Tim Worstall

Hunting to Conserve

Sorry, this rather surprises me. Didn’t we all know this already?

However, a study concludes, the overall toll on big game is more than matched by the benefits.

Hunters
are prepared to pay thousands of pounds for the chance to shoot trophy
species. The money they bring in to the 23 African nations that permit
trophy hunting provides jobs and encourages people to preserve the
landscape rather than turn it into farmland. According to a report in New Scientist, a proportion of the money reaches conservation organisations, who use it to promote wildlife and protect the natural habitat.

The study, published in the journal Biological Conservation,
concludes that where game areas are well managed, the death toll from
hunters is outweighed by increases in animal populations made possible
by conservation initiatives.

When the price of something is high the production is encouraged. Page one of most economics textbooks, isn’t it?

Will Travers, of the Born Free Foundation, said: “I’m totally opposed. For me an animal is a treasure alive and a carcass dead.

“I
think hunting and killing an animal for so-called sport, for fun, is a
tragedy of the human psyche and something we should have grown out of.”

Ah, so you’re not a Friedmanite yet then. Still don’t believe that outcomes matter more than intentions?

 

In

13 responses

  1. Kit Avatar
    Kit

    The same is true of polar bears in Canada and Greenland. This may come as a shock to Guardian readers but there are plenty of polar bears and trophy hunting brings in income for native Americans. (From memory 600 are killed annually out of a population of 20,000+)

    Reply
  2. JuliaM Avatar
    JuliaM

    Will Travers, of the Born Free Foundation, said: “I’m totally opposed. For me an animal is a treasure alive and a carcass dead.
    And for the hunter, the trophy is just as valuable as the live animal, and a commodity he/she will pay for, and therefore help to preserve its habitat, which then helps to support other species. What’s it to be, Billy boy, sentiment or science…?
    “I think hunting and killing an animal for so-called sport, for fun, is a tragedy of the human psyche and something we should have grown out of.”
    And that is why animal welfare should be left to the professionals and not some petulant, spoiled film star’s son… (if ‘film star’ isn’t too ambitious a description for the man who gave us ‘Born Free’ & ‘Ring of Bright Water’…)

    Reply
  3. Little Black Sambo Avatar
    Little Black Sambo

    Just the same with foxes, hares and deer.

    Reply
  4. mendip_native Avatar
    mendip_native

    “When the price of something is high the production is encouraged.”
    Yes, I’m sure that will work very well for the rare big cats.
    Tim adds: Worked bloody well for the Lions of Longleat didn’t it, Mendip laddie? Tiger cubs in the US cost $5,000 and up. There’re more there in captivity than in the wild.

    Reply
  5. Dom Avatar
    Dom

    It’s surprising that people don’t notice this. There is a price on beef, and there is no shortage of cows. We try to conserve ivory, and look at the population of elephants.

    Reply
  6. JuliaM Avatar
    JuliaM

    …look at the population of elephants.
    Which are doing so well in some reserves they need to be periodically culled to preserve the habitat!

    Reply
  7. Serf Avatar
    Serf

    Actually Dom, Juliam is right, the Ivory ban has been very successful.
    However, that is only because the problem was caused by poaching, ie someone gaining the value without paying the cost.

    Reply
  8. mendip_native Avatar
    mendip_native

    “Tim adds: Worked bloody well for the Lions of Longleat didn’t it, Mendip laddie? Tiger cubs in the US cost $5,000 and up. There’re more there in captivity than in the wild.”
    Thanks to the psychedelic Lord of Bath, maybe. My point was that – generally speaking – the big cats are undergoing a mass extinction (i.e. a long term event). The rarer & notoriously shy species aren’t some kind of consumer-lead industry, unless you managed to get your economics and biology textbooks mixed up whilst you were at school. And for many endangered species, the twin assaults of poaching & habitat loss will never reflect these twee little market value debates: stuff gets wiped out, people move on…
    Tim adds: And if people can assign a cash value to the species in question, can see an income from it, then they’ll arm themselves to stop the poaching and preserve the habitat. When there is no value to these species, nothing coming in from preserving them, they won’t.
    The CAP pays farmers to allow lapwings to nest in fields. Same thing, assiging a value and a cash payment to lapwing nesting, providing an incentive for a farmer to allow them to nest.
    What’s so difficult to understand? When elephants come to eat your year’s crop and you get nothing back but the joy of seeing elephants, elephants are mysteriously going to meet with accidents. When elephants eat your veggies and some idiot foreigner comes and pays $10,000 to shoot one (or $500 to photograph one), then elephants are going to be welcomed into the kitchen garden. Which option means more elephants in the long term?

