Anyone watch Trophy on CNN

bearkilr said:
I think you're of the erroneous assumption that just because a lion or leopard is hitting a bait, that in turn means he'll be there at a given time every night and all you have to do is show up. Nothing can be further from the truth, there is no more guarantee in a baited hunt than there is of the big whitetail people have been trying to pattern on their game cam coming into an alfalfa field.
Trappers kill beaver to use the meat for bait. Beaver pelts are pretty much worthless and likely not worth skinning, with many places actually having a bounty on them. Same idea, unless the life of a gazelle is somehow worth more than a beaver..
Click to expand...

I suppose their are people who shoot beaver and use them for bait as they can be a nuisance. I have done it myself but I also harvested the fur.
Many years ago when I trapped I even used the odd stray cat.
Everyone is different and has their own values but I don't consider this guy a Hunter and I don't know many people who would think that killing a couple dozen gazelle for bait so this guy kill a lion is OK
He is just somone with a lot of money who paid big bucks to shoot a lion.
Do you think it is OK to shoot a dozen whitetails to be used as bait?
 
Papaclaude said:
But I think the overall message of the film was that without "hunting", many species are doomed. If something has value, people will look after it. If it has no value, they won't. For people living in the huts and villages we saw, conservation and wildlife survival means crap. Their own survival is at stake. If an elephant eats or tramples their harvest, unless they can make up that loss by keeping that elephant alive, they will kill it. And if they can make $50 selling ivory, they'll do it, unless they can make $100 by not selling it. Ideals and principles to amount to much when you're starving.

These game ranches might be the only way to buy some of these species enough time to breed enough of them to re-introduce into the wild.
Click to expand...

yes, I agree with you Papa Claude and sorry about hijacking your thread.
 
old hound said:
I suppose their are people who shoot beaver and use them for bait as they can be a nuisance. I have done it myself but I also harvested the fur.
Many years ago when I trapped I even used the odd stray cat.
Everyone is different and has their own values but I don't consider this guy a Hunter and I don't know many people who would think that killing a couple dozen gazelle for bait so this guy kill a lion is OK
He is just somone with a lot of money who paid big bucks to shoot a lion.
Do you think it is OK to shoot a dozen whitetails to be used as bait?
Click to expand...

Sounds like you are more offended by his bank account than anything else.
 
Covey Ridge, your post (#14) was so ignorant that I have to reply.

The guy who owns the preserve and all the animals within it...the guy who has $16 million of white rhino horns stacked in a vault under armed protection happens to own 1200 rhinos which comprise 6% of the 20,000 white rhinos in the world. His private herd of animals continues to grow while the "wild" populations continue their decline. It's pretty clear the world doesn't want that many wild rhinos otherwise they would have larger populations, no? After all, wild rhino populations have declined from over 300,000 animals to 20,000 in less than a century. This gentleman is within his rights to have his own land and animals on the that land. If he chooses to have rhinos so be it, that's none of your concern.

If this guy disappears so do the 1200 rhinos, which under his management will grow every year if he's allowed to sell the horn (the ban to sell horn in South Africa was lifted). Now the guy can use the money from the sale of the horn to run the preserve as a business like every other business in this world that can sell a product for profit and re-invest into the business.

If you wanted, you could buy his rhinos and re-introduce them into the "wild" so poachers could shoot them. Or you could keep them behind a fence and protect your investment. Then you could harvest the horn every 2 years and sell it for $40,000 per pound on the world market and not have to kill any animals unless you wanted to.

While you talk about wild animals, remember that nothing that is wild will be safe outside of perhaps a few very large and inaccessible national parks that are heavily patrolled and managed under great expense using taxpayer money. This guy is doing it himself and much more effectively. Why deny a man the opportunity to do what he loves? Do you think you have the right to stop someone from deriving a living from the fruits of his labor? And if he didn't truly care about rhinos and saving the species from extinction why the hell do you think he would have sold his resorts in the first place to purchase his preserve and rhinos. It goes beyond the money...he has a genuine deep appreciation for the species. You can't understand that?

Is their anything else that you don't understand about wildlife management that I can explain for you?
 
Last edited:
What a funny day, I was finding myself almost agreeing with umchorn🤤. With one caveat, wildlife management is different than farmed species management. Do what you want with what is essentially livestock, but managing animals in the wild is a different dynamic altogether.
 
umchorn2 said:
Covey Ridge, your post (#14) was so ignorant that I have to reply.

