Trophy Hunting and Conservation: A Balanced Perspective on Wildlife

This essay examines the controversial practice of trophy hunting, exploring its role in wildlife conservation and the ethical dilemmas it presents. It discusses how trophy hunting, while ethically questionable, can generate funds for conservation efforts, citing examples from countries like South Africa, Namibia, and Tajikistan where controlled hunting has led to increases in endangered species populations such as white and black rhinos, Markhor and Urial. The essay also addresses the negative impacts of hunting bans, such as decreased tourism revenue, increased poaching, and conflicts between humans and wildlife, using Botswana as a case study. It concludes that while trophy hunting remains a contentious issue, it should not be completely banned but rather carefully managed to maximize its conservation benefits while minimizing its ethical and ecological drawbacks. It also points out ethical issues like canned hunting and the fact that a major portion of revenue goes to the private sector.

Running head: TROPHY HUNTING
Trophy Hunting
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1TROPHY HUNTING
Trophy hunting refers to the shooting practice by hunters to kill big animal such as lions,
bears, elephant, pumas, rhinos by paying money and using license given by the government. The
whole practice is for only pleasure purpose. In this case, the trophy is the dead animal that is shot
by the hunter. However, it may be the skin, head, horn or other portion of the body. In many
countries in the world, the practice of trophy hunting is used as a process of wildlife
conservation. However, when this practice is used in an improper way, it become a serious threat
to the wild animals specially who are endangered in nature. Trophy hunting has become a fruitful
conservation tool for various endangered species in those countries who are using this method in
a scientific and controlled manner. However, in some countries like Kenya, trophy hunting is
totally banned in order to protect the wildlife endangered species. The fund generated from
trophy hunting practice can be used in conservation of wildlife animals WWF (2016). So it can
be said that, although it is not a good practice, it should not be an abolished totally in order to
improve the conservation processes in different cases. In this essay, the beneficial aspects of the
trophy hunting is discussed.
The issue of trophy hunting is very much controversial as it is hampering the
conservation of the endangered and also it is associated with the ethical practices. However
countries like South Africa, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand, Australia and some countries of
Africa (almost half of the total countries in Africa) still believe that, trophy hunting is a helpful
practice in order to conserve the species. Moreover, the practice of trophy hunting is legal and
there are various social stigma that trophy hunting is illegal, photographic tourism is an
alternative way of trophy hunting. According to a report of IUCN (2016), trophy hunting
practice has become very successful in South Africa. From the report it is seen that, the number
of White Rhinos has increased to 18400 from 1800 in the time period of 1895- 2015 and after

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introducing the trophy hunting program in 1968 there is a stiff rise in the numbers of White
Rhinos in South Africa. In case of black rhinos the number has increased to 3500 in Namibia and
South Africa. In these countries, the trophy hunting helps to conserve 90% of African rhinos by
2015. Whereas only 0.34% of white rhinos and 0.05% of black rhinos were killed by the trophy
hunting. From limited spot hunting of rhinos in Africa, the private land lords had built their own
herd of white rhinos (approx. 6140 white rhinos and 630 black rhinos) on their private lands. A
rhino reserve of South Africa is had managed to increase the number of white rhinos up to 195 in
their reserve along with other endangered species. Surprisingly this self-financed organization
revealed that since last eight years, the key sources of their income was the trophy hunting
(almost 63%). Whereas, only 18% of total fund was generated from tourism and between this
time periods only 7 rhinos were killed. This reserve organization had used all of the earnings
from trophy hunting in the conservation and protection of rhinos. The ban on import of lion
trophy to US had impacted negatively on the income with dropped order of hunting (IUCN
(2016). According to Hurley et al. (2015) the number of bighorn sheep in North America was
almost 1800 in 1950 and after using the funds generated from the trophy hunting had helped to
enhance the number (almost 80,000). In US and Canada, the auctions of Bighorn sheep had
generated almost $350,000 per year and from that amount 70% was used to help the conservation
process of bighorn sheep. In Zimbabwe, the Save Valley Conservancy (SVC) has owned 344,000
ha land to conserve wildlife species and they had almost 117 black rhinos, 43 white rhinos, 280
lions and 1500 African elephants. From their largest property named Sango Ranch, almost US$
600,000 was generated per year from trophy hunting. Another, conservation agency named
Bubye Valley Conservancy (BVC) earned almost US$ 1380,605 from trophy hunting in 2015. In
a recent study in Namibia showed that, if trophy hunting was banned in Namibia, maximum

