The somewhat contentious debate on the issue of ‘sustainable’ trophy hunting rages furiously on, dividing opinions and generating passionate conversations. For those who support trophy hunting, the practice can be argued as a sustainable method of generating income for local communities, promoting tourism and well, being simply ‘fun’. However, those of us who cannot understand the pleasure in killing animals for sport are left baffled by the flawed logic presented to us, and used to pervert conservation policies.

They argue that trophy hunting creates incomes in degraded areas where photographic tourism is not viable, but it is often claimed that due to leakages and corruption, hunting revenue rarely reaches the community that they are said to.

Not only is the economic argument questionable, so is the sometimes often irresponsible behaviour of the hunters themselves. Mistakes have happened through trophy hunting. In April 2010, one professional hunter shot and killed a lion known to the public as ‘Leonardo’, who was also a research subject, when his permit only permitted him to kill a problem lioness in Anabeb Conservancy. Instead, the hunter shot and killed Leonardo at Sesfontein Conservancy. This example demonstrates how difficult it is to have complete control of the behaviour of hunters. Likewise, in Namibia unethical methods of hunting were being used such as the use of hounds, and also the practise of catching and drugging and releasing the animal, so that it becomes an ‘easy shot’.

The excessive use of trophy hunting, has in recent years had destructive impacts on the local leopard and cheetah populations in Namibia, for the past two decades over 200 leopard trophies were exported per year, with the number growing to 300 in 2008. The total lion population for the entire African continent has decreased by 70% in the past decade, dropping to 16,500, yet each year around 600 lions are legally killed due to trophy hunting. Similarly, it was reported in Namibia in March 2011, that the spotted hyena population was ‘fragmented and unstable’ due to persecution and trophy hunting.

To me, the argument in favour of trophy hunting seems particularly hypocritical. It seems we are forced to question what ‘Conservation’ truly means, for if it is as described in the dictionary as the ‘protection, preservation, and careful management of natural resources and of the environment’, shouldn’t we be protecting our fragile wildlife from what some people term ‘environmental terrorism’, instead of accepting  money from those who enjoy killing wild animals for  recreation and allowing their populations to be persecuted for sport? The answer is clear to me.