The wild life

One of the few things I really liked to watch on TV were "wildlife" documentaries. In very beautiful pictures they show us the last "paradise" places on earth, of course all in super digital HD pro now. Sometimes they mention that an area should be more protected, that this or that animal is "endangered", mostly by "criminal poachers" (="natives") in Africa, who slaughter rhinos and elephants, sell their tusks to asians who then make miracle medicine and ugly decoration objects of it to impose these things to idiots. Ok, this story is around 200 years old, maybe even older, but in the end nature movies give us a good feeling about international protection agreements and many organizations who care.

What I'm missing from time to time among all those awesome pictures is a bit of clarification about what protection means these days and how it works in our civilized western society, I mean, apart from giving money to wildlife organizations and blaming poachers and asians. A quick internet search gave me strange results. Even on the very surface I found reports that elephants, rhinos, lions, ... , have been killed like never in ages before, while the "White Rhino" has even been declared extinct in 2013. How's that? The media tells me about poaching for the new and wealthy asian middle class. I would have left the story here, but then I got curious about several links to "Safari-Clubs" and lodges showing me lots of romantic african sunsets and ... price lists. Trophy hunting price lists for elephants, price lists for rhinos, hippos, giraffes, ... for almost every creature that has four legs - in Africa.



Thru the following days I learned many new things about the wildlife industry. It's apparently not that there's just a few single, rich and powerful white arseholes from Europe and the U.S., who just have fun to kill a big wild animal. It's even worse. There is a well organized plenty of them and they have whole checklists of animals, which they kill all around the world to reach certain awards of their respective safari clubs. On their club websites - and even on youtube - there is loads of trophy photos and videos of the proud hunters, so the whole slaughter seems not to be shamefully hidden. - Had no real clue about this before.

On Pieter's Lion Aid site I found more detailed information about the whole business, which is obviously a good tradition from colonialism, except the white administration has been replaced with native placeholders who get some share. If you are a rich manager, banker or of noble descent these days you don't have to organize an expedition anymore. Just book a flight to Africa and one of the hotel/farm lodges. Prices include gov't shooting fees. Choose gun or camera or both, local taxidermy of the dead animal is optional. If you're an immobile arm chair fart this is no problem, cos you can pay highly experienced guides, which will place the wild beast in front of your gun. Natives with their cattle shouldn't be any problem, too. Most of them are driven away from the nature reservations and private farm land and put into show huts, where photos of traditional dance performances can be taken. Also, in the protected environment, they would use too much water, which is urgently needed for the hotels. If they are caught poaching, they will be chased.

Way back in the last century my school teachers told us about the dark ages of slavery, imperialism, colonization, but that these times are over and everything is more civilized now. Indeed, what
modern hunting tourism does is not like just killing animals for fun, a shitty trophy and an exciting name entry in the hunting hall of fame. They are serving higher goals, like protecting nature and people from dangerous animal "overpopulation",  creating "sustainable" wellness reservations, supporting poor natives with job opportunities ... well, from this view even buying indigenous people with glass pearls and shipping them to work could be seen as some kind of employment programme. Science studies do partly substantiate and justify all this bullshit, or they just say studies need another 100 years to say whether colonial tourism is sustainable or not. Finally, I don't think that anything will stop this cruel and brainless business, because it's a part of the holy global market.
Nonetheless, if you care and want more facts and serious information I recommend Pieter's Lion Aid as a good start for reading. If you are a hunter, please do some good thing, sell your gun and rather get a camera instead.