Posted on 04/24/2021 5:27:13 PM PDT by nickcarraway
I think I effectively said ‘good night’.
(And I just hope you’re a VERY good shot. Shooting a wild elephant isn’t at all like killing your domesticated cows.)
But yet you respond.
Actually the Elephant is one of the easier of the big game shoot. Proper placement is the key and the Elephant offers a big target. One of the few animals in Africa where you always take a brain shot or don’t shoot at all. Walter Bell, better known as Karamojo Bell took around 800 Elephants with a 98 Mauser chambered in 7x57 proving you didn’t need a heavy caliber, just an accurate shot. Hit the right spot and they drop like they’ve been electrocuted.
No disrespect but you don’t get to shut down discussion simply because it’s a subject you have no knowledge in. Emotion only gets you so far.
Why would a man need to kill 800 elephants?
Was it just a game for him?
It was a different time back then and Ivory was traded across all continents. The Europeans and some Americans would gather as much money as they could and head to Africa. They would hunt the whole year or until their money ran out and come back to sell their Ivory and other so called trophy’s they’d collected. Many would hire out to the rich and guide hunts for them, Royalty from all over have their names in many of the books these men wrote. Robert Ruark and Peter Capstick wrote many books of their travels across the world hunting. I grew up reading all of their books and still have them. To follow in those men’s foot steps was the dream of many a young man. Silently moving through the deep forests of the Congo with an old worn Holland and Holland 470 Nitro in your hands, waiting for the big bull to break from cover in a full charge from just a few yards away. Not many ever experienced such a rush of fear and adrenaline.
Sadly my dreams of ever being there were cut short by Uncle Sam and instead I found myself in the Jungles of Vietnam carrying a much smaller weapon. Got married and started a family soon after my discharge and that pretty much put an end to all thoughts of going to Africa. Mine is just a dream, those men lived it for a majority of their lives.
Oh and by the way that was 800 elephants with just that caliber, he took hundreds more in his life time.
So, if you spend all those thousands to kill an elephant, do you get to keep the ivory - and bring it back to the US?
Perhaps I’m under the mistaken notion that we’ve ‘evolved’ since those days...
In 2014 Obama banned the import of Ivory. Trump reversed it in 2018.
The legal ability to hunt elephants in Africa gives them the means to combat the illegal poaching of elephants. The illegal poaching of elephants accounts for about 23,000 elephants a year. There is no culling, if it has Ivory it’s shot on site. Young Bull’s or cows make no difference. The Ivory is hacked out of the upper jaw and the rest is left to rot. Then it hidden in cargo ships and illegally sent to places like China. Last paper I read on this said it was a billion dollar a year industry.
It’s not culling with the idea of keeping a healthy herd intact by removing the older and weaker, it’s mass murder on a grand scale. One article I read there was eleven elephants found dead, those with ivory had it removed, those without were killed to keep them from attacking the poachers while they removed the Ivory.
The 3 biggest threats to the elephant population in Africa is disease which can spread rapidly if populations get to dense’ Human encroachment reducing their range and Poaching. The legal hunting of elephants helps to reduce the threat of those 3.
If we want a healthy population of elephants for the future we have to contain them, we have to protect them and we have to cull them. Failure to do the above and they’ll be gone forever.
I’m curious what it is you think we’re suppose to evolve to?
You still haven’t told me what happens to the ivory of the one YOU might shoot.
First I’m not going to shoot one. But if I did and could ship it back it would probably be on display with some of the other critters I’ve taken over about a 50 year period. I might add that it has an estimated value of 1000 to 1500 dollars a lb but it’s illegal to sell in the US. Tusks in the 50 to 60 lb range are pretty common. A set of tusks taken back in 1898 weighed 464 lbs. I do have a Walrus jaw with a set of of tusks just over 31 inches long. Legally taken and tagged by the state of Alaska many years ago.
I still want to know what happens to the ivory, after ANY American pays big bucks to legally kill an elephant in Zimbabwe.
You don’t seem to know...
“”You don’t seem to know...””
You don’t seem to read. The first sentence in my last comment. “”First I’m not going to shoot one. But if I did and could ship it back it would probably be on display with some of the other critters I’ve taken over about a 50 year period.””
And that is what most would do. Friend of mine about 30 miles north of here has a 3,000 sqft room added to his house where he has mounts from game he’s taken all over the world. At the entrance going in he has a set of tusks in the 100 lb range on each side of the door going in. His father got that one back in the late 50’s.
‘If’ and ‘Could’ are not an answer - they just represent hypothetical situations. (And I’m not really interested in extravagant showrooms of trophy hunting souvenirs.)
My question was: What ACTUALLY happens to the ivory when some rich American (I assume that you are one) pays big bucks to shoot an elephant in Zimbabwe TODAY?
Seems like a simple question which you continue to evade.
For the last time, it gets sent back if legal and ends up on display most likely in a trophy room. I’m not sure why you’re having so much trouble understanding that. If it’s not legal to bring back then the so called Rich American doesn’t go on the hunt. The American not going changes nothing since there’s thousands of people all over the world would love to get one of those tags. Not all countries outlawed the shipping of ivory into their countries.
Something that keeps coming up in almost everyone of your posts is a reference to money and seemingly how others spend it. You seem to show a quite a disdain for anybody of wealth. And as far as what your interests are I personally don’t care what they are nor would I if I knew. Yours is a strange mindset, especially for someone on a conservative forum. Since you keep making excuses for you inability to understand what’s been said to you three times now I’m not sure where we go from here.
I don’t have a problem with wealth, or with wealthy people. Most of them have honestly earned it.
I’m sometimes concerned with the consequences of how anybody chooses to spend their money.
What you seem to be saying is that you actually have no idea where your 50K to 500K - or the ivory resulting from your thrill - would actually go, *IF* you were going to shoot an elephant in Zimbabwe.
You have no idea what your money might ultimately be aiding and abetting.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.