Let's look at the pros and cons of African trophy hunting here.
Pros-
-Financial benefit (from permits) to wildlife conservation efforts.
-Financial benefit (from permits) to anti-poaching efforts.
-Financial boost to local economy (hiring of local guides, cooks, buying gear, hotels, airlines etc..).
-Meat goes to feed local tribal peoples.
-Legal regulation ensures that the only animals taken are those which are not threatened as a species. (unlike poaching)
-Regulation ensures that hunts happen in areas where it will not effect local populations of the species, or humans.
(and can benefit humans, do you realize the damage that just a single Elephant can do to a small local farmers crops.)
-Regulated hunting ensures the carrying capacity of localized ecosystems is not exceeded, avoiding cyclical population
crashes
Cons-
-Dumbo dies.
-It puts a damper on the career of poachers.
Anyone who opposes legal, regulation African big game hunts, by association supports poaching and destroying a big part of local economies whether they realize it or not.
It would be amusing if it weren't so said. Several times I've read these kind of mock outrage stories over legal big game/trophy hunts, sometimes with threats against the hunters themselves. Yet I've never hear a peep of outrage from these same people over the poaching going on in Africa that actually is a legitimate threat to some species (Black Rhinos, Lowland and Mtn. Gorillas etc..)
Do these imbeciles not realize that by taking away legal, regulated hunting, and the financial proceeds that come from that, they are taking away the very tools that African game management agencies use to combat poachers and promote conservation? Heck without those hunts, there would be no game management in Africa, and the poachers would have driven several species to extinction by now.
Here's a news flash people. Homo Sapiens are part of this planet just like every other animal on it. So how come it's somehow wrong for us to effect the food web and ecosystem just like every other species? And unlike any other species on this rock, we CARE about other species enough to go to great efforts to ensure their survival and prosperity.