Trophy hunting remains a contentious subject amongst scientists, conservationists, and the public. Each side fervently defends its stance, but the underlying narrative pushed by trophy-hunting proponents urgently deserves close scrutiny.
We saw it most recently in August, after trophy-hunting critic and economist Ross Harvey wrote an op-ed criticizing the killing of five “super-tusker” elephants from Kenya’s Amboseli National Park. In response, wildlife conservation professor Amy Dickman criticized his assertions as “knee-jerk reactions” ranging from “misunderstanding to misinformation.” She asserted we should aim for alternatives to trophy-hunting bans (something Harvey has previously proposed) but her language suggests those opposed to trophy hunting are too quick to engage in rash calls to action.
This is where it becomes critical that we don’t accept the many rationalizations of trophy hunting at face value and examine each one.
Who Benefits?
Proponents often use the plight of local African communities to position trophy hunting as a contribution to social justice — usually poverty alleviation, a solution for human-wildlife conflict, and food provision.
“Valuable revenue” is often touted as trophy hunting’s primary contribution to both conservation and local communities. Quantifying these benefits is a tricky affair, however. A 2013 study by Economists at Large examined the contributions of hunting and found that on average only 3% of hunting operators’ revenue trickled down to communities. More recently, a 2022 report from Harvey’s organization Good Governance Africa found that only 9% of trophy-hunting revenue (or a paltry R1,530,000, about $86,000) from South Africa’s privately owned Associated Private Nature Reserves (APNR) was allocated to community outreach and low-income households — although where and how it was distributed remains unclear.
Corruption is another significant concern, further running the risk that revenue destined for community development doesn’t reach its intended recipients, according to Economists at Large.
The report goes on to quote a local village resident in Northern Tanzania who was interviewed for a paper by conservationist Hassanali Thomas Sachedina:
“We’re more closely allied with the photographic operators than the hunters. They are finishing off the wildlife before we’ve had a chance to realize a profit from it. Hunters don’t recognize us; they only recognize the government… 25% of hunting fees goes into the ‘hole’ at the district. We’re supposed to get 5%: we don’t even see that.”
Trophy hunting generates enormous revenue for hunting operators, with bull elephants fetching $20-40,000 depending on tusk weight. But as sustainable and ethical tourism researcher Mucha Mkono told me earlier this year, “the very underdeveloped status of many of the rural areas where hunting occurs tells us what we need to know. The benefits are not trickling down enough to make a real difference in the local communities. Whatever benefits there are, their scope fails to justify the ethical and environmental cost.”
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Local Communities and Local Decision-Making
The homogenous grouping of African communities in pro-trophy-hunting messaging is worryingly unsubstantiated and too often taken at face value.
Dickman refers to “local people, who legitimately choose trophy hunting” as a wildlife management strategy. The statement requires analysis on two fronts. First, we require empirical evidence of multiple local communities freely choosing trophy hunting before a generalized statement can be made. Second, the use of “legitimately” is questionable. A 2019 paper by Mkono suggests that African social media users, for example, perceive trophy hunting as a holdover of colonialism and a sign of politicians’ greed. Furthermore, decision-making on trophy hunting often takes place at the national level, outside the realm of local communities and without public participation.
Is there genuine participation by local stakeholders, or do governments and pro-hunting organizations speak on their behalf? To what degree are the carefully crafted narratives of pro-trophy hunting groups such as Safari Club International being taken at face value?
A 2023 paper by environmental anthropologist Sian Sullivan explores Safari Club International’s original objective of making Africa the “greatest hunting grounds in the world” for its elite members. SCI’s argument that hunting contributes to conservation was promoted by dismissing any opposition as ‘neocolonial,’ despite their deeply extractivist practices that continue to see thousands of African animals exported as trophies and trinkets to the United States and other primarily western countries. Such activities benefit only a few and exploit natural resources and local community members, who are paid minimum wages for precarious jobs. Jobs within the hunting industry are temporary and the field requires fewer staff compared to safari and photographic tourism lodges, according to a 2020 paper in the journal Tourism Geographies.
This leads to further discursive inconsistencies in the debate: The assertion that trophy hunting incentivizes local communities to coexist with wildlife cannot be reconciled with “legitimately” choosing trophy hunting if those living in close proximity to hunting areas are being incentivized (i.e., motivated or led to see something as attractive). A legitimate choice suggests something freely pursued, which does not appear to be the case.
We must be cautious of the use of “local communities” as a blanket justification for trophy-hunting if this is used in place of admitting vested interests. In a recent article, conservation writer Jared Kukura highlighted a concern that JAMMA, an international conservation organization, has a vested interest (in the region of $10 million) in pursuing trophy hunting in Mozambique and providing significant funding to organizations with explicit pro-trophy-hunting agendas, including Morally Contested Conservation, a trophy-hunting public relations initiative, and Resource Africa, a campaign against anti-hunting legislation.
