Posted on 02/17/2017 9:17:01 AM PST by nickcarraway
Controversial practice attracts widespread criticism but also limited support from some nature groups
A British Columbia woman well-known for her trophy hunts of lions, bears and giraffes says she sees the killing as an ethical form of wildlife conservation.
Jacine Jadresko of Victoria has found herself a target of online hatred for her trophy hunting around the world.
Watch the fifth estate on CBC-TV Friday at 9 p.m: The Hunter and The Hunted Jadresko, who appears in the fifth estate's "The Hunter and The Hunted," said that after being on a show like the fifth estate, "I'll get up to 200 or more death threats a day."
"Things so vile as people telling me they're going to kidnap my son and I and they're gonna skin him alive and hang him from a tree."
Trophy hunting — or hunting big game for recreation and not for food — has existed for centuries.
While it has been the focus of much criticism from animals rights groups in recent years, it also has support from some conservation and nature groups such as the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
Jadresko said she is an ethical hunter and sees hunting as a form of wildlife conservation.
Jadresko calls herself the "Inked Huntress" on Instagram and is very active in posting photos of herself and her hunting 'harvests.' (CBC)
"Hunting is not about killing for me," she said. "I have a huge respect for each species that I hunt and each animal that I hunt and they're each very special to me. "
Jadresko has been trophy hunting for the last three years. In 2014, she paid thousands of dollars to a South African outfitter to hunt a lion that she has since had mounted.
"In about a year and a half I hunted in nine countries and I successfully hunted 29 species," she said. "It's very primal and natural."
African trophy hunting show draws protest from animal rights advocates Protests against African trophy huting spur court injunction application She's become a sort of poster girl for female hunters — Jadresko is a sponsored "Global Girl" for camouflage apparel company Realtree.
Her Instagram account, where she goes by the name the "Inked Huntress," is full of photos of herself posing with dead animals — what she calls her "harvests." Some pictures show her hands and face covered in blood.
"When I've successfully harvested an animal, I want to remember that and … you take a picture because it's a respect to the animal, to remember that animal and remember the whole hunt and the whole day and everything."
She's become an online target for anti-hunting activists and says that the hate she receives encourages her to hunt more.
Piper Hoppe, 10, takes part in a protest in Bloomington, Minn., on July 29, 2015, against the killing of Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe. (Eric Miller / Reuters)
"The more you hate, the more I kill," Jadresko wrote on her Instagram account.
Hunting by women has virtually doubled in the past 10 years, according to Realtree, and marketers are anxious to prove that even bloodsport could use a touch of glamour.
Jadresko said she thinks part of the reason she gets so much online hate is because she's a woman.
"I think if people saw a picture of a man and he had just finished cleaning out the animal, he had blood all over him, they'd be like, 'Oh you know, whatever.' But because I'm a woman and I have my hair in pigtail braids, they just feel this extra shock that it's a woman doing these things."
Limited cases
While Jadresko has attracted criticism for her actions, trophy hunting has support from some quarters that might be unexpected.
The World Wildlife Fund, whose mandate is "to stop the degradation of the planet's natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature," does not always oppose trophy hunting.
"In certain limited and rigorously controlled cases, including for threatened species, scientific evidence has shown that trophy hunting can be an effective conservation tool as part of a broad mix of strategies," the fund says.
On its website, it cites a community-based conservation strategy that included "tightly regulated" trophy hunting in the mid-1990s in Namibia.
"The recovery of wildlife has been remarkable. Namibia now boasts the largest free-roaming population of black rhino, as well as expanding numbers of elephants, lions and giraffes and the world's largest cheetah population. Local communities have also benefitted substantially from the program."
Other arguments in support of trophy hunting suggest that the money hunters pay to kill these animals goes to local communities, especially in places such as Africa.
But the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) says that while hunters pay roughly $200 million each year for big game hunts in Africa, only about three per cent of those funds go to local communities in the hunting area.
Conservation debate
The African lion population has fallen by more than 40 per cent in the past three generations and many elephant and tiger species are now considered endangered, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
In early 2016, in an interview with ITV News, Prince William said "there is a place for trophy hunting," and "that the money that goes from shooting a very old infirm animal goes back into the protection of the other species."
Many animals rights and wildlife groups say that kind of thinking is flawed.
In a 2015 article, environmental activist David Suzuki said humans are "nature's most dangerous and destructive super predator."
Suzuki, host of CBC's The Nature of Things, says that predation is a natural, necessary part of animal existence, but non-human predators target the weak, the young and the old. Humans engaged in trophy hunting are often targeting the largest males, Suzuki says.
