opinion

Webb: Big-game hunting is whatever you want it to be. And that's the problem

Steve Chancellor shot a puma with a handgun.

Actually, between 1999 and 2002, he reportedly shot five pumas with a handgun. That information comes courtesy of a study from Shield Political Research. It was commissioned in 2015 by the Humane Society, which obtained records from Safari Club International – an organization that calls itself “the leader in protecting the freedom to hunt and promoting wildlife conservation worldwide.”

Out of six big-game hunters profiled in the research, Chancellor was by far the most prolific. A Humane Society spokeswoman sent me the information last week, and trust me — the pumas were the least of it.

According to Safari Club records, Chancellor registered 482 confirmed kills between 1980 and 2008. That includes 18 lions, 13 leopards, 11 blue wildebeests, 10 tsessebe (giant antelopes) and roughly 430 others.

The wealthy Evansville businessman and political fundraiser’s hunting habits sneaked into the national news recently when the Associated Press wrote about the Trump administration mounting a new federal advisory board to revamp rules on “the importing the heads and hides of African elephants, lions and rhinos.” The board is packed with big-game hunters, including Chancellor.

The Trump administration also lifted the ban on importing trophies from African elephants: a strange move from a president who once called elephant hunting a “horror show.”

All this has reignited the debate around big-game hunting. Groups such as Safari International say it props up African economies, promotes the conservation of land and reduces poaching. Animal rights groups, meanwhile, see it as a macabre arms race between rich men and women who pay exorbitant sums to travel the globe and blast bullets into wild creatures, all for the purpose of slapping a conversation piece in their giant homes.

So what’s the truth? As with most things these days, it depends on who’s twisting it.

Big-game hunting does help preserve land – both in Africa and the U.S. And some African communities depend on it for their livelihood.

After Botswana banned trophy hunting in 2013, the New York Times wrote a story about the village Sankuyo. The locals there had used big-game profits to fund everything from scholarships to working toilets. Once the money was gone, the villagers struggled to survive.

There was another problem. The wild animals, no longer felled by tourist guns, turned into pests – giant, giant pests. They barreled into villages and terrorized the locals. Lions snatched livestock in the night. Elephants wolfed down crops.

That's the natural order of things. But imagine if jungle cats were creeping into Evansville subdivisions and chasing children. We'd be longing for gun-toting tourists, too.

“Before, when there was hunting, we wanted to protect those animals because we knew we earned something out of them,” villager Jimmy Baitsholedi Ntema told the Times. “Now we don’t benefit at all from the animals.”

Some other supposed benefits to big-game hunting are either puffed up or unfounded. National Geographic reported that in countries such as Zimbabwe, corrupt officials would sometimes claim hunting land as their own to stiff-arm locals and keep the cash for themselves.

All this minutia is important. But for animal lovers, the arguments are simple: you can’t save something by killing it. In the shaky name of conservation, these animals are being shot and sliced up – and in ways you can hardly call hunting.

Some ranches breed animals in captivity and raise them to become easy targets for vacationing hunters. It’s called “canned hunting,” and it’s a rollicking business in South Africa.

As of 2009, the country boasted about 170 ranches housing 3,600 captive lions, according to the Washington Post. Since the animals are raised in captivity, they don’t possess the sharpened survival instincts of their wild brethren and can be gunned down with Whack-A-Mole ease.

Most canned “hunters” are Americans. Statistics gathered by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora showed that 85 percent of the lion trophies imported from South Africa were sent to the U.S.

The Obama Administration put limits on trophy imports that aimed to slow down that stream of carcasses. But those limits are exactly what Trump's federal advisory board are overhauling as we speak.

Canned hunting happens in this country, too. Vice President Dick Cheney got in mild trouble for popping more than 400 fat pheasants during a canned hunt in Texas in 2003. And three years later he shot a friend in the face – and made that friend apologize. But that occurred during a normal hunt, so all is forgiven!

The Safari Club opposes canned hunting. And according to Humane Society spokeswoman Kirsten Peek, none of Chancellor’s kills took place in canned hunting environments.

He bagged his game on safaris. Those are perfectly legal and, considering the situation in Sankuyo, have some kind of merit.

But for someone like me, who will never possess the mountains of money necessary to dress up like Theodore Roosevelt and go romping through the African wilds, they seem kind of odd.

Based on nothing but the pictures in which rugged men and women lord above the vanquished husks of giant beasts, you’d think safari hunters spend months squatting in the African plains, stalking lions in the moonlight. A Hemingway short-story come to life.

But it’s closer to something like this: tourists hire professional hunters to track the animals. Once the PHs find the animals, the tourists fire their guns and pose for a cool picture.

Some safari companies even guarantee certain trophies. ASH Adventures starts with the 5-day beginner’s package (one blue wildebeest, one impala, one blesbok). If hunters want to bring their families along, they boast luxury accommodations, complete with a pool.

Let’s say you want something more authentic. Well, you’re in luck buddy boy because you can rent rustic-yet-cozy cabins, just like “the big-game hunters of yesteryear.”

All this costs piles-upon-piles of cash. USA Today spoke to big-game hunters back in 2013 and found that between lodging, hiring a PH, trophy fees and much more, an expedition can cost anywhere from $10,000 to $70,000.

Look: I’m not here to tell people how to spend their money. I once spent $9 on a Bud Light.

But it’s clear that big-game hunting is about more than freedom and adventure and conservation. It’s also a status symbol – like a Bentley, only spotted and riddled with bullets.

In its research, the Humane Society claimed big-money big-game hunting was “an obsession, fixated on awards and mounting kills.” The Safari Club disputes that, I’m sure, but it also hands out awards and keeps track of kills.

The toughest part for the animal lovers I know – aside from the actual killing of the animals – are the photos of hunters posterizing their prey. Some are downright surreal. Hunters sling lions behind their necks or stand a leopard up and wrap its dead arms around their shoulders — some kind of gothic "Wild Kingdom" slow dance.

There’s a problem with criticizing big-game hunting, though: there’s no realistic alternative.

Even if we blocked rich American tourists from gallivanting to Africa and planting a slug in Simba, there would still be plenty of poachers ready to step in. The millions of dollars spent to preserve habitats would dry up, and the land would fall into the hands of corrupt governments or greedy capitalists. Either way, the animals would die.

What we need to do is install an equal amount of hunters and animals rights activists on the federal advisory board. Set fair limits on trophy imports. Put guidelines in place to protect endangered animals. Ban canned hunting.

The solution to this problem is the same solution to every problem. And tragically, it’s the one thing this cracked country can’t muster: finding common ground on a divisive issue.

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Contact columnist Jon Webb at jon.webb@courierpress.com.