There are few areas of human endeavour more disturbing than so called Sports Hunting - the euphemistic misnomer for the expanding business of Killing for Fun. The destruction of wild and caged animals perpetrated deceitfully as sports by one class of people and allowed for reward by another represents a prodigality and wastefulness which even the lowest savages would find inexcusable.
It is as wrong for a minority of sociopaths to be allowed to openly pursue this deviant blood lust as it is for those agencies rewarded for licensing the kill for fun business. It has no more to do with conservation than licensing pedophiles expensive opportunities in an orphanage would benefit children.
On the surface, at the heart of any ethical and moral consideration governing human conduct, those who kill defenceless animals for no higher purpose than their own amusement, trophy's for vanity and thrill of the kill, are wrong and in the absence of any conscientious epiphany connecting them to humanity, should be stopped in their killing tracks by law.
The most confusing part of this arrangement between man, appetite, ethics, conscience and dominion over the animals is that there is any debate at all.
Consider the photos. The ubiquitous Internet spread photos of Kill-for-fun glorious triumph arising from the need to show off the trophy. Anyone looking at one of these pictures of a fashionably dressed killer, rifle in hand, sporting a broad grin while they lean over the bloodied carcass of a 500 pound Black Mane Lion they have just shot in a cage, cannot fail to be drawn into the ethical position of what is going on.
These pictures offend on two levels. The morality of the subjects - proudly displaying something that is to the reasoned eye akin to watching a rapist show a video of his proud moment - and as they have become so very widely seen by so many, they serve an important role in glamorizing killing. Many who see these pictures without awareness of what is going on - see a proud winner - a beaming, victorious, triumphant mans-man - killing for glory. And the thought that killing is a splendid idea, the behaviour of champions and something worth emulating - takes hold.
The real name for Trophy Hunting is Killing-for-fun and it is a walk of shame for its participants. There is no possible avenue of debate that diminishes the value of life sufficiently to outweigh this reality. It is deviant behaviour giving rise to consequences.
Killing-for-fun is a terminology that leaves no room for confusion in the business of how we consider the moral and ethical issues arising from killing animals. Abattoirs feeding beef into the food chain, farmers killing animals for the community pot, conservationists needing to cull for balance, or survivalists needing to protect the home tent from Grizzly bear attack, all present a case for the killing of animals and all exclude the element of fun. Where there is a trophy involved - where there is no motivation greater than the entertainment element, the thrill of killing - it becomes Killing-For-Fun and it is this practice and this conduct that must be identified in law.
Killing-For-Fun is legal in those Countries where it is most prevalent, and especially in America, not only is killing for fun celebrated as a legitimate sporting activity, it is actively encouraged and promoted to many young people in a manner that reinforces the practice as a traditional right. Almost 5% of Americans kill animals for fun. All Americans who hunt, killing-for-fun, are by definition, ignorant malevolent human turds - like big time hunters Dick Cheney, Paul Ryan, Sarah Palin and Ted Nugent. (Turd Nugent?).
After 4 years of legal wrangling over canned hunting of lions in South Africa, on Monday, 29 November, 2010 the Supreme Court of Appeal in South Africa ruled in favour of the lion breeders. Canned hunting continues to be legal in South Africa. I can find no record of any legal challenge to the ANC over any Kill-for-Fun issue.
It is open season in South Africa a country with a long established tradition in legalizing Kill-for-Fun hunting going back to the period shortly after the arrival of the British in 1820. The San peoples, subsistence hunter gatherers known today as the Khomani San, were indigenous to the area. Unaware of the concept of property and theft they found the British farmers produce irresistible and helped themselves. The solution was to reclassify the San as vermin and undertake Kill-for-Fun hunting parties. And so a tradition was born.
Killing-For-Fun is a multi-billion dollar per year industry and like any sinister commercially motivated social arrangement based on the obviously wrong; like the Slave trade, like the Tobacco industry, Killing-For-Fun relies on a propaganda drive to sustain it for as long as possible after the critical mass of popular awareness reaches its tipping point. It starts with the name 'Sport Hunting.' Could anything be less sporting than a high powered telescopically sighted distant bullet felling a sedentary caged animal whose sporting participation is to do no more than die.
That tipping point for this gratuitous killing of animals for fun is now. Those involved in this odious industry will not stop pursuing the growth and expansion of their business model without a change in the law. And that change can only come from you and your voice.
