While big game hunting for food is an ancient practice, it’s more recently turned into a sport.
It’s a contentious topic, with some arguing that big game hunting is key to ongoing conservation efforts, while others say it poses a critical threat to biodiversity, forcing certain species to extinction.
It can also be extremely dangerous. Take Ernie Dosio, a 75-year-old millionaire who owned a California vineyard and who along with his guide was trampled to death by a group of five elephants while hunting antelope in Gabon, Africa.
The schadenfreude on social media is hard to miss.
“Oh dear, how sad,” wrote one user. “Hope the elephants didn’t hurt their feet.”
But while it may sound like Dosio had it coming, a retired game hunter in Cape Town who said he knew him told the Daily Mail that he was a “very well-known and popular hunter in the US and in Africa and a very keen conservationist and he did a hell of a lot of charity work and was a really good guy.”
“Although many disagree with big-game hunting, all Ernie’s hunts were strictly licensed and above board and were registered as conservation in culling animal numbers,” a separate, unnamed game hunter added.
Dosio was looking to shoot yellow-backed duiker, a forest-dwelling antelope that’s labeled as “near threatened,” but not officially endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
On April 17, the hunter and his guide stumbled upon and startled five female elephants with a calf, sending them charging.
“I would rather not go into detail, but it is safe to assume it would have been quick,” the Cape Town-based hunter told the Daily Mail.
Big game hunting for purported conservation efforts remains highly controversial. As The Guardian reported earlier this week, the trophy-hunting industry kills tens of thousands of wild animals worldwide, including critically endangered species.
Critics say most of the hunters, particularly in Africa, are mostly white and wealthy, making it more of a lasting legacy of colonialism than a serious effort to protect animals that have historically been hunted to the brink of extinction.
Thanks to environmental destruction and climate change, wildlife populations have shrunk by a staggering 73 percent between 1970 and 2020, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
Criminal organizations also continue to target protected species for ivory, horns, and tusks that are highly valued on black markets.
More on wildlife: Wildlife Populations Have Shrunk a Shocking Amount in Just 50 Years, Report Finds
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