In a time when British children are better at identifying Pokémon than real species and the gulf that exists between children and the natural world has even been given the name nature-deficit disorder, anything that connects people with wildlife should be a good thing. There are reams of evidence that show time in green spaces, whether that is forests, mountains or closer to home in city parks, is good for our physical and mental health. In spite of that, and in the face of a sixth mass extinction caused by us, we have to careful that even activities that bring us closer to the natural world are not also speeding its decline. Technology, from photography to smartphone apps, is allowing us to experience nature in a myriad of new ways. Surely then, any leisure activity that involves killing an animal, even if it supposedly supports conservation, is an anachronism?
Egg collecting
There are a whole series of things that have been favourite pastimes of naturalists and children enamoured with the natural world and required the death of the species in question. One of the most widely-practised of these in the 19th century was egg collecting, or to use the name that seems to give it scientific legitimacy, oology. This was a respectable pursuit, and many oologists undoubtedly became experts in the biology and behaviour of birds. During the 20th century though, it became clearer and clearer that the sheer scale of the activity was helping to drive many species towards extinction. Egg collecting was made illegal in 1954 but people continued to do it. The controversial Jourdain Society, which provided a forum for collectors to exchange expertise, continued to meet and individuals were intermittently found with thousands of shells, including a collection of 5000 eggs that was discovered in May of this year.
Egg collecting provided many a young person with an outlet to explore a fascination with the natural world. The beauty of the eggs themselves combined with the sense of achievement that would come with learning to locate the nests, the rarer the species the better, is an intoxicating mix that allowed people to feel their connection to nature. Bill Oddie has said that he does not think that he would have become so interested in birds unless he collected eggs in his youth. Chris Packham has admitted to taking eggs from nests as a boy, although he quickly found more productive and less illegal channels for his curiosity. Despite this, egg collecting did untold damage to the species that collectors profess to love. After a 40-year absence from the UK, ospreys naturally recolonised Scotland in 1954. They gained a toe-hold, but not much more for twenty years, partly because egg collectors could not resist such a prize. There is an odd juxtaposition here between loving something, and being immensely interested in it, but expressing that in a way that inherently diminishes the thing itself.
Trophy hunting
This brings me around to trophy hunting. Now, what I am talking about here is trophy hunting, not conservation management that requires certain animals to be killed. Death is unavoidable in conservation and there will always be a need for professional hunters. Similar to egg collectors, there is no doubt that a lot of hunters have a great amount of knowledge about their species and the ecosystems that they hunt in and hunters often profess to love wildlife and animals. Although a multi-millionaire flying in from a foreign country to shoot an elephant hardly paints the same quaint picture of learning about nature as a child climbing a tree to find a nest.
It is argued that the trophy hunting of large species in Africa funds conservation. Hunts of iconic species are expensive and in countries like Zambia and Zimbabwe, a portion of the money is designated to go to conservation and community groups. But how true this is and much of this money actually reaches those people is debated. The other argument is that ‘if it pays it stays’. Keeping rhinos and other large animals is expensive. Part of the South African model of conservation states that if owners can’t realise the value of their animals through trophy hunting, then why should they pay to keep them? People argue that property rights and limited trophy hunting saved the southern white rhino and increased their numbers from less that 100 at one point to over 20,000 today.
Discussions about trophy hunting are difficult as they invoke strong emotion on both sides. I am not calling for hunting to be banned. It smacks of neo-colonialism for European countries to command what African and other developing countries can and cannot do with the wildlife that their people have to live with. Despite this, I think that we should be able to argue that species have a right to exist without the need to auction leases for hunting them. The end of egg collecting has shown how we can come to experience the natural world without having to kill something at the end. No matter how well hunters know their quarry, there are other ways of knowing animals that are no less valuable. As for the ‘if it pays it stays' argument, I’m not sure that successful conservation should be at the whim of a small community of rich hunters, and that large parts of Africa should only be accessible to those willing to fork out huge sums to shoot an elephant or a lion.
In an ideal world we would have intact ecosystems that could support sustainable hunting and other activities like egg collecting. But we don’t. The demand is too high and the populations of iconic species far too low. I find it frankly bizarre that someone can profess to love lions, then fly thousands of miles and spend thousands of dollars to shoot one. If you want your money to go to conservation, then give it to conservation. If you want the thrill of getting close to a big species, then hire a guide to take you on a walking safari. There are skills to learn and ways to feel achievement in nature that don't require a gun. And if for some reason an animal needs to be killed for conservation reasons, then it should be done by a professional not just some rich person who fancies being Teddy Roosevelt for a couple of days. The story of egg collecting shows we can move forwards and know nature without the death.