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Trophy hunting: A cruel hobby or species conservation? | DW Documentary

  • August 8, 2024



Trophy hunting: A cruel hobby or species conservation? | DW Documentary

Elephants, antelopes, lions. Rich people kill animals threatened with extinction, then hang them on their walls as trophies. On the face of it, trophy hunting seems morally reprehensible. But could it be more complicated?

Trophy hunting is big business. Germany is the second most important country in the world when it comes to trophy hunting. There is no other country in Europe where so many hunters set off every year to shoot animals abroad. Why is this allowed and who benefits from it? Is it just a bloody hobby, or might it contribute to species conservation?

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34 comments

  1. Dear ancestors
    400 years and they are still bringing there printed dollar bills and taking the lives of our wildlife. you have to be from a different planet to see beauty in a dried up corpse 😢😢

  3. Between 2014 and 2018, the U.S. imported 2,169 lion trophies, or more
    than 433 trophies on average per year (Table 14). All lion trophies
    imported into the U.S. during this period originated in Africa. The vast
    majority (86%) originated in South Africa, followed by Zimbabwe (6%),
    Tanzania (5%), Mozambique (1%), Namibia (1%) and Zambia (1%) (Table
    14). Of the 2,169 lion trophies imported, 1,165 (54%) were from lions
    bred in captivity with almost 100% of those originating in South Africa

  4. A $350,000 hunt for a critically endangered black rhino in Namibia.
    An outfitter advertised its “Trump Special” – a $25,000 hunt for a buffalo, sable, roan and crocodile.
    Advertised as a “bargain” was a captive-bred lion hunt for $8,000 in South Africa.
    A $6,000 hunt for any six animals that a customer can choose to kill in South Africa. The offerings were: zebras, wildebeest, warthogs, impalas, hartebeest, gemsbok, nyala and waterbuck.
    A polar bear hunt in Canada was offered for sale for $35,000.
    An Asiatic black bear hunt in Russia sold for $15,000.
    A 15-day Alaska hunt to kill a brown bear, black bear, mountain goat and wolf was sold for $25,000.

  5. You want to earn a trophy? Do something that’s really meaningful, cause this is meaningless. So what if you have all these trophies? When you die, you won’t bring them with you into the afterlife. But if you put in the effort to preserve them, that’s the true trophy.

    On another note, as an aspiring conservationist, watching this really sickens me because nature is beautiful. Why destroy it for our own greed? It needs to be saved before we too suffer from our own actions.

  6. Well here's a question that I'll ask these trophy hunters, if they're so concerned with conservation and if they really do want to hunt animals for the challenge…. Why not go to Texas and help them hunt their feral pigs? Or why not go to a place where it's unequivocably a good thing to hunt whatever animal?

    It's because it's not about conservation, it's like what's said in the video. Status. Or pride or a misguided belief that killing the animal makes them more masculine.

    All the other answers just seem to be a bunch of post-colonialist louts trying to justify why they are entitled to murder an elephant or a rhino.

  10. Excellent documentary from DW. Wildlife existed perfectly well until trophy hunters came along to kill animals and hang heads to show off to their friends.

  14. Conservation is costly. It requires scientists to study ongoing… there are people who are displaced by large game reserves. And should be compensated ongoing. In fact their livelihoods should not just be considered immaterial. There is a large web of "players" who all deserve to be seen in the full circle of conservation. There are always those individuals who do behave in an unscrupulous way and their "Trophy" becomes a debauched spectacle. And too there are those Individual "landowners" who are greedy and disconnected from the "community".

    But recently a conservationist who had protect 1000 rhinos for many many years was simply unable to sell those rhinos… Nobody cared! They simply had NO VALUE – they are only valuable to poachers! Imagine somebody pouring millions of dollars of their money towards protecting a critically endangered species and yet comes away with nothing – and I also believe there was a media campaign to discredit them.

    There are also complex security teams operating on the ground and 24 hours using high tech satellite monitoring… it all costs money!

    There are too many people who have a lot to say about the complex matters of conservation and yet do absolutely nothing to engage and drive the very protection of all these 1000s of species that need protecting and all the many humans that are impacted by the nature reserves.

    Which doesn't mean I am a trophy hunter – but I am an educator and work ongoing as a conservationist.

  17. If the trophy hunting is conducted on a licenced hunting farm, the animals are farmed like a pic or a cow in Europe.

    With the only difference that the animals from a game farm had a nice life in nature .

    There is no difference between wearing a pair of leather schooes or hanging a Zebra skin on the wall.

    This kind of industry is providing a living to a lot of people in those areas.

  19. How much money did these people who condemn trophy hunting contribute towards the conservation of these animals? The majority of these animals roam on private land with no government funding. Wildlife fences cost money, labor costs money, feed in the dry seasons costs money, hiring rangers cost money, treating sick animals costs money. If there's no incentive to manage wildlife for private land owners then the spaces these animals roam will be converted into agricultural land or urban developments. If you want to get rid of trophy hunting then start paying up. Simple as that

  21. Trophy hunting is one of leftovers condemning and shameful manners of imperial periods… towards whole lives on the planet. That condemned phenomenon still practicing in south Africa and elsewhere….what a naivety provokes introduction by these hunters….is humanity stepping forward to more cruelty & brutality that using humbled, hopless human as hunted victim …similar to Edi Amien practiced in Uganda 🇺🇬

  23. I have a question: if the fundamental problem is finding money to fund conservation instead of relying on trophy hunting, why do we not explore the idea of conservation carbon credit trading more?

  29. there is no solid evidence that trophy hunting does anything to save the species. it gives the governments of those countries cash but do they spend it on conservation? who knows? they just got a lot of cash from a millionaire to hunt and kill a Rhino, Elephant or any other threatened species.

  31. BMX riding has been stopped, MX riding has been stopped, 4×4 driving has been stopped, EVERYTHING is being stopped. Now hunting too. If you grew up in Africa, hunting is in your blood, it's part of every culture. EVERY CULTURE, not just wealthy tourists. We eat wild game as a treat, not a staple diet. Poorer people hunt for the pot to stave off starvation, something Brussels obviously knows nothing about!!

    Come and live in Africa, experience Africa, live Africa, learn Africa. You'll go away a wiser activist.

    As for the trophies, each man to his own…

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