Millionaire banker Sir David Scholey, a so called "nice guy" according to the Guardian has been pictured recently, after one of his trophy hunting holidays, posing over the corpse of a lion he killed, for sport.
He is quoted saying:
“I have been hunting all over the world for many, many years and I have always hunted within the legal arrangements of the country concerned.
“All the animals I hunt are wild beasts and even I have felt threatened by them at times. The lion I killed certainly wasn’t an endangered species where I was hunting it."
Trophy hunting and Canned Hunting is taking place in South Africa, Nambia, Botswana, Mozambique where people essentially can pay to shoot animals, either by trophy hunting in a large area or by canned hunting, as described in the link.
The amount of animals available to these trophy hunters are vast, but include elephants, lions and leopards. Interestingly and also more telling are a number of websites I have researched, all readily accessible and a click away, which I won't name, giving a link with a Rhinosaurus on the front, an endangered species, as a link to their brochure.
I asked in the the title, are we still Neanderthals? But really, that title does not apply to these trophy hunters. The Neanderthals killed to eat, used the furs to keep warm, in essence, to survive. The trophy hunters do it for the blood lust, the thrill (apparently) of killing an animal greater and stronger than yourself. The cowards way, with a bullet, with no hope of the animal fighting back.
Going back to what (Sir) David Scholey, said, he claimed that the animal he killed wasn't on the endangered list. With trophy killers, poachers and an ever decreasing availability of land for the lions to use, how long will it be before lions are on the endangered list? That day is edging closer every day.
Humans are the most dangerous animal on the planet. If we are not careful, we are going to lose all these amazing animals which will end up as nothing more as a head mounted on a someone's wall or an exhibit in a museum. It is time for people to be proactive if we want to help conserve the wild animals on this planet.
Join the causes, donate to the charities, speak your mind rather than going "It's not my problem, why should I care". These animals have just as much a right to the planet as we do. Do we really want to be left in a position where nothing wild is left in the world?
