Trophy hunting lobbyist Ron Thompson is at it again. He is now attempting to defeat the proposed ban on the import of trophies into UK by deliberately confusing the conservation issue of culling with the anti-conservation issue of trophy hunting.
http://africaunauthorised.com/warden-ron-thomsons-letter-to-the-uk-government-on-the-folly-of-a-hunting-ban/
Culling is a totally different thing from hunting which is simply commercial exploitation.
Hunting is an evil for many reasons but one compelling one is that it puts the process of natural selection in reverse. Nature takes the old and the weak thereby strengthening the gene pool. Trophy hunting takes the biggest and the best thereby weakening the gene pool.
The culling by conservationists to reduce an elephant population which is causing harm to the environment is a different thing altogether. It is a military operation involving helicopters and dozens of heavily armed rangers. Using the helicopters, a targeted herd of elephants is rounded up and massacred right down to the smallest calf.
In support of trophy hunting, Thompson is claiming that hunters who target a majestic tusker are helping to control elephant populations. What rubbish! The elephant cows will simply be mounted by smaller bulls and population numbers will be unaffected. What trophy hunter wants to shoot all the small calves and pregnant cows?
A critical analysis of Thompsons open letter to the UK government breaks it down into three components:
1. a tedious rant about the need to kill elephants in Kruger Park
2. defamatory and outrageous accusations against anyone in the world who does not agree that hunting is conservation and speaks out against it
3. gratuitous insults directed at the British Prime Minister personally.
What Eduardo Goncalves and his team are asking of the British government is to ban the import of hunting trophies. Nobody is promoting a ban on culling which is a conservation issue best left to conservationists.
Accordingly, Thompson’s diatribe about culling has nothing whatever to do with the issue of the proposed ban and can safely be ignored as irrelevant.
We are left with the gratuitous insults to the British Prime Minister and the outrageous accusations against anyone who disagrees with Thompson’s fanatical belief that hunting is conservation.
Attacking the British Prime Minister.
Of Prime Minister Boris Johnson he writes:
“.. the Prime Minister is politically foolhardy to allow himself to be manipulated and to be led by the nose by these nefarious charlatans.”
What egregious arrogance! Who is this be be-whiskered self-important octogenarian to use such disgraceful language against an elected British leader?
The proposed UK government policy has not been written by the UK Prime Minister (or anyone else in the UK government, or its advisers) because they have been “manipulated” (sic).
There was a full, public UK Consultation on hunting trophies imports/exports whereby DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) studied the available science and opinion over the course of some 21 months, reporting its conclusions and ‘Policy Statement’ 10 December 2021 - concluding that trophy hunting puts wildlife at risk.
The proposed policy to ‘bringing forward ambitious legislation to ban the import of hunting trophies from thousands of species’ has not been made up in wilful ignorance of the science, but because of it.
Pro-trophy hunting advocates had ample opportunity to (and no doubt did) submit to the UK’s Consultation (which closed 25 February 2020).
Clearly, the pro-trophy hunting lobby did not present, or could not present, a convincing case supported by science.
Attacking any who may disagree.
As for anyone who disagrees with him, he has this to say:
“People who disagree with me are dyed- in- the- wool anti-hunters … such people have no knowledge about, nor personal experience in, the vital management needs of African wildlife. Their purpose… has nothing to do with the rights or wrongs of hunting… their sole interests are about making money out of the anti-hunting campaign. NOTHING ELSE!”
Thompson blasts the British Parliament in the following terms:
“ watch.. the antics of British parliamentarians as they are being manipulated - and side-blinded -(?sic) by a handful of self-centred animal rights extremists whose real purpose in stirring the pot is to make money out of the gullible British public.”
What condescending self-righteous claptrap!
One has to wonder if this man is deranged. His vicious and completely irrational attacks upon Eduardo Goncalves personally merely because he is promoting the proposal to ban trophy imports seem to me to be actuated by spite. He can see that Eduardo understands the need to work at a policy level to effect change - and that terrifies Thompson. In short, it is Eduardo’s effectiveness as an animal advocate that provokes such a defamatory attack upon him. It is an unintended compliment!
I hope that the British government will treat this outrageous letter from Thomson with the contempt that it deserves.
Chris Mercer
Campaign Against Canned Hunting
Karoo Wildlife Centre
South Africa.
POSTSCRIPT
The unparallelled joy of killing an elephant
I quote below from Ron Thompson's message to Safari Club International, written some years ago:
“No-one can define the rush of adrenaline that sends the pulses racing but the hunter, himself; the goose-pimples that run up and down his arms, and along the length of his back, erecting the hair on the nape of his neck.
"Then to manoeuvre myself into a position to be able to place a bullet – smaller than two digits of a man’s little finger – into the elephant’s brain!
“Sluck! The sound of the bullet hitting its target. The elephant throws its head up, its trunk rising high.
"It is the elephant’s final salute. Its hind quarters collapse first – then it falls sideways to the ground, its large brown eyes already staring into the great hereafter.
“Then the shaking begins, not from fear, but the release of it! Not from excitement, but from the expiring of tension. The smile on my face is painful. The exhilaration is complete.
“Sadly, those who are not hunters at heart will never understand the feeling of accomplishment, of utter fulfilment that comes with the satisfying of this, the greatest of man’s instincts.”