Opposition
In the 1970s and 1980s, people in many Western countries assumed a pejorative association regarding hunting for trophy.
Many of the 189 countries signatory to the 1992 Rio Accord have developed biodiversity action plans that discourage the hunting of protected species.
The League Against Cruel Sports has produced a report alleging trophy hunting does not have a positive effect on conservation. They suggest ecotourism can earn local communities as much as 15 times the amount of money earned by livestock, game-rearing or overseas hunting. Ecotourism increases the number of jobs and lengthens the time wildlife exists as an economic resource.
Trophy hunting opponents also cite the genetic health of species because hunters often try to kill large, healthy individuals instead of smaller, unhealthy and/or unattractive individuals. This indicates the animals that would pass on evolutionary-beneficial genes to their offspring are, in fact, the ones that become less likely to reproduce. Proponents of trophy hunting claim many hunting fees go toward conservation, such as portions of hunting license fees, hunting tags and ammunition taxes. In addition, private groups, such as the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which contributed more than $400,000 in 2005, and smaller private groups also contribute significant funds; for example, the Grand Slam Club Ovis has raised more than $2.8 million to date for the conservation of sheep.
Recent studies demonstrate that trophy hunting of lions is now the single largest contributor to the decline of the lion population on the African continent.
Read more about this topic: Trophy Hunting
Famous quotes containing the word opposition:
“A man with your experience in affairs must have seen cause to appreciate the futility of opposition to the moral sentiment. However feeble the sufferer and however great the oppressor, it is in the nature of things that the blow should recoil upon the aggressor. For God is in the sentiment, and it cannot be withstood.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The ancient bitter opposition to improved methods [of production] on the ancient theory that it more than temporarily deprives men of employment ... has no place in the gospel of American progress.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)
“To die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly. Death freely chosen, death at the right time, brightly and cheerfully accomplished amid children and witnesses: then a real farewell is still possible, as the one who is taking leave is still there; also a real estimate of what one has wished, drawing the sum of one’s life—all in opposition to the wretched and revolting comedy that Christianity has made of the hour of death.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)