A Science magazine report from 2015 titled "The unique ecology of human predators" says that humans kill large predators at nine times the rate at which carnivores typically kill each other.
The report says humans are becoming a kind of "super predator" and are killing animals at a frequency that will lead to unprecedented rates of extinction.
Part of this, the study says, is because humans are killing mature animals that would not often come across any predators in the wild.
Cecil the lion
Much of the recent controversy over trophy hunting began with Cecil the lion in July 2015.
Cecil was a popular African tourist attraction that was lured from a protected national park in Zimbabwe and killed by Walter Palmer, a wealthy American trophy hunter. Cecil's killing triggered outrage around the world.
Since then, the United States has banned the import of African lion trophies.
Canada does not ban the import of African lion trophies, but Environment and Climate Change Canada told the fifth estate that that Canada "diligently upholds" the terms of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which deals in part with the importation of trophy animals into the country.
The agency said that international trade — including trade in hunting trophies — is controlled by a strict permitting system that "obliges the exporting country to ensure that the harvest was legal and that the harvest and export are not detrimental to the survival of the species in the wild."
To many, Palmer became public enemy No. 1 in the fight against trophy hunting. But for some like Jadresko, Palmer was the victim.
"It's really unfortunate that he had to go through what he went through I think," Jadresko told the fifth estate. "It's unfortunate that the media portrayed him in the way that they did."
I taught my son to take the first LEGAL deer he sees...
You can’t eat antlers.....
Let’s stop the PC nonsense. Hunting IS about killing. It IS about the RUSH you get from killing. Hunting has been in human DNA for millions of years. Sitting on your ass eating potatoes and wheat started happening 9000 years ago. The human default is hunting for killing, for fun, for social status, and occasionally, for nutrition.
Trophy hunting IS good for the herd. Imagine if Tom Brady is in the town and continually beats down every weaker man in the town and impregnates all the women. Say it goes on a few years. Soon, the genetics of the herd are getting similar as his half sibling descendants meet and mate.
So someone comes in and shoots Brady and puts his antlers on the wall.
Other males start breeding, and the genetic variety and the health of the herd rapidly improves.
There is nothing whatsoever wrong with trophy hunting. By the time you get him, he has spread his genes sufficiently.
First, this is kiss-mohammeds-buut Canada.
Second, being kiss-mohammeds-butt canada, it is a WOMAN doing the hunting.
Third, kiss-mohammeds-butt Canada is very anti-gun oriented.
I applaud her efforts. Yes, it is conservation.
My son learned a valuable lesson on our last hunt... had a short clean shot at a spike the first day and passed on it, none of us ever saw another antler the rest of the hunt.
Trophy hunting is, by definition, taking the best of the herd. That leaves the somewhat less-than-the-best to breed and diminishes the quality of the stock. So when overdone, over time, it is not good for the herd.
Are you advocating killing Tom as a trophy??
A big push for pro-hunting organizations should be with a program that breeds greater numbers of healthy animals for release than are typically attrited in a season, until that species reaches its maximum population for that region.
Importantly, bred under good conditions, with good nutrition, vaccinations, even dentistry, attrition on reintroduction will still be high, but those that survive will mix with wild populations to produce healthier offspring. It also helps to create more genetic diversity, itself a good thing.
Creating an optimal natural balance for a region takes a bit of planning. Predators need prey, and prey needs vegetable foods, which means that increasing vegetable crops in the region will help sustain the food chain.
My wife would always send me out by saying” we need the meat”. Although, I have to admit that those doe mounts are kinda embarrassing.
No, you are shooting the mature animals that have already been spreading their genetics around, letting the youngsters reach their full potential. If you see mature animals with poor genetics, they get popped as well.
Biggest rushes I've gotten while hunting were from calling in elk. A shot need not even occur.
Can I safely assuming that the processing of calling in elk was to kill it? Hunting: killing=goal, calling in, preparation=journey. For it to be fun, the journey has to be fun. The goal itself is the driving force.
For once, call in elk and don’t kill it. Not so fun is it.
Well, I meant it as a sort of compliment.
You can call in elk to assess whether or not you want to kill the elk that comes to the call. Same with hunting behind hounds. Houndsmen love the chase, but may decide against a kill, depending on what’s been treed. Getting a bull to come to a call, tear up a tree and bellow for a fight, or just creep silently to within bow range is a thrill, be it for gun, bow, or camera. Turkey hunters claim the same. Stalking cow elk is more an exercise in killing. Ever field dress a Roosevelt elk and pack if a good distance? “Fun,” it is not.
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