Everyone from the USA who goes to Africa to hunt is a trophy hunter by law. This is because you are not allowed to bring meat back to the USA, and the only thing you can bring back is the trophy.  This, in no way, indicates the meat is wasted. All the meat not used in camp, is consumed by the locals. Friend nothing is wasted in Africa.  The people in Africa are so starved for protein, that you would not believe the seen you will witness when the African local tears into a meat animal with knives of every shape and size you can think of. A ten ton elephant will be reduced to nothing more than bone, and a wet spot where he fell when they are through.  Additionally they are in such a hurry to get their share for their family that they cut each other nearly as much as they cut the elephant.  These people are not only starved for meat protein, but must compete with the wildlife for possession of the crops they plant.   

    The time line and birth rate, and dependence of calves on the cow are correct, and that is why only “PAC” (Problem Animal Control) elephants killed are cows, except for tusk less cows, which are a detriment to the over-all welfare of the family group with is only cows calves, and juvenile pre-pubescent bulls, are on license.  Tusk less cows are very aggressive to other elephants because they don’t have tusks to de-bark trees so fight the others for the bark they peal from the trees, in many cases killing the calves of the cow they attack.  The fact is the number of elephant taken in any given year is far exceeded by the birth rate. Admittedly there are places where elephant shouldn’t be hunted, but that is taken care of by the allowed harvest, or lack there of.  Unless in musk, the bulls stay away from the cows and calves in bachelor groups, so are not around where the hunting is taking place, unless, as I said the PAC animal happens to be a cow.   

  I doubt a warthog out of 100 would live to 27 yrs of age in the wild of Africa, and of the 204 piglets she would produce not more than 30 % would survive to breading age, with everything from Jackal to lion trying to make a meal out of them. You take on this subject is way to simplistic and makes it evident that you expertise where wild life in Africa is right out of a book that assumes everything is mathematical like an adding machine, with no allowance for life expectancy in the wild with everything either trying to eat everything else, or plain old accidental death. These animals do not live in a zoo, and all are food for something else.  The pig problem in the USA is another matter all together. This is because most land in the USA is privately owned, and with land not open to hunting, as well as a lack of large predators in the USA, is the reason for the explosion of feral hogs here.  Many land owners that I know personally say they wish they could be rid of all the hogs on their property, yet will not let reliable hunters hunt them at will. Some trap them in large traps and kill them all in the trap, but then the animal rights idiots want to scream foul, so the problem simply gets worse.  I was born on a North Hill country cattle ranch in Texas and we never had a problem with hog like others around us because we hunted them, and allowed others to hunt them as well, keeping them in check on our place.

  Oh wise one what is your solution for the over population of people? As far as I know it is against the law in most places, with the exception of parts of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Serbia genocide is illegal.

  As long as elephant are valuable to the country where they live they will never be extinct, simply because they are valuable to the state, they are protected, and the revenue, food, and jobs they bring to the local people they assist in the protection of the elephant.  The safari companies, game scouts, and the eyes of the locals greatly hinder the poaching activity. Kenya stopped all hunting of elephant, and this took away the game department’s people out of the bush, in a short ten years the ele were wiped put in everyplace except where the park rangers were around.  The parks are a drop in the bucket compared to the natural range of wild elephant.  Outside these comparatively small parks the ele were quickly reduced to ivory in basements, and rotting meat in the bush. Anyplace where regulated hunting of elephant is allowed the population is actually over populating the carrying capacity of the land they use.  In Kenya the cessation of elephant hunting allowed them to turn the habitat into desert very quickly. This elephant habitat destruction was largely the cause of the wiping out of the black Rhino.  The Black Rhino in a browser, and will not eat grass, and ones the ele tore all the trees and brush up a great many of the black rhino simply starved to death, along with the poaching brought on by the fact that nobody was in the bush to hinder the poachers.   

    In Northern Africa people are lucky to stay alive, because the life of the people is no more valuable than the wildlife to the governments of those war-like countries, with the ethnic cleansing, and the wanton destruction of human, and wildlife to starve the poor tribes that are not Muslim is the reason for the leopard’s food supply.  In every country where hunting is allowed the leopard populations are not only stable, but also growing in number.  In the luangwa Valley of Zambia in a seven day hunt I saw four big leopard in brad daylight, just driving around, and for every leopard you see in the “wild” (not in zebra striped camera bus “ZOOS”) in day light there are fifty you don’t see because they are nocturnal hunters.  The countries in Northern Africa have no game departments at all there not needed now because there is no game to manage, as it has all been killed and eaten, because the people are starving, at least the ones the Muslim hoards have not raped and killed after destroying their villages.  The decline of the wildlife in Northern Africa had nothing to do with sport hunting at all. 

