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Was it worth it?

March 2, 2012 By Jeppe Leave a Comment

Was-it-worth-it

Was it worth it? This question ran through my mind many times after the shot that killed the kudu. It isn’t as frequent any more, but still it pops up now and then. I’ve now been back in Sweden for a couple of days and things have settled a bit. I’ve been able to take it all in and distance myself from the whole event.

 

Came to learn about hunting

The final two days I had on the farm didn’t include any more hunting. I didn’t want more of it. I felt that I’d had enough of it and instead spent the days visiting a local Himba village, exploring this intriguing culture and also doing walks in nature with the camera as my rifle. It wasn’t that I didn’t want more hunting due to disgust, it was due to me having had the experience and I felt that I’d gotten what I came for. I didn’t go there to collect a bunch of trophies. I came to learn about hunting.

We took an early morning drive back to Windhoek, where the African roads almost kept my body and soul 10 km north of Windhoek, as aquaplaning lead a petrol truck to lose traction and suddenly it came sliding towards us at a police checkpoint. That was one of the scariest moments of my life, as I saw this huge truck come closer and closer only to get control 10 meters away from us and steer the vehicle in another direction, only to crash through the checkpoint with people dodging the rampaging beast. It felt like a Hollywood moment…

 

Bond with Nature

Back to the hunting and my experience from the event. As mentioned earlier, I have no regrets to what I’ve done. I’ve learned much from this experience and it made me grow as an individual. I now see a bigger picture of hunting, and most of my notions proved me right.

One needs to understand that hunting can’t be perceived as one general thing. There’s a difference between types of hunting, between the methods, between the people running it and their ethos and regards to what you hunt. The people I’ve met, who work with the farm that I’ve visited, are probably some of the most genuine people I’ve ever met, with a very strong bond to Nature and all her children. They live of what Nature has to offer, and as they say themselves, “We don’t want any high volume hunting tourism. We just want enough to be able to sustain ourselves and that would mean 10 – 15 hunters per year.”

They’re passionate about their land and want to keep it alive and healthy. That’s why they’ve transformed it back to what it once was – a wild place where Nature can roam free in harmony with mankind.

 

Emotions cloud judgement

Killing an animal is not an easy thing and it is a moving event, and I guess that’s what makes us human – our emotions. We’re more or less (depending on the individual) emotionally connected to all living things in Nature. This is also why I see and understand a lot of adversaries towards the concept of hunting. We mustn’t let our emotions cloud our judgment, which is a hard thing to accomplish. I know this, as I’ve done the transition myself. We must face facts – the facts of life and Nature.

My transition means that I still consider myself to have a sound approach to hunting, whereby I understand that not all hunting enterprises are run in the same way, where the bad ones give the whole industry a lousy reputation. I also understand that the reason to hunting also differs individually, where some do it to shoot exotic animals to collect their trophies, while others do it for food and survival. My understanding also tells me that we as human beings are more emotionally attached to certain animals, where the killing of some living creatures are more acceptable.

 

Hunting means killing

No matter what, all kinds of hunting comes down to one thing – the killing of a living thing and that’s what we must face, whether it is a moose, a leopard, an oryx, a trout, a guinea-fowl, a wolf, a manta-ray or a kudu bull.

As long as the methods and ethos of the hunt are correct and it is being controlled and sustained, the reason for killing is secondary, where some reasons, in my mind are more acceptable than others. Poaching is not one of them!

 

Listen to Nature

Individuals who engage in hunting and fishing are paramount to the health of the wilderness. Hunting generate funds for maintenance of the wild areas. Fishermen and hunters are often the first to alarm changes that indicate a tilted environmental balance that must be addressed. I know that my visit to the hunting farm means that the area can be maintained for some time. I also know that the beautiful kudu bull lived his life, roaming free in Nature and he gave his life, which provided the family and people of the local church with 208 kg of fresh organic wild game meat.

 

Blood on my hands

I’m not proud of having killed an animal, but I’m content with it. I don’t see why people congratulate me for it? In my mind they should thank Nature and the bull for what it has given. I guess that I’m still a fanatic bunny-hugger with a bleeding-heart, with the exception that I now have blood on my hands. I still prefer to see animals alive and my preference remains, to shoot animals with my camera, but this doesn’t mean that I’m against hunting tourism. As long as it is done in the way that I’ve experienced it, I give it my full support and I will promote this hunting product through the Green Guerrillas.

The true and genuine hunter help ensure that wildlife has places to live and breed. We mustn’t forget this, and nor must we forget our presence and responsibility in the food chain.

 

The holistic view

How can we as omnivores say that hunting is wrong while we sink our teeth into a juicy steak?

How can we as omnivores say that hunting is wrong while we dip our tuna-sashimi into the wasabi?

How can tourism enterprises say that hunting is wrong while they proudly present fly-fishing trips?


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Filed Under: Travel Tagged With: hunting, hunting tourism, kudu, Namibia

Back to Africa

February 15, 2012 By Jeppe Leave a Comment

back_to-africa

I’ve been invited to come and experience and see a small-scale sustainable hunting farm. I want to empower my knowledge further and therefore I will travel to Namibia to check it out. The farm is a former cattle farm where cattle has wrecked the balance on the 12 000 ha of fenced grounds. Now the balance is being restored and after all cattle was removed, the fences were torn down and nature was invited back into the area to take over and to put it all back in balance. By removing the fences the natural migration patterns of the wildlife has been restored and they are free to roam the area.

