An accountant in Idaho has been criticized for posting photos online of a giraffe and other wild animals from a legal hunt in South Africa. But some experts say such legal expeditions could actually be beneficial for species conservation. Despite these vicious condemnations on social media, research shows that trophy hunting contributes significantly to the South African economy, earning nearly R2 billion a year. These gentle giants are docile by nature, but defend themselves when attacked with their front legs. Man and lion are their only real predators and due to its size, the lion may be struck to death if it decides to attack. When hunting giraffes, the approach can be very difficult due to the terrain they are in. This animal has exceptionally sharp eyesight, sharp hearing and a very cautious disposition – all this, combined with its size, definitely gives it the advantage, and not the hunter. Giraffes can be hunted year-round in Zimbabwe and South Africa. In Namibia, the hunting season begins on 1 February and ends each year on 30 November. In all 3 countries, guests must ensure that they are booked with a registered supplier and the professional hunter is also a registered guide. The best time to shoot a giraffe is during the coldest months of the year, from June to August. The reason for this is that these animal skins spoil very easily and since it is such a large and bulky animal, they need time to molt. A limited number of legal and regulated giraffe hunts take place in some range states, with about 300 giraffes per year (<0.4% of the estimated population) imported into the United States from three countries: Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
Giraffes are very charismatic and popular, and in recent years there have been several high-profile attack campaigns on social media against giraffe hunters. Recently, several West African countries and Kenya have proposed adding giraffes to Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). While inclusion in the list does not prevent legal hunting or the import of trophies, it increases the monitoring burden for range states and leads to stricter export controls. An adult giraffe is equivalent to between 900 kg and 1,500 kg of meat. Thus, the trophy hunter pays thousands of dollars to hunt the animal and in turn treat the skin and prepare the head as a trophy to take with him to his country. “Giraffes in many reserves have no natural predators. Lions are really the only predators capable of killing a giraffe. In order to control populations, animals need to be sold or slaughtered,” Barnard says.
They cite Kenya, which banned trophy hunting in 1977. Catherine Semcer, of the anti-poaching organization Humanitarian Operations Protecting Elephants, told New York Magazine that the country had “lost between 60 and 80 percent of its large mammals outside of parks.” His lungs are positioned far forward and high in the chest cavity. The brain is very small and positioned just below and between the horns. If you decide to have a rear injection, place it in the middle of the neck where the neck is connected to the body. A quartered frontal shot must be directed to break the prominent shoulder joint; Avoid quarter-in-case shooting, take it as a last resort! The hunting giraffe can be an extremely interesting and exciting stem. Although it is nowhere in the record books, this large camel-like animal with the leopard`s spots can provide a very unusual trophy. If so, the U.S. will impose import restrictions on giraffe hunting trophies and body parts, including their skins, skulls and other body parts. In the last decade alone, more than 21,400 bone sculptures, 3,700 hunting trophies and 3,000 pieces of giraffe fur have been legally imported into the United States.
Only 3% of trophy hunting revenues reach affected communities, the International Council for Wildlife Conservation and Hunting found in a study. But Environment Minister Edna Molewa says the hunting industry brings millions to the local economy. A white American savage, who is partly a Neanderthal, comes to Africa and shoots a very rare black giraffe of South African stupidity. Her name is Tess Thompson Talley. Please share pic.twitter.com/hSK93DOOaz “We should be doing more to protect the image of the hunting industry.” While the IUCN recognizes only one species of giraffe, Giraffa camelopardalis, and nine subspecies, the GCF classifies giraffes into four species: Masai (G. tippelskirchi), southern (G. giraffa), northern (G. camelopardalis) and reticulated giraffe (G. reticulata), and five subspecies. According to Fennessy, it`s the southern giraffe that tends to be legally hunted for trophies, but this species fares much better than its counterparts.
Using IUCN terminology, the conservation status of the southern giraffe would be classified as “not endangered,” he said. Jason Goldman wrote about the findings in Conservation Magazine and advocated for a shift in the debate away from the massive outrage over individual hunting incidents. READ: `It`s called conservation`: US woman under fire for killing `rare` giraffes in South Africa, strikes back After images of a 37-year-old American woman posing next to the carcass of a giraffe bull surfaced online, social media exploded in disgust. The biggest threats to giraffes include illegal hunting, habitat loss and fragmentation, and human-wildlife conflict, he said. The most endangered giraffe species of the four is the northern giraffe, which would be considered “critically endangered” in the words of the IUCN, Fennessy said. Giraffe hunting is legal in South Africa if it has already been agreed with an animal park. The story of Thompson Talley, however, sounds the alarm that giraffes are being killed as trophies, especially since there are fewer than 100,000 on the planet. Female giraffes give birth standing, meaning their babies fall more than six feet off the ground.
It clearly doesn`t hurt them – most newborn giraffes get up and run within an hour or two. Musician Moby called her “broken and soulless,” and television journalist John Simpson called her a “dumb woman.” Comedian Ricky Gervais used much stronger language. In 2015, Gervais quickly shared a photo of Rebecca Francis, a woman who smiled from a photo of herself next to the carcass of a giraffe, claiming she had received “hundreds of thousands of death threats” after the photo went viral. Giraffe populations have increased in countries where sustainable hunting is possible Wild skinned, stuffed and tanned giraffes are on sale in dozens of stores across the United States. While the import and sale of wild giraffes and giraffe products such as giraffe mats and stuffed trophies are legal in the United States, conservationists and animal rights advocates say these practices bring the species closer to extinction. Giraffes are not only the largest animal in the world, but also the largest ruminant in the world. The 9 giraffe subspecies are distributed in pockets located in western, eastern and southern Africa. Although widespread, giraffes are classified as specially protected in many countries where they are not allowed to be hunted at all. Giraffes can only be legally hunted in three African countries, namely Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe. In southern Zimbabwe and South Africa you can hunt the South African giraffe subspecies and in northern Namibia you can hunt Angolan giraffe. Both species have very similar markings.
Wealthy trophy hunters in the United States and elsewhere shell out small fortunes just to be able to shoot wild giraffes in Africa. Many of them then pose with the carcasses of freshly slaughtered giraffes in photos posted on social networks. Last year, a Kentucky woman sparked outrage after posting a photo of herself with a black giraffe she had just photographed in South Africa during her “dream hunt.” He then wrote on Twitter that “giraffes are now on the `red list` of endangerment, as they have decreased by 40% in the last 25 years. They could die out. Gone forever.” “Legal hunting of giraffes for trophies or legal meat hunting has no effect on the overall giraffe population in Africa – it does not cause a decline,” he told Mongabay. “It`s a moral issue to hunt giraffes or any other animal, whether in Africa or around the world.” Hundreds of thousands of wild animals in the United States and around the world are killed each year, and millions are threatened by other threats. Your generous donation prevents wild animals from being killed just for a trophy by supporting our work to ban trophy hunting. Most hunters emphasize hunting game instead of captive-bred animals for hunting purposes (such as “canned lion hunting”), the study shows.
In addition to travel expenses, a trophy hunter spends the average of R127,000 on a hunting trip to South Africa. Tess Thompson posted photos on Facebook of herself next to the giraffe`s carcass “It`s much crueler to let a giraffe die of old age,” says Flip Coetzee, a Mossel Bay dentist who is also a member of the South African Hunters and Game Conservation Association.