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number of conservation programs would be stopped due to lack of funds as a huge amount of
revenue was generated from trophy hunting. Along with this, wild life populations and local
benefits would be also be lowered due to lack of money (Naidoo et al., 2016). It was noted that,
the half of the generated revenue was used to protect and manage wild life. In Pakistan, the
number of Afghan Urial and Suleiman Markhor had decreased very much due to uncontrolled
hunting in 1980. After allowing limited trophy hunting of Urial and Markhor, the illegal hunting
was decreased by many fold. From 1986 to 2012 the limited hunting of these two species had
generated almost US$ 486,400 for the provincial government and along with the local
communities also gained huge amount of funding for continuation of the Torghar Conservation
Project. Due to this, limited trophy hunting policy, the Markhor and Urial population had
increased and the estimated Markhor population was almost 3500 in 2012 (Mallon, 2013). The
improvement of the Markhor population had removed the species from IUCN red list and it was
no longer considered as a threatened species (Michel & Rosen Michel, 2015). Whereas in
Tajikistan the number of Markhor had become very less in mid -90s (almost 350 in numbers).
The price of trophy hunt in Tajikistan was about US$ 100,000 per Markhor. The revenue
generated from this hunting, four conservation programs were operated to recover the Markhor
population and from the revenue salaries had been given to the local people who were employed
as the guard. From a survey it was seen that the number of Markhor had increased to 1300 in
Tajikistan (Alidodov et al., 2014). Not only that, the revenues generated from the trophy hunting,
also helped to conserve other threatened species. In Tajikistan, higher densities of snow leopard
had been recorded in a Markhor conservancy region (Rosen, 2014). According to Mbaiwa
(2018), the banning of safari hunting in 2014, had negative impact on the
tourism of Botswana and along with this the economic condition of the local

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residents was declined due to the ban of hunting. In the Mabage village, the
income from tourism had declined to P500, 000 from P3.5 million. Fund
generated from the safari hunting in Northern Botswana was used to run
several conservation projects and due to the ban, various projects were
stopped. In addition, the number of poaching incidents had increased in
Northern Botswana after the ban of hunting and the number of incidents
became 323 in 2014 and that was higher than that of the incidents reported
in 2012 ( 309 cases in 2012). The ban on hunting had also ceased the
revenue from the hunting and almost $20 million fund was generated
annually in Northern Botswana. Among the collected fund , almost $6 million
was given to the National parks and Department of Wildlife in Northern
Botswana. Along with this, the conflict between the wild animals and human
being had also enhanced and the dealing of such consequences had greatly
hampered. Moreover, hunting ban had reduced the annual income of the
government and the social adherence of the communities to the
conservation had also lowered as there income had been reduced due to
hunting ban. The number of wild animals in Kenya had decreased severely
after posing ban on hunting and the number had reached to half of the
before (Mbaiwa, 2018). In South Africa, most of the hunted animal (almost
96%) in 2012 were listed as a less vulnerable species and they are also very
common. In 2012 total amount of revenue generated were US$68 million and
almost 41% was generated from the hunting of Big Five. The countries of
Southern Africa and Tanzania had the maximum number of big five trophies

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(2009-2013) (Cloete, Van der Merwe & Saayman, 2015). However, maximum
number of revenue generated from the hunting of ‘Big Five’ that is lion,
elephant ,leopard , black and white rhino which are very valuable in nature
(Di Minin et al., 2013).
However, there are a few negative impact of trophy hunting on the
conservation of wild life animals. Generally, the aged animal were shot in
trophy hunting and the restriction had been posed on hunting younger
animals. However, this regulation are not implemented properly. Along with
this, the practice of canned hunting is not healthy for the conservation of the
animals. In South Africa 80% of total trophy hunting was canned hunting in
between 2009-13. In Tanzania, the revenue generated from the trophy
hunting in 2008, 22% had used for conservation and remaining portion had
gone to the private sector (Di Minin, Leader-Williams & Bradshaw, 2016).
From the above discussion it is quite clear that trophy hunting is a very
much controversial practice. Around the world, mostly this practice had
helped the conservation process of the wild animals. In most of the
countries, this process has proved to be fruitful and numbers of the wild
animals has also increased. So, it can be concluded that, although it is a
matter of great controversy, it should not be banned completely, rather it
should be continued with required interventions in the process.

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