Biology Reference
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chickens or anything like that, and I have no qualms about [farming], but it is the responsibility
of the hunter to behave in a way that is ethical and produces quick kills, not just blasting away
sort of independently injuring a lot of animals.”
Any thoughts about conservation and trophy animals and the role they play, and obviously
the provision of meat for the locals. For example, in Zimbabwe obviously you shoot
something, the locals get their meat and probably that is the most protein they get for many,
many months.
“I think in many areas of Africa it has become very, very clear that from an economic
standpoint for the people that live there, they benefit more by hunting than by turning that land
into cattle ranches. If they turn the land into cattle ranches they are competing on the world
market for beef with land that is not particularly well suited for growing cattle and it is clearly
of economic benefit for them to have that land dedicated to antelope, elephants and things that
people are willing to hunt; it just works out better from an economic standpoint. I believe that
recognition is why in many parts of Africa the hunting possibilities are greater at this point than
they were 25 or 30 years ago. The local population does benefit from it. We don't take any of
the meat back to America and the local population does benefit from that but also not just from
the meat but from the economic aspects of the fees that are paid to be able to hunt on the land.
That is a much more reliable source of income than trying to sell a bunch of beef on the world
beef market from an area that is not particularly well suited to grazing cattle.”
It is interesting that you make that comment because the story was, I never confirmed it, but
Botswana used to produce a lot of cattle for beef for McDonald's hamburgers. I don't know if
they still do but certainly in a lot of these Southern African countries now have found, as you
point out, it is much more economically beneficial to switch to growing wild animals and then
getting still the meat. About half of that meat goes into the jerky or biltong industry, which
tourists enjoy, and the local meat industry. Then you are also getting the trophy fees coming.
What about in the United States and the sort of breeding programs now for trophy animals.
Obviously we see these incredible elk, whitetails, mule deer now days being bred at a great
expense.
“That is a complex issue, I believe, from an ethical standpoint. People in some areas of
America have discovered that it is a better gig to raise white tail deer than it is to try and raise
cattle or whatever other crops they are going to raise. And certainly there are places in
Michigan, even in Ohio [and] Missouri and places like that where they raise white tail deer
and then people are allowed to hunt them. I would have to say that my own feeling about that is
that the high fence hunting where deer are confined even to a square mile or a couple of square
miles or something, it is just something that I, myself, am not interested in participating in. I
just don't think that is a good idea. In our area in Cleveland we don't have any fences and we
have a lot of pretty good looking deer around there. To me that is real hunting. They are not
specifically genetically bred to have particularly good horns; that is not something that I'm
really interested in. It is a continuum; I mean one may say that if you dedicate, for example, at
the Bramall Ranches with 700,000 acres to raising things and that is the same as having 1,000
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