fabsroman
Trophy hunting of elephants is monitored very closely. Trade in wildlife is monitored by the CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species....) and they list the species in three appendices.......Appendix I, II and III. Look at I as being the most serious and III the least.
Just because an animal is listed doesn't actually mean that hunting should not be allowed. Some animals are listed because a particular species in a particular country is in trouble so all similar types are listed as well.
As an example......the African elephant. African elephants are listed in Appendix I....
EXCEPT elephants in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Namibia and Botswana, they are in Appendix II. Now to keep this in perspective you should know that
ALL bears are listed in Appendix II and all wolves are in Appendix II except for a few Asian countries where they are listed in Appendix I.
Now I have wolves and black bears on my ranch all the time and I think most hunters would agree that the black bear is anything but endangered in North America.........but they are listed to help with the monitoring of trade in bear parts from places like Asia and South America (sloth bear, spectacled bear etc.).
So, bottom line is that just because an animal is listed with CITES doesn't mean they are endangered everywhere.........
Now you are from the US............so the next thing that enters the elephant mess is the USFWS. They set importation quotas for legally taken sport trophies, including elephant. Although CITES factors into it.....the USFWS allows trophies to be imported from countries where the elephant is listed on Appendix II, but they also allow trophies from some countries where the elephants are listed on Appendix I as well. Examples would be Tanzania, Cameroon, Mozambique and Ethiopia. NOTE: the import permits are only for legally taken sport hunting trophies......not carved trinkets and bobbles.
Your USFWS studied the situation in each country.......animal populations, management programs, whether the taking of sport trophies would be beneficial to the overall picture and then either set an allowable quota for importation or turn the country down.
In a cash starved environment, such as is the situation in many African countries, the animals need to pay their own way and trophy hunting is a major source of funding for the game departments. Safari hunting also supplies cash and meat to rural people.
Not everything is as simple as watching a fund raising program from the World Wildlife Fund or Walt Disney. I say again......endangered is only relevant on a site specific basis.
Wolves may be endangered in Idaho, but they are hammering the heck out of the moose and caribou up north. Elephants may be endangered in the Sudan, but they certainly are not in Zimbabwe.
As I type this Zambia is negotiating with the US to allow importation of legally taken elephant. They need the cash that the harvesting of a few trophy bulls will generate to help fund their elephant management strategy. Elephant hunting has been closed in Zambia for a number of years.
I'm with OneShotBandit.........when I win the lottery the first thing I will do is book an elephant hunt. As pomoxis said, once you have been there and experienced what it is like in the African bush you would soon change your mind. I too have seen how difficult it can be to see an elephant in the thornbush, even at 30 yards. You need to look at the BIG picture........
