In Zimbabwe, forty elephants have been slaughtered. Not by trophy hunters using elegant and expensive rifles. The animals were poisoned with cyanide by poachers who were after the ivory. And, as Michael E. Miller of the Washington Post reports, Zimbabwe’s “environment minister Oppah Muchinguri, blamed the United States for Zimbabwe’s most recent poaching outbreak.”
Not, however, because Americans are doing the killing but, in a sense, because they are being prevented from doing it. Hunters pay extravagantly to hunt and kill trophy animals in Africa and their money helps fund the anti-poaching efforts which are almost military in character and, hence, expensive.
So:
“All this poaching is because of American policies,” [Muchinguri] said, apparently in reference to a 2014 U.S Fish & Wildlife Service ban on the import of elephant trophies from Zimbabwe. After the death of Cecil the lion, America’s three largest airlines also banned the transport of lion, leopard, elephant, rhino or buffalo killed by trophy hunters.
“They are banning sport hunting … An elephant would cost $120,000 in sport hunting but a tourist pays only $10 to view the same elephant.”
“They are banning sport hunting … An elephant would cost $120,000 in sport hunting but a tourist pays only $10 to view the same elephant.”
Thus:
… depriving the country of revenue to fight poaching.
