9 January 2013
Nice to see hypocrisy alive & well.
People have been outraged recently by celebrities shooting elephants and lions, then having their photo taken with their trophies. (If you're at all squeamish, don't follow these links!)
In particular, the outrage has been reserved for Tony Makris - elephant; Melissa Bachman - lion; and R. Lee Ermey - two lions.
Among the outrage, I bet most of the outraged are meat-eaters themselves, and at least half of them will be pet dog or cat owners. I wonder if those people have ever seen the inside of an abattoir, or if they realise their pet eats meat from animals and how it gets into the can?
Let me make this 100% clear - eating meat for food kills animals, and there is no moral difference between killing an animal to eat or killing one for a photo. As there are numerous non-meat choices, nobody can really claim to need meat, but are they outraged by animals being killed for meat?
No chance.
The animals shot were not endangered, and in fact aid conservation by part of the cost of hunting them being diverted to preservation programs. In South Africa, where all of these hunts happened, neither lions nor elephants are endangered, and claiming killing them will endanger their survival is utter nonsense.
This is not something I'd do myself, as I like to hunt animals that aren't half-tame - as the ones the above were - but it makes me laugh at the ridiculous outpouring of rage from a bunch of idiots who have probably never hunted an animal in their lives.
If they were hunting genuinely endangered animals, it would be a problem, but while killing these animals is the worst form of sportsmanship known, it is not immoral in any way.
Copyright © Alan Charman