In the article “In Defense of Legal Hunting” from CNN, the author Wayne Bisbee states that it is unfortunate how legitimate hunters are given a public black eye by the recent case of Cecil the lion.
Bisbee makes clear that he does not support what those who are responsible for Cecil’s death did. According to Bisbee, many people including hunters like him have the same basic goal: to ensure that endangered species are here for generations to come, he declares that he does this through high dollar hunts by donating the money that is paid to kill these animals to help wildlife conservation. The author affirms that he doesn’t hate animals; all hunters should only consider animals that are in the last stages of their lives. In defense of hunting, he states that Mother Nature does not provide for a comfortable death in the wild for these animals and that it benefits locals economically. “I am an avid hunter. I enjoy the thrill of stalking an animal and providing a more natural, healthier meat protein source to my family than what is available from the commercial food industry” (Bisbee, 2015). The author claims to have sponsored a tranquilizer dart hunt that sedates but does not kill animals as an alternative to trophy hunting along with the anti-rhino-poaching academy that he started to save rhinos. Bisbee continues to encourage hunters to keep legitimate hunting.
Yes, the killing of wild animals for food has been around as long as man, but the “modern hunters” see it as a sport and they stalk and kill animals for recreation. Many believe that it is an unnecessary, cruel form of “entertainment” and I am one of them. Bisbee states that he is not happy with what the man who killed Cecil the lion did, yet he claims to support trophy hunting because it brings money to the local communities. But that is exactly what this man did—except that he did not know that the lion he was murdering was a major attraction and a well-known lion. So, what is exactly Bisbee is not happy with? Because what I understand from this is that if he wouldn’t have been a famous lion then his life would not have mattered at all. Wayne Bisbee contradicts himself by saying that hunting is not a sport, it is a way to sustain human life with meat, but he also mentions that trophy hunting, the so-called “sport,” benefits conservation. So, I will like to change Bisbee’s phrase to something a little more accurate: Reality is that somewhere, somehow, millions of animals are killed every day, not exactly to sustain human life, but to sustain human egos instead.
