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A recent scientific paper by a group of pro-trophy hunting advocates alleges that trophy import restrictions proposed by the UK will harm wildlife.
We disagree and here’s why…..
The authors have been touting a scientific paper recently published in September to show that the UK should NOT impose any bans on trophy hunting imports. This paper, published in the journal Conservation Science and Practice was reported on by some UK journalists.
Generally, journalists hardly ever read scientific papers, instead relying on “press releases” via the authors.
In this paper the relevance to the “benefits” of trophy hunting are largely stated without any supporting evidence or wrong evidence from nations from which the UK imports none or hardly any trophies.
1. The paper claims that trophy hunting is beneficial. To support their claims, they largely rely on a sole published paper about wild sheep and some gazelles in Asia, totally irrelevant to trophy imports to the UK.
2. The authors then undermine their own premises. They state that “the UK ranked 25/183 of importing nations, importing <1% of the global trade in terms of number of trophies. They also noted that most of these trophies came from Canada and South Africa, the latter nation renowned for private wildlife ranches producing the vast majority of trophies and of course the reprehensible lion breeding scheme (canned lions for the hunt). Private ranches and lion breeding programmes do not contribute to the conservation of wild species.
3. The authors also say “The bill could also undermine conservation efforts that are supported by trophy hunting”. They state “Reduced funding could jeopardize law enforcement, anti-poaching efforts, and monitoring thereby increasing other threats to species and habitats. The bill could have negative, even devastating, impacts on Indigenous people and local communities who rely on such hunting for monetary and/or non-monetary benefits (e.g., meat and employment)”. They claim that the UK restrictions will set a precedent that other countries follow resulting in even greater harm to wildlife conservation efforts.
However, realistically, trophy hunting income basically benefits only the hunting operators. Trophy fees that accumulate to governments largely go to the central treasury, from which disbursements to conservation are not transparent. Benefits to communities have been shown to accumulate to local elites and not the average community member.
They then say that unless there is hunting, hunting areas could be turned over to agriculture and mining.
This has not happened in Zambia (40% hunting areas abandoned by operators for financial reasons – basically the commercially important wildlife already killed) and Tanzania (about 70% hunting areas abandoned). In fact, in Tanzania, the Selous Game Reserve, formerly an area that used to be a playground for trophy hunters, has now been designated as Nyerere National Park.
4. The authors do not mention that the UK import “ban” only covers endangered and vulnerable species. UK hunters could still travel the world to shoot species not covered by the proposed restrictions (think African buffalos, impalas, many species of gazelle, very many species of ducks and geese, some primates, etc). The proposed “ban” would only cover species considered by CITES and EU trade regulations to fall within a limited category of species that the UK hardly imports anyway.
5. The authors advocate a “smart” system to be instituted instead of a (partial) ban. A smart ban is defined as “incentivising” good practice, amplifying benefits of sustainable hunting, and encouraging reform of remaining bad practice. This “smart” model would largely mimic similar programmes already in place in the USA, but supervising agencies in the UK lack the necessary expertise and resources to implement such a model.
Conclusions
The authors overstate the consequences of UK trophy hunting import restrictions on communities, government conservation programmes, etc.
The supporting evidence they quote is dubious and inappropriate. The UK ban, by the authors’ own admission, only accounts for <1% of global trophy hunting imports and this reduction will hardly make a dent.
Their supposition that the UK ban would have a “domino” effect on other importing nations is presumptive and not backed by any facts.
The authors make no convincing case to challenge the proposed UK trophy hunting import restrictions.
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