2 April 24, 2022The Sunday Times
Travel
BIG
SHOT
CALM THE WATERS
Congratulations
to Stephen Bell,
whose shot of Aber
Falls in north Wales
is this week’s
winner of our Big
Shot competition,
in association with
the adventure
cruise specialist
Hurtigruten
Expeditions
(020 3553 9842,
hurtigruten.co.uk).
He receives a
£250 John Lewis
voucher and makes
the shortlist for the
main prizes, which
include a northern
lights expedition
cruise. Upload
shots at
thesundaytimes.
co.uk/thebigshot
or enter on
Instagram: tag us
@TimesTravel and
use the hashtag
#STBigShotTerms & conditions This
week’s competition closes at
11.59pm on Wednesday. UK &
ROI residents aged 18+ only.
Full T&Cs apply: see
thesundaytimes.co.uk/
travelphotocompTravel
T
LETTER OF THE WEEK
We returned from a
fantastic Costa Rica trip on
March 1, 2020, little knowing it
would be our last foreign holiday for over
two years, but it was certainly one to
remember (“Fulfil your wildlife wish list
on a budget”, last week). We stayed at an
eco-lodge on the Atlantic coast (we
spotted our first sloth en route), saw
stunning volcano views in the Arenalarea, visited the Monteverde cloud forest
(I really enjoyed the zip wires and the
hummingbirds) and finished on the
Pacific coast quite close to Tamarindo.
Costa Rica is a lovely, friendly, eco-
conscious country, justifiably proud of its
natural heritage and delighted to welcome
people to appreciate it. Pura vida!
BrownGirl, via thetimes.co.ukSHOW OF SUPPORT
I was in Tbilisi and the ski resort
Gudauri last week and, yes, Ukrainian
flags and signs were everywhere
(“Postcard from Tbilisi”, last week).
On hearing that my ski instructor was
Ukrainian, we kept getting offered freeO
ur Sunday-night diet of
Attenborough documentaries and
anthropomorphic personality
pieces such as Cheetah Family & Me feeds
a binary vision of a world in which wildlife
is always good and men with guns are
always bad.
But for so-called charismatic megafauna
such as elephant, lion and rhinoceros,
there is no wild life. In most of Africa’s
7,800 terrestrial protected areas (PAs),
such species exist only because humanity
allows them to do so. The law of this jungle
is simple: if it pays, it stays.
If you’re watching wildebeest in the
Mara, buffalo in the Selinda, or one of the
202 remaining black rhinos in the Kruger,Enchanted by
Costa Rica
you’re looking at a managed inventory of
living assets. Trophy hunting, while
repugnant to many, has a microscopic
effect on populations: the 83 elephant
permits issued by Botswana in 2021
represent, at the most generous estimate,
0.06 per cent of the national herd, but the
benefits to communities are immense.
Their share of the $50,000 paid by the
tourist who shot that old bull elephant will
fund schools, water and clinics.
As for allegations that trophy hunting
drives species to extinction, a
continuing study led by Professor
Amy Dickman at the
University of Oxford shows
it does not. The real threat
is habitat loss.
Researchers estimate
that by 2050 the world
will need 26 per cent more
cropland to feed a
population of 9.7 billion.
With the greatest population
increase in Africa, encroachment
from humanity on those 7,800 PAs is
inevitable. The pressure to degazette
national parks and reserves where the
wildlife can’t pay its way will be
compounded by shrinking tax and
philanthropic funding.
Love them or hate them, private
hunting concessions are a critical
component in habitat conservation. In
South Africa they comprise nearly 17 per
cent of the entire land area. In Namibia
it’s 20 per cent. It is, therefore, a
somewhat colonialist assumption that
wildlife exists for the exclusive benefit of
camera-toting tourists. Our western
outrage is irrelevant to the family seeing
an ageing, toothless bull elephant destroy
the annual crop in one night, as I’ve seen
in Zambia; tear out irrigation, as I’ve seen
in Zimbabwe; and even kill their granny,
as I’ve seen in Botswana.
Now, however, encouraged by
campaigning celebs, governments in the
UK and EU are planning outright bans on
the import of hunting trophies. Dr
Rodgers Lubilo, chairman of the Zambia
Community Based Natural Resources
Management Forum, says that would be a
mistake. “Without hunting revenues
poverty will increase. People will be
forced to start poaching or return to
agriculture, destroying habitats and
wildlife.”
If you’re still upset by the death of that
elephant, console yourself that your
anguish is nothing compared to that
coming the way of that tourist who pulled
the trigger. When his name is leaked on
social media, he’s going to find it’s a
jungle out there.IS IT TIME TO KILL OFF
TROPHY HUNTING?
