The Importance Of Trophy-Hunting In Africa

Trophy hunting of lions is a sensitive topic with controversial undertones due to the players involved. Most of the world’s lions can be found in Africa, and it is here that these hunting safaris take place. Large portions of the people that participate in these expeditions are American citizens, and the trophies are exported back to their home country. The African lion has not yet been placed on the endangered list on the US Fish and Wildlife Services (Flocken). There are various schools of thought on whether or not lion-hunting is counterproductive towards conservation efforts. The number of lions worldwide (especially in Africa) continues to dwindle each year. There is concern that trophy-hunting is an important contributing factor. There
This allows for a retrospective look at the issue and helps balance out the controversy. Some people are all for lion-hunting in the sense that it can help serve two purposes. For most African countries, revenue creation is a major problem, and tourism has for long been marked out as a primary income earner (Songorwa). In this sense, the hunting safaris bring in more revenue per person than the unit numbers when general wildlife tourism is considered. Lion-hunters have to get permits that allow them to hunt and pay extra remuneration to get the trophies back to their home countries. An example of lion-hunting in Tanzania shows just how much money is brought in by these hunters. The hunting is also regulated, and this allows for structured lion-hunting. In this sense, it becomes clearer that there may be merits since the lions hunted are mostly males with quotas being set (Songorwa). There is a greater danger from poachers who are illegal hunters as opposed to the legal and possibly helpful hunting from safari hunters. The claim is that this structured form of hunting helps eliminate threats to the pride as the lions to be hunted are marked out by the pride. However, this method is not foolproof and is prone to various loopholes which make it an unsuitable
The African lion has long been targeted in this respect. Although there may be convincing arguments that would speak in the favor of controlled lion-hunting, the loopholes pose too big a risk for it to be sustainable for the future of the animals. It is important to be indiscriminate in protecting wildlife with the African lion needing a lot of help so as to maintain its existence. It needs to come out strongly that hunting lions for sport is counterproductive and needs to be done away with for the long term improvement of the species from where it currently