I have no sympathy for trophy hunters. They are not hunting for food or for any subsistence whatsoever. It's all about the thrill of the hunt and, sorry to say it, the thrill of the testosterone surge. Perhaps there are female trophy hunters out there too, but I suspect they are in the minority.
Therefore, to me it's a slam dunk as to whether trophy hunters should continue to hunt polar bears. If a species' very survival is threatened, then it is impractical to hunt it for mere entertainment. Every member counts. And I don't believe the argument that Inuit villages will collapse without the revenue from these hunts.
The cost of a trophy hunt can start at $35,000.
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3 comments:
Ana,
I find it seriously difficult to argue with your viewpoint in this regard.
Hunting for genuine subsistence would be somewhat understandable, but I have never seen any point in hunting any form of wild animal just for fun, and this is especially the case for any form of endangered species.
I agree about trophy hunting. But understand something here. I don't know if you have been north of 60 - there is NOTHING up there. There is snow and ice and water, in that order. In the summer there are berries, sea kelp washing ashore, ptarmagin eggs, mosses, grasses, wildflowers. Summer lasts about 8 weeks.
Do you know anything of the Inuit.?
There is an old Inuit saying: We are in a precarious place in creation because our diet consists entirely of SOULS.
The Inuit believe in the souls of man, animal, rock, water and all of natural creation.
And now, because of Western impingement on their universe they are too many to sustain the old ways of survival that kept them in perfect balance with what must surely be the most delicate eco system on Earth.
They have been abused, killed, manipulated, converted and very nearly wiped out by Christians, bureaucrats, white mans diseases, greed and avarice.
They are a people with a hugely generous spirit and spines of steel, but they have very nearly succumbed to the evil tide that swept over them in the last century.
They are just coming into their own, taking back their lands in the largest settlement in history, taking back their consensus form of government and leading their people to a new future.
Right now they are in a transition phase and trying to figure out how to survive in a land where you cannot plant a crop and white men have put them into settlements and building and says instead of going to hunt (because there are too many of them now) they should really go to the store and buy a head of lettuce trucked from down south - and they should pay EIGHT DOLLARS for that head of lettuce. And hey, they can have BANANAS now, black and kindy mushy and they cost THREE BUCKS each.
And you know, a lot of these kids in the new school built by the white man were so excited to go on a school trip down south because they had never seen a TREE.
Things are almost never as simple as they appear.
Please read about these wonderful people. Please try to understand that they have been splintered and fractured and shattered by the last century.
We could help them survive, help the lands they love, survive by going to see them there. By going on eco tours.
But that is a harsh harsh land my friend and most of us dream of beaches in the Bahamas for their vacation.
I despise trophy hunting and I tell you, so do most Inuit. It is a an affront to their traditions, but their traditions have been nearly buried under the Christian view that animals were put on this Earth to serve man and they have no souls.
The Inuit never believed that. And now, they have to cater to rich men who seem to have no souls either.
PS: Check out the Indigenous People's Summit on Climate Change at www.indigenoussummit.com It was held in Anchorage Alaska last week.
Also, Nunavut Tourism can be found at www.nunavut.ca - in case you don't want to go to the beach this year :))
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