The Greatest Living Englishman has an opinion on big-game trophy hunting:
People who hunt big game are evil…
That’s why Boris Johnson (remember him) received universal support in 2019 for pledging to end the practice of big-game hunters bringing back the severed heads of animals they’d shot in Africa.
I was so supportive, in fact, that I went outside and banged my frying pans together, like we used to do for the nurses.
Because I just cannot understand why anyone could go to Botswana to shoot a lion or a giraffe.
It simply doesn’t compute in my head.
Fear not, however, because:
…but here’s why they are necessary
Because as the House of Lords debated the ban on severed heads this week, six African governments wrote to The Times newspaper begging them to let the hunting continue.
And they have a point.
They argue the big, wild animals in Africa often attack villagers and trample crops.
They are seen as a nuisance and are often shot by farmers.
But if a rich white hunter arrives on the scene and is prepared to pay upwards of £20,000 to shoot an animal, it’s suddenly worth the farmer’s while to make sure he has something to shoot at.
So instead of killing the wildlife, he starts to protect it.
Because he’s going to get a LOT more money from Hank the Texan dentist than he is from half an acre of maize.
The fact is that the rich white hunters who do this kind of thing are actually paying for the animals to be protected and looked after beforehand by the locals.
They’re even reintroducing rhinos to areas they haven’t been seen in for decades. I know this. I’ve been to a park and witnessed it happening. And I’ve met the locals who patrol the area at night, hunting the poachers.
If hunting was banned, all that would stop.
So it’s a weird conclusion but if a halfwit with way more money than sense and no moral fibre at all wants to fly to Africa to shoot an elephant, the kindest thing we can do as a nation of animal lovers is . . . let him.