Every man is guilty of the good he did not do. ~ Voltaire
Imagine that you are a human being and that you have a voice and your voice is your vote and your time to vote is now. Either you condone Killing for fun or you don’t. It couldn't be simpler. You can stop the practice of Killing-for-fun with your vote at the next election. You could write to your representative and express your concerns, but really, all you have to do is make a decision. Is it right or wrong that Killing for fun is legal. Is it acceptable that pro killing lobbyists - like role model Olympians - should be allowed to openly promote Killing for fun?
Killing-For-Fun has two main areas of supply and demand. The demand lies mostly in America where children are raised to view hunting animals as a right of passage.
“Johny killed his first bear when he was 11. Took him don clean with a throat shot and then finished him with one to the head.” Little Johny glows with pride as Dad recalls his manly moment to beaming granny, who nods knowingly.
In 2001, in the USA over thirteen million hunters averaged eighteen days hunting, and spent over $20.5 billion on their sport. Thanks to the promotional efforts by celebrity killers of big game like US Olympic athlete Corey Cogdell, this number is growing.
And the richest supply area for this demand is Africa and especially South Africa. Organisations like the sinister ‘Hunting Legends’ who offer their 'outfitting services' to hunt anything that moves and design their website to attract visitors to opportunities like ‘Come hunt the big Five’ or ‘Special offer – Male and Female Lion pair at below market value rates.’
They set a ‘Market Value’ for the life of each species. Obviously the more endangered the item, the higher the price. For the big game hunter - the more endangered the animal is, the better the fun. Imagine the thrill of killing an animal so rare, you might be the last lucky person to pop a cap in that ass.
The providers of the kill-for-fun opportunities in Africa are authorised to kill in this way by Government Authority. In South Africa, one of the leading markets for big game kill for fun opportunity, the ANC Government have taken a view on policy regarding animal conservation and decided not to interfere with the Kill-for-fun market. A business generating hundreds of millions of rands each year, enabling companies like 'Africa Hunt' to advertise - 'The Limpopo Province of South Africa is the premier destination in the World to hunt the Giraffe. Year round, we offer hunts for awesome Trophy Giraffe. There are no seasonal restrictions on hunting the Giraffe in South Africa, which makes it a suitable trophy year round.'
Should your thrill requirements extend to a whole family of Giraffe, just say. For a small surcharge, with thanks to the ANC Government making South Africa the world leader in this fun, you can elect to take the whole family in the same shoot. Mum, dad and baby Gerald, for that little extra zing.
The South African Kill-for-fun operators have been so successful in this market place that the local source of Lions for Lion kill safaris has exhausted supplies to the extent that Lions from European Zoo's are shipped in to boost local business. This includes canned hunting. Where the animals are confined to a fenced in area, making them easy to locate and kill. Essentially - it is a cage where the hunter can safely stay on the outside whilst being guaranteed of finding the prey easily. Often the prey is hand reared and semi-tame. Canned hunting is extremely popular in America, where 'Born Free' estimates more than 1,000 canned hunting operations trade, while nearly 54,000 animals were killed in 2004 in South African canned hunts. The client base of African Hunts is almost entirely from: USA, Britain, Spain, France and Germany.
At this time South Africa's government have no reviews of the kill-for-fun laws. It remains open season. Apply for a concession. Pay the tax and you too can set up a lucrative business selling kill for fun opportunities like Hippo, Crocodile, families of Giraffe, entire Lion Prides, Baboon, every form of Buck, Warthogs, Hyena, Zebra. Even donkeys. It is only a matter of time before some enterprising trader sees the value in offering big dogs to the market. Or is it.
The African Big Dog Hunting safari.
'Come hunt Africa's big five dogs - Alsatian, Doberman, Bull Mastiff, Rottweiler and Great Dane.'
The Wives don't have to be left out. For the ladies we provide light guage shotguns for the mini poodle shoot. They can shoot mini poodles fed in on a conveyer belt, until they have enough of the kill thrill.
The law will not change without voter pressure. Imagine if you cancelled your next South African holiday until the Government outlawed all forms of 'Kill-for Fun' animal slaughter. The ANC enable kill-for-fun. Why not tell your travel agent the reason you are not supporting tourism to South Africa. If the fall off in tourism dollars exceeded the revenues from the sale of kill-for-fun business, the law would change.
