet. And anyway, I don't see the problem if its managed well. I will never except that animals are equal to man, or that animals should be protected in the same way. So even though I would never do it (because I don't like it either) I would not try to stop it. I sure would not stop participating in a charity I believed in because someone else was participating who disagreed with me on a different topic.
But you are keeping some facts from the conversation so far. So whatever else there is, may create some circumstance where I would say something different. But in general what I wrote is how I see it.
Hope this can somehow help you figure out what you will do.
Good topic! And an interesting way of bringing it up for conversation.
Cheers.
