Wealthy businessmen are
paying up to $20,000 to shoot wild animals for kicks, trophies and to
relieve executive stress. Bernard Thompson reports on a vile new
'sport'.
Appeared in the Big Issue in Scotland; Issue 379
$250 will get you an Angora goat. If you are lucky enough to have about $2000 to spare, an impala or a zebra will be within your price range.
But rhinoceroses are only realistically available to the seriously wealthy with prices ranging from $10-20,000. If describing some of nature's most exotic wildlife in such commercial terms sounds a little vulgar, you will probably find the full details of the deal to be positively disgusting.
Because these are not prices that zoos or safari parks would expect to pay to purchase one of these animals for display. In fact, the figures mentioned are the going rate in the United States for the privilege of shooting one of these beasts - and a kill is guaranteed.
Some might wonder how anyone could promise that a hunter would bag a quarry. The answer is simple: in this type of hunt the odds are stacked very much in favour of the hunter's 'success'.
Canned hunting, as it is known, provides enthusiasts with the strange and morally dubious pleasure of killing an animal that has absolutely no chance of escape. Most of the animals are raised in captivity and are shot in pens of a few acres or much smaller.
Some have been shot while partially sedated; others have been killed near feeding troughs and breeding pens. Thus, shooting preserves can advertise a policy of "No Kill, No Pay".
As one hunter famously commented, "Before being harvested, African lions, raised as pets, would amble over and lick your hand." What may be equally shocking to the public is the fact that many of the animals, not reared to be shot, could have been the star attractions at zoos visited by tourists.
As visitors continue to turn out in greater numbers to see newborn animals, there is an increased incentive to breed young while the older animals are then sold to provide further entertainment by their tortuous deaths. To date, there is no evidence of the involvement of British zoos. The tangible reward is the animal's head as a trophy.
Although a Scottish farm was recently said to have offered domestically reared boar and ostriches to be shot in corrals, the practice is mainly restricted to the USA and South Africa, where Gareth Patterson devotes all his energies to raising awareness of the issue and campaigning for a ban.
British born and educated, but having spent most of his childhood in Nigeria and Malawi, Patterson has worked with George Adamson of "Born Free" fame. As you might expect, his great passion is lions and he took up the fight in 1996 after he was given a video of a canned lion hunt.
Asked to define his opposition to canned hunting, he explains: "Firstly, here in South Africa it's a question of cruelty. Trophy size is defined by measurement of the skull. Hence the trophy hunter does not shoot the lion in the brain for the fear of damaging the skull; they concentrate on body shots which does not kill instantly.
I have video footage of a trophy hunter taking numerous shots to kill a male lion. It slowly died as blood entered its lungs while the professional hunter accompanying the client was congratulating him."
In another of the most infamous examples, a lioness was riddled with shots while her cubs watched her die, separated from their mother by an electrified fence.
Similar considerations apply in the USA, where hunters use a variety of weapons, including bows and arrows, and again concentrating on shots to the body to preserve the head as a trophy.
One case involved a Black Hawaiian Ram, for which a hunter had paid $275. Having been driven directly into the path of the customer by a guide, the ram was then shot with an arrow at point-blank range.
With one arrow in his hindquarters and shaking uncontrollably the ram backed up against the fence that prevented his escape and was repeatedly shot with more arrows with the hunter being careful to avoid the head.
However bizarre the pastime might appear, it remains popular and Patterson's research has found that approximately half of the foreign hunters who go to South Africa to kill wildlife are North Americans.
German and Spanish tourists account for the next greatest numbers with some Britons also taking part. He reveals that most come from professional, management and industrial fields of above average to very high income and sees this as something of an insult to African culture: "Traditionally in Africa animals were not killed for sport. This is a western notion that has been imposed on Africa."
In the US, canned shoots are said to now rival golf courses as convenient venues for talking business. And a few famous names have been involved: after his 1988 election victory, President George Bush Snr celebrated at the Lazy F Ranch in Texas.
He defended his actions by commenting: "These aren't animals; these are wild quail." Bush's successor, Bill Clinton is known to have been another enthusiast during his presidency.
In December 1993, he was able to claim the distinction of killing a captive-bred mallard duck on a shooting preserve owned by the treasurer of a pro-hunting group that had made substantial political donations.
And General Norman Schwarzkopf is among those who wrote to the South African government, urging them not to bow to political pressure to ban the canned hunting of big cats.
These people are either dismissive of or oblivious to the issue of cruelty that troubles Gareth Patterson so deeply:
"Before a trophy hunter even sets his sights on the animal he wants to kill on a game farm, it could already have faced death in four previous stages of the trade - during its initial capture; during transportation to the auction; in the auction pens; and on relocation and release on a game farm.
"The time frame for these stages could be a month or more, during which the animals are held in captive conditions. They might survive all these stages, only to face the hunter's gun on delivery."
In his books, "Dying to be Free: The canned lion scandal" and "Making a Killing", some examples of the animal abuses arising before the hunts are cited.
They include the cases of 38 out of 40 blesbuck antelope being asphyxiated in a converted cattle truck; a shipment of ostriches that fell through the bottom of their flight container after it had become saturated with urine; two giraffes strangled by a dangling rope in a transport truck and the deaths of 37 out of 43 bontebok antelope exported to Namibia.
In the States, where deer are the most popular animals shot in canned hunts, a major issue is disease. In a recent letter to the New York Times, Heidi Prescott of the US Fund for Animals called for the canned hunting and farming industries to be shut down, claiming that they present a threat to wildlife:
"Animals concentrated in a captive environment like a shooting preserve or game farm are more susceptible to a variety of diseases than are animals that live under more natural, wild conditions.
"Chronic wasting disease has spread rapidly through wildlife populations in several Western and Midwestern states, likely originating from captive deer and elk, or at least spreading farther and faster because of them. … The killing of captive animals for trophies is a time bomb of disease that may destroy native wildlife populations."
The environmental impact is not limited to the threat of disease. In the case of lion hunting, for example, those with the biggest manes are the prime targets. That often leads to the strongest and most dominant males being removed from the prides, impacting on the bloodline as weaker males are not forced out.
But Patterson also refers to the shooting of game birds in Britain and to the practices of foxes being reared in artificial earths supplied with carcasses to encourage breeding close to hunts. Although illegal, this has been discovered in some parts of the UK.
In combating canned hunting in South Africa, Patterson urges foreign tourists to at least enquire whether hunting takes place at the tourist establishments they intend to visit, arguing that this, "pushes out signals that the majority of potential foreign tourists would not want to visit a place where canned lion hunting is taking place.
I would also firmly suggest that people opposing canned hunting in South Africa visit the website of www.africa-geographic.com to add their voice to the general outrage and to petition the relevant government bodies to outlaw canned lion hunting."
Meanwhile, in the USA, numerous pressure groups, such as the Humane Society of the United States, are attempting to have the practice outlawed completely.
To many, the motivation for getting involved in canned hunting will seem inexplicable but not to Advocates for Animals Director, Les Ward who simply concludes, "If there's money to be made off the backs of animal suffering and exploitation, you can rest assured that someone will do it."
That being the case, the most likely methods of addressing the issue are boycotts and lobbying to have the industry banned. Until then, to paraphrase an Oscar Wilde quotation, the unspeakable will continue their full pursuit of the uneatable.
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