    Reply
  9. mendip_native Avatar
    mendip_native

    “What’s so difficult to understand?”
    The clue was in “long term mass extinction event.” Besides, since when has reproductive success (esp in big cats) simply been the outcome of an excel spreadsheet? It’s a bit more complicated than that. Carefully managed trophy shooting might do something for SA game reserves. But I doubt it will do much to help the snow leopard.

    Reply
  10. Nick (South Africa) Avatar
    Nick (South Africa)

    Carefully managed trophy shooting might do something for SA game reserves. But I doubt it will do much to help the snow leopard.
    Quite possibly. That’s more to do with environment and bad governance. Perhaps they should introduce the species to Lesotho and the mountains of the Western Cape.
    Hunting – for sport, trophies, meat and animal products, is a valuable aspect of conservation. Nobody sensible is saying it is some kind of silver bullet.
    Certainly in Southern Africa hunting is an important aspect of conservation. South Africa has more land under management as private game reserves – some used as hunting farms, at least in part – than in National Parks, and we have some fairly big parks. The Kruger National park is the size of Wales.
    I recently stayed at a farm half way between Cape Town and Johannesburg, in the semi desert of the Karoo. They run a guest house, have horses, running a stud, farm sheep and in Winter have springbok and gemsbok hunting. It’s part of their portfolio, part of what makes their farm viable….and why not?
    Indeed hunting should, to my mind, be utilised more as a revenue generator on state owned reserves. For instance – there are way, way too many elephants in Botswana – in Chobe and in the Tuli block and in parts of South Africa (culling has been re-introduced into the Kruger park).
    Uninformed bunny-hugging types get in the way of proper game management. Almost all knowledgeable conservationists support controlled commercial hunting as a valuable and effective part of conservation.
    Now I personally don’t care for trophy hunting, though I do shoot the occasional antelope for the pot. But then I don’t personally care for buggery. I don’t think either should be banned; though I strongly suspect that of the two activities, trophy hunting confers more environmental benefits.

    Reply
  11. Nick (South Africa) Avatar
    Nick (South Africa)

    Carefully managed trophy shooting might do something for SA game reserves. But I doubt it will do much to help the snow leopard.
    Quite possibly. That’s more to do with environment and bad governance. Perhaps they should introduce the species to Lesotho and the mountains of the Western Cape.
    Hunting – for sport, trophies, meat and animal products, is a valuable aspect of conservation. Nobody sensible is saying it is some kind of silver bullet.
    Certainly in Southern Africa hunting is an important aspect of conservation. South Africa has more land under management as private game reserves – some used as hunting farms, at least in part – than in National Parks, and we have some fairly big parks. The Kruger National park is the size of Wales.
    I recently stayed at a farm half way between Cape Town and Johannesburg, in the semi desert of the Karoo. They run a guest house, have horses, running a stud, farm sheep and in Winter have springbok and gemsbok hunting. It’s part of their portfolio, part of what makes their farm viable….and why not?
    Indeed hunting should, to my mind, be utilised more as a revenue generator on state owned reserves. For instance – there are way, way too many elephants in Botswana – in Chobe and in the Tuli block and in parts of South Africa (culling has been re-introduced into the Kruger park).
    Uninformed bunny-hugging types get in the way of proper game management. Almost all knowledgeable conservationists support controlled commercial hunting as a valuable and effective part of conservation.
    Now I personally don’t care for trophy hunting, though I do shoot the occasional antelope for the pot. But then I don’t personally care for buggery. I don’t think either should be banned; though I strongly suspect that of the two activities, trophy hunting confers more environmental benefits.

    Reply
  12. JuliaM Avatar
    JuliaM

    “Perhaps they should introduce the species to Lesotho and the mountains of the Western Cape….”
    I doubt the bunny huggers or real biologists would be happy with that. Too many risks introducing a species to a foreign habitat….

    Reply
  13. Tom Reynolds Avatar
    Tom Reynolds

    Cool, if I can pay £1million (still the current compo payment for male worker?) as long as that money goes to save two or more lives I should be allowed to do it?
    Sentimental I know, but perhaps economists shouldn’t be allowed into *every* aspect of the world.

    Reply

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