April 2017: Scott Van Zyl, owner of a canned hunting facility in South Africa and an organizer of trophy-hunting African safaris, is eaten by the crocodiles he’d intended to kill in Zimbabwe.

May 2017: Theunis Botha, a friend of Van Zyl and the owner of another South African hunting facility, is crushed to death by an elephant when he and his fellow trophy hunters surprise a breeding herd at a private hunting ranch in Zimbabwe.

August 2017: Karma strikes for the third time this year. While hunting in a private wildlife reserve in Namibia, Jose Monzalvez of Argentina is trampled by an elephant.



Because of hunting, poaching and loss of their habitat due to development, the population of African elephants – the largest animals walking the Earth — has dwindled from 3 to 5 million in the early 1900s to only about 415,000 today. Yet in 2004, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) changed the status of this species from “endangered” to the less critical “vulnerable.”

“Endangered species are likely to go extinct very soon, while vulnerable species have a lower risk of disappearing, giving us a better chance to intervene and save them,” the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) explains.

Trophy hunters like to boast that they are doing just that: Helping to save vulnerable and endangered species while at the same time providing money to impoverished communities. A 2015 Safari Club International Foundation report claimed the sport “provides important economic opportunities for many areas where other common forms of income are limited.”

However, a study earlier this year by Humane Society International (HSI) contradicted the Safari Club’s report. Not surprisingly, HSI found that trophy hunting in Africa provides little economic benefit and does not lead to effective conservation.

“It’s time to stop pretending that slaughtering big game and posing for morbid selfies by their slain bodies is anything more than killing for kicks,” said Masha Kalinina, an international trade policy specialist for HSI, when the study was released in February.

Although it’s very unlikely, here’s hoping that karma striking three times this year proves to be the charm as far as dissuading anyone from practicing this cruel “sport.” In the meantime, please sign and share the Care2 petition to end trophy hunting.

http://www.care2.com/causes/karma-another-trophy-hunter-has-been-killed-by-an-elephant.html