The intricacies of the “local communities” angle being spun into a social justice argument require the most attention. If the community benefits are minimal, trophy hunting is perceived as a colonial pursuit, and genuine grassroots participation in decision-making is lacking, is the argument valid?
As Dickman stated, “rather than amping up international pressure, we should give local stakeholders space to discuss among themselves, respect their decisions, and focus far more on listening rather than lecturing.” I couldn’t agree more, but the voices of well-funded organizations continue to drown out those of the people whose welfare they’re claiming to protect.
Likewise, where are the voices of community members who do not agree with trophy-hunting practices and do not feel their purported benefits?
Without the immense funding poured into public relations, organizational vested interests, and political influence, would trophy hunting still be legitimately chosen by local stakeholders?
Ethics, Protocols, and Outright Disregard
Dickman suggests a potential “collaborative” solution to protect Kenya’s tuskers in which Amboseli elephant researchers share their data with hunting operators to call certain elephants off-limits to hunters. She “thinks” hunters would be open to this and “apparently” concerned operators have agreed not to touch Amboseli’s most famous bulls.
It is worth drawing attention to the multiple occasions in which trophy hunters and hunting operators have not acted ethically or in accordance with protocols or researchers. The very nature of trophy hunting is to pursue the most iconic animals for trophy purposes. Can we reliably assume that Amboseli’s most iconic elephants are therefore safe from hunters?
Cecil the lion is an example that garnered immense uproar. He was being studied by Oxford’s WildCRU researchers, who had affixed him with a visible and recognizable GPS-tracking collar, when he was baited and lured outside of Hwange National Park before being shot in 2015. The hunters brazenly removed and dumped his tracking collar before discarding his body. Not only was Theo Bronkhorst, the professional hunter, a member of the Safari Operators Association of Zimbabwe, but he acted against their own regulations in which lions should not be lured and baited outside of no-kill zones. (Note: Dickman became the executive director of WildCRU in 2022.)
According to a study in Biological Conservation cited in Africa Geographic, Cecil was not alone: 24 out of 62 tagged research lions were killed by trophy hunters in Zimbabwe between 1999 and 2004. Shockingly, 72% of the tagged Hwange male lions were killed for trophies and 30% of these lions were under the age of 4 years.
In 2018 two elephant hunts occurred in Balule Nature Reserve in which the professional hunting outfitters and their clients acted against established protocols. In one hunt, Balule admits to a “harrowing and traumatizing incident” in which an elephant was shot 13 times several hundred yards from a lodge, in view of the guests. An illegal hunt also took place in 2018 in which a collared elephant studied by Elephants Alive was shot under the guidance of a professional hunter and reserve warden.
Also in Maseke, a property within Balule Nature Reserve, a botched elephant hunt took place in which the animal was shot no less than eight times after fleeing onto a nonhunting property, followed by a helicopter chase back onto Maseke. Not only was this hunt grossly unethical, but according to HSI-International, it may have been illegal due to a court interdict.
And in the APNR, Skye the lion was hunted despite several concerns raised that he should not be targeted by trophy hunters. Skye was baited using buffalo and elephant carcasses also killed by the client.
Two things are striking here: First, the wasteful use of two carcasses to simply lure a lion as opposed to the oft-heard narrative of donating meat to those in need; second, wildlife contained within the Kruger National Park are “deemed public assets” according to the Protected Areas Act (2003). Baiting and luring this lion out of the park demonstrates gross neglect alongside the fact that the hunters did not take reasonable precautions to identify a lion who was agreed to be off limits.
Another lack of reasonable precaution can be seen in the trophy hunting of young male lions. “Aging errors,” when lions of key reproductive age are killed instead of older males, further exacerbate lion mortalities, according to a study in Nature.
And the trend continues: This October, another super tusker bull from Tanzania’s Serengeti was hunted and killed, despite “a mutual, informal agreement among stakeholders and hunters in the region that this elephant was off-limits for hunting,” according to a property owner interviewed by Africa Geographic. For many elephant conservationists and tourism operators in the region, this is simply another example of trophy-hunting greed overriding protection of East Africa’s dwindling super tuskers.
If Dickman’s collaborative approach to elephant hunting were implemented, what guarantee could be provided that hunting operators would act ethically and transparently in light of existing transgressions?
My goal here is not to engage in a “knee-jerk reaction” but to engage with the language and ideas of trophy-hunting proponents. With local communities and iconic African species being used to advance those narratives, critical consideration is the least we can give them.
Previously in The Revelator:
Lion-Hunting by Trump Donors Is Awful, But the Trade in Lion Bones Is Worse