The guy who owns the preserve and all the animals within it...the guy who has $16 million of white rhino horns stacked in a vault under armed protection happens to own 1200 rhinos which comprise 6% of the 20,000 white rhinos in the world. His private herd of animals continues to grow while the "wild" populations continue their decline. It's pretty clear the world doesn't want that many wild rhinos otherwise they would have larger populations, no? After all, wild rhino populations have declined from over 300,000 animals to 20,000 in less than a century. This gentleman is within his rights to have his own land and animals on the that land. If he chooses to have rhinos so be it, that's none of your concern.

If this guy disappears so do the 1200 rhinos, which under his management will grow every year if he's allowed to sell the horn (the ban to sell horn in South Africa was lifted). Now the guy can use the money from the sale of the horn to run the preserve as a business like every other business in this world that can sell a product for profit and re-invest into the business.

If you wanted, you could buy his rhinos and re-introduce them into the "wild" so poachers could shoot them. Or you could keep them behind a fence and protect your investment. Then you could harvest the horn every 2 years and sell it for $40,000 per pound on the world market and not have to kill any animals unless you wanted to.

While you talk about wild animals, remember that nothing that is wild will be safe outside of perhaps a few very large and inaccessible national parks that are heavily patrolled and managed under great expense using taxpayer money. This guy is doing it himself and much more effectively. Why deny a man the opportunity to do what he loves? Do you think you have the right to stop someone from deriving a living from the fruits of his labor? And if he didn't truly care about rhinos and saving the species from extinction why the hell do you think he would have sold his resorts in the first place to purchase his preserve and rhinos. It goes beyond the money...he has a genuine deep appreciation for the species. You can't understand that?

Is their anything else that you don't understand about wildlife management that I can explain for you?
Click to expand...

The old horn rancher is a businessman and I do not begrudge him that. Power to him for all the $$$$$$ he makes on the sale of horns but I in no way think anything he does in any way is somehow protecting wild life from extinction. He had turned his rhino into a herd of cattle for his own gain. None of what he has done has improved the lot of the wild rhino and none of what he has done has done anything to decrease poaching of wild rhino. His herd of rhino reminds me of the herds of elk that live behind fences here and serve no other purpose than high priced meat and antlers that are often harvested while still in the velvet. Ranched elk in this part of the world do nothing to help the wild populations and if anything introduce disease to the wild bred populations.l

Sorry that you think my post is ignorant but this documentary has done nothing to make me think game ranching has anything to do with wildlife management.;
 
Covey Ridge said:
The old horn rancher is a businessman and I do not begrudge him that. Power to him for all the $$$$$$ he makes on the sale of horns but I in no way think anything he does in any way is somehow protecting wild life from extinction. He had turned his rhino into a herd of cattle for his own gain. None of what he has done has improved the lot of the wild rhino and none of what he has done has done anything to decrease poaching of wild rhino. His herd of rhino reminds me of the herds of elk that live behind fences here and serve no other purpose than high priced meat and antlers that are often harvested while still in the velvet. Ranched elk in this part of the world do nothing to help the wild populations and if anything introduce disease to the wild bred populations.l

Sorry that you think my post is ignorant but this documentary has done nothing to make me think game ranching has anything to do with wildlife management.;
Click to expand...

You really should watch it again. The old man was trying to save his rhinos from being killed. What has he gained? Did you not see where he sold one of his businesses so that he could preserve the herd without having to let someone pay to kill one. He was not running a hunt farm.

Funny how his herd was increasing while the wild herd decreases.

His son even said that the day he dies the rhinos are on their own, likely to be poached.

You can be guaranteed that as long as he owns them none of his will be poached. It is not his responsibility to improve the lot of wild rhinos or stop poaching.

What have you done to help wild elk populations besides pay to kill one?
 
FGR said:
What a funny day, I was finding myself almost agreeing with umchorn��. With one caveat, wildlife management is different than farmed species management. Do what you want with what is essentially livestock, but managing animals in the wild is a different dynamic altogether.
Click to expand...

Which herds are better off, those managed privately or those managed by government?
 
old hound said:
Do you think it is OK to shoot a dozen whitetails to be used as bait?
Click to expand...

Well it's illegal here, but let's assume it were legal.

If someone was paying $50,000 to shoot some wolves that were decimating a local farmers cattle herd and the whitetail came out of an area that had a very high population, would it be OK then? The money in turn would be used to compensate the farmer for his losses.

The bottom line is that we can't compare our North American ethics, hunting style and wildlife management practices to South Africa.
 
skhunter said:
You really should watch it again. The old man was trying to save his rhinos from being killed. What has he gained? Did you not see where he sold one of his businesses so that he could preserve the herd without having to let someone pay to kill one. He was not running a hunt farm.