 

Hunting to sustain life

Here in this area a family is trying their best to survive, far away from civilization, off what Nature has to offer and by inviting hunters to participate in hunting of herbivores on foot under the hot sun. The income generated by hunting is giving the farm the finances to be maintained while giving the family a livelihood.

I’m not sure how I will react to this or if I’ll be able to take it all the way and actually kill an animal. I don’t have any urge to do so, and nor do I have any fantasy of bringing home a trophy to put on the wall in my living room. I’m doing this to learn and to open my mind in order to see the bigger picture of our presence in Nature.


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Filed Under: Travel Tagged With: hunting, hunting tourism, Namibia

Hunting for sustainability

September 19, 2011 By Jeppe Leave a Comment

Masai-Mara-Lions-1-1000x400

Does 30 days in the wilderness, living in the bush change you as a person? Does it bring on a bigger understanding of things? Will the experience make you comprehend the complexity of nature, environment and life better? I walked into the bush and after spending 30 days there, I walked out with a different insight pertaining to hunting, nature and the balance of the human race on the environment.

 

Against hunting

Seeing Nature that close, as the complex, magnificent and epical living form it is, you can’t deny the fact that She controls us all and is what flow through us. We must learn to listen to it, to learn from it and to follow the way Pachamama show us.

I’ve been a meat eater my whole life and not once have I ever considered to become a vegetarian. My whole adult life I’ve had a strong opinion about hunting and killing animals.

It has emotionally moved me and angered me to see killing and slaughter of defenseless animals, and it still does, at least to a degree. I’ve realized, at least on this matter, that my emotions control how I feel about things and I look away from any fact available, not willing to look at things with a different view.

 

Hunting tourism = Responsible tourism?

I wouldn’t want to label hunting tourism as responsible tourism, due to the fact that killing and responsible don’t mix well together, but the question I ask myself right now is whether or not hunting tourism can be labeled as sustainable tourism?

People I’ve met all working in close symbiosis with Nature and with the utmost respect and love for it, have made me realize that there are different angles to approach this matter. Hunting and killing animals for food is part of life and nature to keep the balance.

 

Bad examples

Let me clarify and point out that there are many types of hunting and that needs to be taken into consideration, when taking a stand. There are many bad examples and I don’t support any of the horrible examples that relate to poaching nor hunting of endangered animals. But by being able to separate the better from the bad, we can find sustainable and ethical hunting methods that can be used as an effective tool for conservation.

Conservation is a necessity for any kind of sustainability and a keyword that can be used is balance. In order to be able to sustain, everything needs to be in balance.

 

Why do we need a balance?

If we remove the croc from the trophic pyramid, due to an attack on a human, it will affect the rest of the pyramid, and all of a sudden we’ve got a shortage of natural enemies for the mozzies. Mozzie-bites can in areas cause malaria, and for the sake of one attack on humans, we’re risking the life of many through a potential outbreak of malaria.

Keeping the balance is crucial and we as humans are part of it and we are in many ways top predators and must participate in order to achieve balance. This can be obtained by either culling or cropping. Culling means large-scale removal of numbers of a population to achieve balance, while cropping means a constant removal over an extended period of time. Either method chosen, we need to obtain balance to conserve.

Should this be done my mass-killing and slaughter when the problem has become unbearable or should it be done by using hunting tourism, which generate income, provide food while also providing a tool to control and conserve?

 

Auction a lion?

A privately owned big-5 reserve in Africa advertise an auction, where the winner can come to hunt and kill a lion, the leader of the pride. Is this ethical? Is it responsible? Is it sustainable? Is this a sustainable and responsibly run reserve? What sort of tourism is this? If you rely on your emotions, I’m sure that a majority should call this bad and say no.

But if you care to look deeper into it and gather more information, to find out that the lion in the auction is the 12 year old male that has long surpassed his prime and is closing in on his final day. He’s lived and roamed free his entire life and is now being challenged by younger males to take over.

This auction can secure the funding of the entire reserve for a long time ahead, which means that poachers can be kept out, the animals be monitored and controlled and the survival of the reserve will be secured for a few years ahead.

With these facts in mind and by looking away from our emotions we should ask ourselves if this can be considered sustainable and even responsible.

 

Killing in the name of a sustainable future…

Is it right? Is it wrong? An opinion is like an ass, everyone has one and we need a difference of opinion now and then, but sometimes we need to approach things from a different angle to see the full picture. Having said that, I still look upon hunting with skepticism and a lot of emotions involved, but I’ve learned what to look for, to be able to separate the better from the bad, and by doing so I’ve gained a different insight not based on assumptions.

 

Who to believe in?

Question is what and who to believe in? Who’s controlling it? Who’s controlling the controllers?

You are my friend! Trust your own judgment based on gathered facts and information and not just on emotions. Base your opinions and choice accordingly.

We need to challenge and question to move forward towards a sustainable development in tourism. By separating the bad from the good, we can secure the future of tourism, no matter what area covered.

 

Asase ye duru!

Jeppe

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Filed Under: News Tagged With: hunting tourism, responsible tourism, sustainable tourism

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