Home Truths and Opinions About Hunting

I would like to share a few home truths with the readers of TGA’s website, Facebook and Twitter platforms.  I must tell them that there are just as many people who love hunting (because it allows them to commune with nature as man did in years gone by; and to obtain meat uncontaminated with hormones and other medications) as there are people who abhor hunting (because they grew up in a modern and developed world that has detached them from the realities of nature).  This is not casting aspersions on anyone.  It is merely a fact of modern life.  Everyone is entitled to their own opinions about hunting but whether you are pro-hunting or anti-hunting you are NOT entitled to force your opinions on other people.  THAT IS WRONG.  It is also wrong that certain people in society find it necessary to constantly find fault with others – people whose beliefs and actions differ from their own.  I suppose that is what is called human nature!

This state of affairs is not new.  Teddy Roosevelt makes mention of it over a hundred years ago in America – when America’s wide open spaces were being used by America’s people in various ways, for recreation.  Hunting was one of those recreations.  And there were people, then, who objected to hunting.  Roosevelt told his people, however, that if it wasn’t for the hunter – who wanted to perpetuate the hunting opportunities that the hunters enjoyed at that time, for the enjoyment of people not then yet born – the “total protectionists” would long ago have rendered America’s big game animals extinct.  Nothing has changed.  The same situations pertain – except that there are now more “total protectionists” – also totally uninformed – than there are hunters; and their incredible lack of intelligent understanding is worse now than it was then.

I am not even going to try to answer all the objections that our animal rightist readers have made – towards hunting – but I have to comment on their unsolicited opinions that are so very far from the truth.  I will, by the end of this year, have spent 58 years of my life in the service of Africa’s wildlife and in managing some of Africa’s most prestigious national parks.  I have, therefore, devoted my entire life to Africa’s wildlife and I have no desire to abandon these services at this stage. My experience in this field is profound; and I am sure that most intelligent and responsible people will understand that – because of my background – I will NOT advocate any management strategy that is not beneficial to Africa’s wildlife resource in general.
I would like to ask the TGA’s detractors just what kind of comparable expertise they can “bring to the party” to substantiate their anti-hunting and anti-sustainable wildlife use rhetoric – but I wont.  I will save them that embarrassment. Suffice it to say that I support the regulated hunting of Africa’s wildlife on four conditions: (1) that the rate of off-take is sustainable; (2) that the hunting methods are acceptable (to the organisations that oversee hunting ethics); (3) that it does not detract from the well-being of the animal populations from which the animals were taken; and (4) that the benefits devolve to wildlife and/or to mankind.
So unless the TGA’s detractors can substantiate their qualifications to pass negative judgements on the science-based wildlife management practices that we support, I suggest that they reserve their opinions for other forums that will find their unqualified and emotion-charged remarks more acceptable. Tell us WHY we should sit up and take notice of your remarks!  Or we will ignore them!   On the other hand, if you would like to know why we consider OUR opinions to be justified, take the trouble to ask us for more information – and we will take the trouble to properly inform you.

Most of this information is located on our website – in “opinion papers” that carefully explain many of the subjects that are in dispute – here – at the moment.  And over the years we intend to built on this encyclopaedia as and when we have to time to expand on the subjects that the public want and need to be informed about.  One of these papers explains the TGA’s opinion about the animal rights doctrine.   And THAT paper will explain to the anti-anti-hunters just why our objectors are so mentally programmed to oppose our every utterance.