South Africa Bans 'Canned' Hunting

South Africa's environment minister announced long-awaited restrictions on hunting Tuesday, declaring he was sickened by wealthy tourists shooting tame lions from the back of a truck and felling rhinos with a bow and arrow.

Dismissing threats of legal action by the hunting industry, Marthinus Van Schalkwyk said the new law would ban "canned" hunting of big predators and rhinos in small enclosures that offer them no means of escape.

In addition, lions bred in captivity would have to be released into the open for at least two years before they could be hunted.
Van Schalkwyk said a previously proposed six-month delay would not give lions enough time to develop self-defense instincts.

But it has become also become a choice destination for wealthy gun-toting tourists willing to pay more than $20,000 to take home a "trophy" lion or rhino's head.

The new law, which enters into force June 1, bans the hunting of animals that have been tranquilized.
It outlaws bows and arrows for big predators and thick skinned animals like rhinos - one of the practices singled out by Van Schalkwyk as particularly appalling.
And it bans the use of vehicles to chase the animal until it is too tired and terrified to flee for its life.

But conservationists said the law would be difficult to enforce and did not go far enough because it stopped short of an outright ban on intensive breeding of lions, leopards and other predators which often remove cubs from the mother at birth so the lioness mates more quickly, and often destroy female cubs as male lions fetch a higher trophy price.


SOURCE:news.Yahoo.com

I'm glad to see South Africa doing something about this.

In my opinion though, hunting of these animals should be completely
illegal, as there is no reason for it, and as it stands some species are
near the endangered list as it is.


Comments, Opinions?

[edit on 2/20/2007 by iori_komei]

Hi iori_komei,

Thank you for posting this article. Although I realized that people go on hunting safaris as a tourist attraction, I had no idea the animals were not wild, and were in enclosures! It sadden me to read how the "hunts" were carried out. And trying to bring down a thick skinned animal like a rhino with a bow is torture for that animal.

I cant even imagine how one might kill a rhino with just a bow and arrow. It would have to bleed to death from its wounds or from shock. Like I said it really hurts my heart to have read that.

I think it is an atrocity to take any animal without the intent to eat it. I can not stand people who "hunt for horns". I worked in construction and the head bricklayer was talking about going out west to "hunt". He came back and showed off his kill with a "nice rack". I said how much of it he ate, none. Turns out it was one of those game ranches with twelve foot fences up over a couple acres, you know the ones for people who can't hunt. I told him next time he wants a mount he could come out to my friends place and we would put a cow in a coral and let him "hunt it". Maybe even save him a few bucks and we could get the steak out of the deal. He didn't like that too much

Good. Canned hunting is both a deplorable waste of life and valuable rare animal stock, but shameful and weak. Just another ego-boost wealthy people can afford to give themselves.

If you enjoy killing animals for the thrill and the trophy, and don't use any other part of the animal nor need any of the animal to begin with, you should be mentally evaluated. Enjoying something elses death without provocation or reason is sick and shows a distinct lack of compassion.

Go jump off a cliff if you want a thrill and lots of blood spilled; you might even win a trophy! The Darwin award.

Isn't it better for people to hunt farm bred animals than to go out into the wild and hunt them?

[quoite]ballofpopulation
Canned hunting is both a deplorable waste of life and valuable rare animal stock, but shameful and weak. Just another ego-boost wealthy people can afford to give themselves.

But the animals killed in canned hunting wouldn't exist if it werent' for the hunting, they were born specifically for that purpose.

shizzle
He came back and showed off his kill with a "nice rack". I said how much of it he ate, none

I don't understand that. Venison is too good to pass up.

Presumably someone else, like the people that run the range, were the ones that collected the body, dressed it, and sold the meat, while giving him the rack.

And trying to bring down a thick skinned animal like a rhino with a bow is torture for that animal.

Indeed, I don't see how that can be seen as reasonable either. I think that in some places, even to hunt deer for example, you are not permited to use a bullet below a certain calibre, because it is considered inhuman, better to kill it instantly with one shot than to slowly shoot it to death.

Originally posted by Nygdan
Isn't it better for people to hunt farm bred animals than to go out into the wild and hunt them?

[quoite]ballofpopulation
Canned hunting is both a deplorable waste of life and valuable rare animal stock, but shameful and weak. Just another ego-boost wealthy people can afford to give themselves.

But the animals killed in canned hunting wouldn't exist if it werent' for the hunting, they were born specifically for that purpose.

Then its probably better that they don't exist in the first place. And these people probably wouldn't go into the wild shooting animals if they picked canned hunting in the first place, or fewer people would do it. They like canned hunting because its easy. They are guaranteed a kill.

Where do you think they get the breeding stock for the animals they let people kill? They don't grow on trees. They take them from the wild, or buy them from shady markets or outside exotic animal breeders that are notorious for cruelty, which helps keep these ventures in business.

I'm not against hunting, I'm against this kind of hunting. There is no sport in this, and lots of waste.