  First off the pay I was referring to are people hired by the safari companies as tracker cooks wood gathers, and skinners, and general camp staff. This is work these people don’t get from poachers which are usually illegal armies that use large vehicles, and automatic rifles to take out whole herds of elephant rhino, and bush meat.  The biggest deterrent to this activity is the safari companies in the hunting concessions.  The fact that the locals get work, and most of the meat from these companies, become allies reporting any poaching they see.  In Botswana, the permits for elephant are far fewer that the birth rate of elephant, and the foreign exchange it brings in is the finance that allows the game departments to operate.

  The population grows larger every year in Botswana, and there is precious little so-called ECO-TOURISM in Botswana. Eco-tourism only helps the wildlife in the parks, but in almost every country where big game hunting is allowed there are hunting concessions surrounding all the wildlife parks, and there are as many animals in these concessions as there are in the parks.  The wild life departments protect the hunting concessions, and the individual concessions are guarded by the safari companies, who have leased them from the game departments, that is why you have a lot of animals in those parks because they are protected by a ring of hunting concessions around them. It had damn little to do with the shutterbugs in those Zebra striped streetcars.  It is rare that you get a picture with three other buses in the background in those zoos!        

   None of this destruction has anything to do with hunting. Since you can’t kill off the people, and the fact that the animals have had their habitat reduced to “POSTAGE STAMP Parcels of land, the population of the animals have to be reduced to the carrying capacity of the available land, or they will all die out. You can’t turn the whole world into parks where people are not allowed to live, so what other alternative do we have. The fact that the stumps are re-sprouting means that in about fifty years they will be big enough to feed the elephant that depend on them for food. If the population had been reduced before they tore up that area, it would still be feeding the one left.   The reason the populations of animals are declining is, as you say, the population of humans is growing, but that is simply a fact that we must live with.  It makes far more sense to manage the wildlife than to loose them all!

  Hunting is the salvation of the species we have because if they are of no value to the people who share the habitat with them and compete for room and food, they will be removed in favor of the human population, I assure you.   The habitat over used not only harms the elephant but every species that utilizes it for anything for food to cover or escape.  The managing of the hunting species directly benefits the non-game animals as well, as the people who live there too!  

    First off I’m not an elephant hunter, and I have no desire to shoot an elephant.  However, I know that when any animal species outstretches it habitat, the only way to save the population that is left if to manage the rest so it stays within the carrying capacity of they habitat. You are talking about something you know nothing about where the hunting of elephant is concerned. Hunting elephant is not an easy thing to do, they don’t act in the wild the way they do in your parks.  First the average tracking is about 15 to 20 miles in a day, in African heat, and thorn.  Once you close on them in tight cover they can be within  5 feet of you and you can’t see them many times. If there is more than one that you can’t see when the shot is fired the Askaris  are the danger even if you have put the one you shot down.  Top that off with the fact that a bullet must penetrate 4 feet of flesh and bone to get to the brain, and the shot placement is not easy to predict, as the charging bull is shaking his head, and bouncing it up and down, and can cover 15 yards in the time it takes you to fire one shot, and if you miss the brain you are toe jam in short order. The brain shot is the only thing that will stop a charge from a bull, and these elephant that are hunted and have been harassed out of the sadza fields do not act like your open air zoo animals that are used to your tourist busses.  One of these time you should try your picture taking in a hunting concession where you have to get out of that car, and go into the weeds with the elephant, I assure you, you will change some of your thinking.

On second thought you wouldn’t, change your thinking because your mind is made up!  About the only thing you know about was written by another ignorant person who believes everything he reads on the Internet as well.  If it is on the Internet or on the six o’clock news it must be true.  Son, get out of that park car, and into the weeds with Tembo then tell me how dangerous it is compared to the trip to the supermarket!   I predict you will need a large roll of toilet tissue, or more likely someone will have to send what is left of you home in a garbage bag!

  Finally I don’t understand what difference there is between a trophy hunter and any other hunter, as long as he takes no more than he is allowed, and the meat id utilized to feed people.  I’m Not a trophy hunter per say, I’m just a hunter, and I do every thing in an ethically, and never break game laws or any laws for that matter.  Anyone who tells you hunters are the reason for the decline in any animal is simply talking out another orifice other than his mouth, and simply does not know what he/she is talking about.

Good day sir!  You need to get into the bush a lot more on foot, I’ll be happy to go along and film the outcome, or shoot a lion, buffalo, or elephant off you before he kills you.  If you want I’ll protect you with a spear is you thing that is more sporting, but when he turns toward me, the spear will be traded for a 470NE double rifle, because I’m not as stupid as people who think elephants are not dangerous if you have a rifle! 

.................................................................................................