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times.co.uk/travel
chacha (the local version of grappa),
which really “oiled our knees” for the last
runs of the day. Georgia is a beautiful
country with great people, good food and
red wine. It’s very cheap by European
standards — I thoroughly recommend it
for a visit, winter or summer.
Brian Wilkie, via thetimes.co.ukOFF THE BEATEN PARTH
We go to Athens every year (“Athens
in the spring time”, last week). Madrid
and Rome have become too squeaky
clean. Athens still has that grungy,
chaotic feel that makes everything a bit
more exciting.
Propdevel, via thetimes.co.ukPUT TO THE TEST
We went to Bermuda and after a
negative test on arrival my day-four PCR
test was positive (“Banged up in
paradise”, online, last week). I had no
symptoms and was told to stay in my hotel
room for ten days. My own lateral flow test
was negative, so we arranged a private
PCR test, which was also negative. After
five days we managed to escape back to
the UK thanks to BA accepting my private
test. Quarantine meant no cleaning and
food left outside the hotel room door in
cardboard boxes. My husband was moved
to another room that we had to pay for.
Definitely a risk not worth taking again.
Susan Noble, via thetimes.co.ukYOUR
VIEWSA
dvocates of trophy hunting like to
argue that the income is vital for
conservation. Yet an image of a
gurning businessman with his foot on a
prostrate elephant sends a message so
anti-conservation it could practically serve
as a logo. Optics matter, as those posting
their trophy shots understand; it’s not
important whether they’re a great hunter,
just that they look like one. And the
exploitative, neocolonialist overtones in
this objectionable practice — like the
carcass of an inexpertly killed creature
lying in the African sun — positively reek.
Trophy hunting is justified as a revenue-
raiser, but it can also be economically
destructive, snuffing out its more
palatable, sustainable alternative: photo
tourism. There were renewed calls for
boycotts of Botswana by those sickened by
the sight of the slaughtered tusker. The
same happened in Zimbabwe in 2015
when Cecil the lion, a totem of tourism,
was shot by a dentist with a glorified bow
and arrow. As one Times commenter put
it last week: “I’m now considering
cancelling a £12,000 holiday to Botswana.
Maybe the government can put that in
their business case.”
We hear that trophy hunting isn’t
driving any species to extinction, like
that’s a benchmark to aspire to. Or, from
the hunters themselves — soppy altruists
that they are — that their funds are doing
good for local communities. So why not
pay that community $50,000, shoot the
beast with a camera and let it go on its way
luring and enthralling countless others?
Dr Keith Lindsay, a conservation
biologist who has studied wild elephants
in Africa since the late 1970s, says the
argument that trophy hunting funds local
communities is flawed. “A relatively small
amount gets down to that level,” he said.
“Eco-tourism employs a lot more people.”
Trophy hunting, in which the client
keeps a prized part of the animal, helps
the fight against poaching, we’re told — the
magnificently warped logic that killing at-
risk creatures for their tusks helps stop the
practice of killing at-risk creatures for
their tusks. Far better, surely, to fund
antipoaching from genuine conservation —
to tempt to Africa those with a desire to
protect rather than destroy.
And what of the animals themselves?
Elephants are the most sentient of
creatures. They show empathy, they
grieve. They also trample and destroy and
sometimes kill. I get that. But the answer is
to manage human-elephant conflict, not
take out individuals that are often
miles from pinch points.
Trophy hunting treats
animals like commodities;
cars to be scrapped rather
than repaired. But
contrary to one argument
for trophy hunting, the
plight isn’t reserved for
ageing creatures: toothless
geriatrics doddering around
the plains. Permits rarely
relate to specific animals, giving
those who facilitate the hunt freedom
to select. They go for the biggest beasts,
with the biggest trophies — even though
males go on growing, competing, siring
throughout their lives — distorting the
gene pool. “There is no such thing as an
over-the-hill male elephant,” said Lindsay.
Those who criticise trophy hunting are
accused of not understanding the nuance,
of proselytising from afar. So let me end
with the words of my expert guide — 25
years in the bush — in the Kruger this
month, where we spent an enthralling
half-hour with a dozen elephants who
slurped, munched and mud-bathed
around us, before peacefully moving on:
“An animal is always worth more alive
than hanging on someone’s wall.”NO CHRIS HASLAM
YES DUNCAN CRAIG
The shooting of Botswana’s biggest ‘tusker’
elephant has reignited a heated debate