Funny how his herd was increasing while the wild herd decreases.

His son even said that the day he dies the rhinos are on their own, likely to be poached.

You can be guaranteed that as long as he owns them none of his will be poached. It is not his responsibility to improve the lot of wild rhinos or stop poaching.

What have you done to help wild elk populations besides pay to kill one?
Click to expand...

I get that the old rancher does not want his rhinos killed much like a cattle rancher or an elk rancher does not want his animals killed. That said what does either have to do with animals in the wild and especially trophy hunting? I did not see anything redeeming in this documentary. Whoever selected the hunters in this documentary did a great job, that is if the goal was to make hunters really look bad. Bible quoting and croc killing should have been left on the cutting room floor. Just my opinion, but the antis scored in this one and it was a shut out.
 
Covey Ridge said:
I get that the old rancher does not want his rhinos killed much like a cattle rancher or an elk rancher does not want his animals killed. That said what does either have to do with animals in the wild and especially trophy hunting? I did not see anything redeeming in this documentary. Whoever selected the hunters in this documentary did a great job, that is if the goal was to make hunters really look bad. Bible quoting and croc killing should have been left on the cutting room floor. Just my opinion, but the antis scored in this one and it was a shut out.
Click to expand...

You saw nothing redeeming because you let your own biases cloud your judgement from the beginning. It is obvious in your posts that you have a narrow view of what a "real hunter" and "real hunting" is.
 
Covey Ridge said:
I get that the old rancher does not want his rhinos killed much like a cattle rancher or an elk rancher does not want his animals killed. That said what does either have to do with animals in the wild and especially trophy hunting? I did not see anything redeeming in this documentary. Whoever selected the hunters in this documentary did a great job, that is if the goal was to make hunters really look bad. Bible quoting and croc killing should have been left on the cutting room floor. Just my opinion, but the antis scored in this one and it was a shut out.
Click to expand...

It might be just me, but I definitely did not get the impression that the film was anti-hunting. It seemed to show how it is important for hunting to keep the species from extinction. As far as the rhino's go - ideally, the wild is where they should be. However, without these breeding operations, I'm quite certain that by the time my grandkids become adults, rhinos will be a historical footnote like the dodo. It's been known for a generation that these animals are facing extinction. What have Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, PETA, etc. done to ensure their survival? ####. It's hunters that keep them alive. Here in Ontario, wild turkeys were extinct. Hunters paid to bring them back. Same with woodland elk - we now have a huntable population that is growing rapidly. Hunters have brought numerous migratory birds back to the point where they are now a nuisance.
 
Purple shoulder said:
Honest qestion for you umchorn. Was the guy with the crocodile hunting in your view?
Click to expand...

If you cast a fishing rod with bait into a lake that has been stocked with fingerling fish like walleye, perch and trout are you fishing?

Now if that lake was stocked by the government run hatchery is that more to your liking than a private citizen paying for the fry to stock his own lake in the middle of his 10,000 acres and charge people admission to fish?

Might not be your preferred method of hunting but would you feel better if you knew that no one else could get their animal like that because you felt it was immoral and you detested their method enough to outright ban it?

I'm 100% in support of private hunt preserves as I am 100% in support of provincial crown lands open to hunting by licensed citizens or non residents when game populations are large enough to sustain harvest of wild species in quantities that will not decrease game populations.

Are you??
 
Last edited:
FGR said:
What a funny day, I was finding myself almost agreeing with umchorn��. With one caveat, wildlife management is different than farmed species management. Do what you want with what is essentially livestock, but managing animals in the wild is a different dynamic altogether.
Click to expand...

Then let me preserve some animals of the "wild" species on my land and you can have all the access you want to their non existant wild animals on provincial crown lands in the coming decade. I will even return the animals back to the wild, I just need some sperm and eggs and I will start the herds myself and grow them using artificial insemination. Just make it legal and I will gladly preserve the wild genetics behind my fences.

Soon wildlife will only be in a museum and zoos to remind near sighted people like you of how foolish you were to believe society could ever commit to keeping wildlife safe on public lands for future generations. You must really have faith in your governments abilities to manage wildlife for tomorrow.
 
bearkilr said:
Well it's illegal here, but let's assume it were legal.

If someone was paying $50,000 to shoot some wolves that were decimating a local farmers cattle herd and the whitetail came out of an area that had a very high population, would it be OK then? The money in turn would be used to compensate the farmer for his losses.

The bottom line is that we can't compare our North American ethics, hunting style and wildlife management practices to South Africa.
Click to expand...

I understand your reasoning but my ethics would not change just because I went to Africa.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom