Trophy hunting has to be one of the most bizarre "fun" activities. How is ending a life fun?
What's actually bizarre is that the billions of modern humans who would find it sickening to kill any animal personally have no issue thoughtlessly living a lifestyle whose need for ever-expanding consumption of living space, energy, and other resources is directly contributing to a human-caused mass extinction.
People did not hunt tigers for "most of our evolutionary history". In fact, it's quite recent that people have hunted tigers at all, and even then it's more of an outlier than a standard practice.
Tigers are difficult and dangerous to hunt, and they're not healthy to eat regularly, nor is their meat particularly attractive (despite the named "tiger meat", which is actually raw beef).
Furthermore, contrary to mass media depictions, tigers rarely attack humans unless provoked, and they avoid human settlements as well. So even as a matter of safety and defense, hunting tigers is a rarity.
Until, of course, you start destroying large swaths of their habitat by mass-clearing old-growth rainforest in order to produce enough food to keep up with the usurious demands of a colonial occupier. At that point, yes, you do start to combat tigers more directly.
You're completely right that the desire to hunt a tiger isn't really logical or necessary, I'm just pointing out that it is not psychologically aberrant that some people (mostly men) would find it satisfying to do things like that as a thrill-seeking activity.
All this while the world is greening.
Most of the developed world too has declining birth rates.
So I would hardly call it an ever expanding consumption.
I was mostly reacting to the hypocrisy of the kind of Western liberal who would crucify a trophy hunter online, but who flies all over the world for vacation and buys Shein hauls to post on TikTok. The personal consumption choices of rich people are still driving a lot of environmental degradation. Hating hunters is more of a liberal tribal shibboleth than a meaningful way to have impact on global biodiversity.
I also agree with you on the individual level with increasingly larger cars etc..
It’s almost like there’s a difference between shooting something in the face, and pressing a button on my phone to make food appear outside my door.
Not saying there aren’t repugnant aspects of both, but one is quite a bit more visceral and direct.
Despite knowing this, we continue to behave in ways that run counter to a rational examination of the realities behind pushing that button.
And we default to focusing on factors like the visceral nature of the experience instead of the implications of the choice.
This is a pretty common default in our current culture, and so the bizarre-ness to me is more about our instincts to continue making the bad choice just because it's easier right now and we won't have to pay for the long term repercussions personally.
It's bizarre upon closer examination because it's a self-harming behavior that we collectively engage in, even if it can be explained mechanically in terms of evolutionary reward systems that are in need of an upgrade.
None of this is to excuse modern forms of hunting for sport, but we are predators, and only our continued evolution of consciousness/culture will move us beyond that. That predatory behavior continues to exist is not surprising, nor is our tendency to overuse food delivery services.
And I am not sure the behaviors are so much collective + self-harming as they are individual + collective-harming. Like you said: I don’t have to pay for the long-term repercussions personally.
I feel like this comment is drifting into gross pedantry, but I am really not trying to argue semantics. Just wanted to underscore that we might not be meeting people where they are (which is probably important if we want to change their disposition)
> And I am not sure the behaviors are so much collective + self-harming as they are individual + collective-harming.
I would argue that the behaviors are both. One gives rise to the other, and the other reinforces the former.
They are collective + self-harming because the collective behavior lulls the individual into a sense of "I don't need to think about this either". The end result is an action taken without an understanding of the consequences, even if those consequences may eventually kill me.
They are self-harming + collective because the individual who is aware of the impact but chooses to engage in it anyway is now doing so in spite of the knowledge. And that stance is also exported to the collective - "The people who have thought about this are still charging ahead anyway, so I might as well".
> we might not be meeting people where they are (which is probably important if we want to change their disposition)
Meeting people where they are is something that I care about, and I think it's a good mindset to apply to issues like this. With that said, it's not clear to me which aspects of the conversation here aren't meeting people where they are, and how the semantic distinction (if it exists) clears that up.
How can we repackage this more clearly to meet people where they are?
Couldn't the same said about eating meat with every meal in the west or going to a steakhouse for 'fun'.
It's odd to be in the position of defending trophy hunters, so that's not what I'll do. There are many defensible types of hunting, but hunting rare or endangered animals for nothing else but a trophy is ethically indefensible. However, for people who do that, I imagine it's not the ending of the life that's fun, it's the challenge, and especially the bragging rights it gives them afterwards. Just a guess though.
While I agree with this, I find it hard to digest that some people find even the challenge "fun" when it necessarily involves ending a life.
While some areas that allow trophy hunting charge steep fees that help conservation, I can't see that I've ever seen an accounting of it being at sustainable levels. And the proof is in the pudding, where in Africa, rhinos, elephants, giraffes, cheetahs, and many more are declining rapidly.
I'd say that if someone really wants to hunt, they should not be selling licenses to hunt game, but to hunt poachers, something that can fight back (policies are already shoot on sight in many areas). Donate, get deputized, go hunting. We only have a few years before many key species are gone forever.
It's really a question of the extent to which humans get bothered when prey populations get too big and then they leave the preserve and start getting hit by cars. Or too many wolves and they start killing farmers' sheep. Culling helps avoid the wild swings in population.
I'd also point out that even with populations that are not in good shape (threatened or declining), selling super expensive hunting licenses can still make sense. If $50,000 = +3 rhinos, let the hunter kill the rhino. Of course there are perverse incentives and all sorts of practical difficulties, but I just want to make the point that it's possible for that sort of thing to be in the best interests of the species being conserved.
Part of the problem is that the [-1 rhino] is a guaranteed figure, and may increase, but [+3 rhino] is speculative, requiring many steps that may go wrong, from mating, fertilization, gestation, birthing, survival to adulthood; bird in the hand vs bird in the bush. It may turn out that the number is more like $1.5 million for a license than $50k, which already seems outrageous.
I also have close family who work directly with African wildlife foundations and although I've heard much discussion of solutions, I've never heard any mention of this as being viable.
Everyone's different.
Luckily, a very small percentage of the population is big game hunters...
The vast majority of westerners aren't vegetarian.
Even before modern guns, you read about hunting parties - which would be dozens, even hundreds of men - ganging up on a solitary animal and wonder how was that ever equated with bravery.