14/03/2024
Question: What is legal, yet morally corrupt, selfish, and reprehensible?
Answer: Shooting 3 of the last super-tuskers for pleasure.
Three of the last super-tuskers have recently been shot by trophy hunters in Tanzania. The venerable old tuskers, with ivory weighing over 100lbs a side were bulls that spent most of their time peacefully standing beside tourist vehicles in Amboseli, having their photographs taken.
Unfortunately their wanderings in search of companionship took them across the invisible border into Tanzania where elephant hunting is still legal.
Hunters were waiting for them - they’d have known when they crossed and tracked them by helicopter while the American hunters were informed and got on the first flight to Kilimanjaro. Stepping out of the plane, the hunters would have been helicoptered into camp and then transported in open hunting vehicles for the last few miles. Shooting such a super-tusker is as sporting as driving up to a bus and at firing at point blank range.
The thought of what happened makes me feel physically sick.
The same thing happened 30 years ago and due to the public outcry then, Tanzania agreed a moratorium on hunting elephants that habitually crossed the international border from Kenya. That moratorium seems to have been forgotten.
Being in the presence of one of these famous tuskers is a once-in-a-lifetime priviledge and it is a life-changing experience. The trust the magnificent bull shows, creates a feeling of awe, wonder and empathy. It can be undone in a second by a .450 caliber bullet that explodes through that wonderful warm, grey wrinked skin, shreds muscle and connective tissue before being propelled through the skull that cradles one of the most marvellous brains that has ever evolved. A brain capable of complex thought, compassion, self-awareness and empathy.
That’s the sequence of events if the old bull is lucky. If he’s not, the shot might shatter a bone and he’ll hobble away bellowing in pain as a hail of bullets is fired into his rear in an attempt to bring him down.
There are no good reasons to hunt a super-tusker - the notion of such a bull being beyond breeding age is a myth, long disproved by science. The oldest bulls have the best genes and they are the best teachers - they have experience and wisdom that they pass on to young males.
They are worth far more alive than dead - but that is to try and justify them in squalid, financial terms. Yes, they are ecosystem engineers, providing for others, from termites to great forest trees - but we shouldn’t need that to justify their continued existence.
They are simply magnificent - and the men that killed them are the opposite. They are greedy, entitled, selfish, little people who take perverse pleasure in killing.
We must make sure our voices are heard and it doesn’t happen again.
There are three more licences that have been issued for similar super tuskers - they must be withdrawn and a permanent moratorium enforced. Please help us achieve this. Sign this petition and write to your Tanzanian embassy https://www.change.org/p/urge-the-tanzanian-government-to-reinstate-cross-border-wildlife-protection-agreement?fbclid=PAAaYYqZ1QpfslolOJYrlCvUN6_U-qoZqs7WusKM09hS-Gr85ISKXTnkYiYEQ
