Big game hunting was once known as a survival technique. Before farms and grocery stores, people survived off of the land and what it provided. Unfortunately, today many people hunt big game, (referring to lions, elephants, leopards, buffalo, rhinoceros's, and giraffes) for sport and trophies.
Unlike deer and turkey that are hunted for meat and used as a food source, big game animals are nothing more than a prized possession. Have you ever heard of someone eating giraffe? What about rhino for dinner? Along with big game hunting is a big decline in certain species which were already approaching the endangered list. For example, there are around 20,000 to 35,000 wild lions left in Africa and big game hunters legally kill around 600 each year. That's an annual population loss of two to three percent, which is entirely unsustainable, even if you don't add in deaths due to poaching.
Big game hunters argue that hunting helps the animal population, their claim being that killing off the older animals can help the species. They believe that along with helping animals, they are helping local communities. These hunters argue that their money goes towards the conservation in which they hunt on. What they fail to realize is that their idealized perception of "helping" is actually causing more problems. Lions have lost 95 percent of their population since the 1940s. The African elephant population has dropped from several million at the turn of the century to roughly 500,000 today. Even with these numbers, trophy hunters are still allowed to kill over 105,000 animals each year.
If we continue to allow this hunting, the animal population will begin to decline. I have already seen animals go extinct in my lifetime due to natural causes, and, unfortunately, I may see many more due to something seen as a "sport". My children may grow up without animals I once saw in the zoo, and if they do see them, they may be some of the few left. I will never support a sport where the other team doesn't know they're playing a game, where the sport is only played by rich people who pose with their trophy as if its Christmas card worthy.