Times change and as they change so our relationship with morality shifts, sometimes towards the higher good. Only a few hundred years ago slave traders presented humans at market for good Christian buyers to negotiate their ownership. At that time many would have looked on in horror, disbelieving that conduct so obviously at odds with the notion of acceptable human behaviour existed at all, let alone be allowed to continue. But continue it did, with many voices raised in its defense, all of which had one thing in common. In some way they profited from slavery, be it through cheap cotton picking labour or through domestic help in the kitchen or through Christian Southern Daddy ordering the maid to bend over and submit sexually.
Killing-For-Fun is a lot like slavery, in both the analogy and in practice. Just as arguments were raised in defense of slavery, the pro fun-killing lobby have their various arguments by which they defend their right to continue their tradition. Appropriate in this context, as all English students of Political History will recall, are the immortal words of Mandy Rice-Davies in the Profumo trial when presented with his fallacious denial. ‘Well he would, wouldn’t he.’
The pro fun-killing lobby argument is based on no more than that. They will say what ever they need to say to fly in the face of what is blindingly obvious. Killing for fun is not only wrong. It is unacceptable in the same way that old men having sex with 9 year old's is unacceptable. Those who practice Killing-For-Fun are not defending some constitutional right, or as is often presented as their justification - supporting conservation. They are killing-for-fun. An offense against nature that normalizes a behavioral pattern that says ‘Killing for fun is OK.’
I wonder if there is any credible argument refuting the connection between America’s world leading position in fielding serial killers hunting humans and the popularity of Killing-For-Fun. I doubt it.
Those suppliers in the commerce in that drives this bloody business interest in Africa, the game farm operators, farmer owners of large tracts who see thrill kill licenses as lucrative revenue generators which they present as a conservation opportunity, and their accomplices in Government, both rely rely on one thing for their business model. Your silence. Or, your unawareness of what it is they are doing that keeps you from having an opinion.
The presentation of the conservation argument - Kill-for-fun benefits conservation efforts - is like the Pedophile orphanage argument. Lets charge Pedophiles to play in the orphanage because it will raise lots of money to help the poor orphans. We could set a market rate. Two years old's at a real premium.
The most successful of Africa's Kill-for-fun operators are connected to Government offices and the amounts involved reflect the popularity of their product in Americas wealthy kill-for-fun market.
Then there’s the growing crop of South African brokers of kill-for-fun opportunity. Groups like Hunting Legends, where, for a fee you can be driven to a safe spot close to where Hippos graze, sight up a hippo through your telescopic scope and blast his brains out before being led to the carcass for a photo opportunity.
Big crocodiles are another popular draw. And for those American clients looking to relive the glories of a good southern lynching, no longer available to a wealthy American gentleman, for an add on fee you can have the next best thing. The South African Rangers will hang your crocodile from a tree for your photo opp. So advanced is this practice that the post kill photo opportunity with the slaughtered animal includes a set of standard positional poses for the carcass. Consider the challenge with a giraffe. Where would you put the neck for maximum photographic effect? Its hard work being a kill-for-fun entrepreneur with the ANC program.
The organisations supposed to be defending the rights of the animals are themselves seemingly as corrupt as Interpol with is former employees relationships with fraud. Spain's WWF Honorary president, until very recently, was King Juan Carlos, a man who at 18 shot his 14 year old brother, Alfonso, in the face and still went on to become a brilliant big game Hunter. His exploits include bringing down 4 year old domestically raised Russian Zoo Bear, Mitrofan, who was fed Vodka and released from his cage into the Forest to provide keen King Carlos with a target. Only after hurting himself on a Hunting trip in Botswana where he was killing elephants did it become untenable for the WWF to pretend that they were anything more than a distraction to those interested in animal protection.
Like the slaves, who had no voice for themselves, and who suffered and died only because a dumbed down majority said nothing, animals die for exactly the same reason today. Kill-for-fun industry can only continue with your approval. If you say no - to the practice and to the people practicing it you will become the voice of those animals. They do not want to be gunned down for fun. And they are not in any way a part of some conservation drive. They are simply victims of an ignorant vanity, into which successive generations are groomed to support the industry arising from the fun to be found in killing. The kill thrill.All you need to do to play your part is to demand an end to Killing-for-Fun. It is not a legitimate sport any more than whipping slaves or raping maidens ever was.
Killing for fun is wrong. It is indefensible on any level and it should be outlawed.
Facebook pics are here. And my song KILL FOR FUN is HERE
