The UK government proposed 3 years ago, to ban the import of trophies from animals hunted around the world. This still has not become law, and the delay has given lobbyists time to try to change the opinion of MPs on this subject.
A new report found that just the hunting lobby group “safari Club International (SCI) spent over £1 million to change the minds of MPs and the British public about the ban on imports of body parts of endangered species. Alarmingly, the SCI is not above underhand tactics, having set up a facebook page called “let Africa live” which started posting claims like “the UK is about to destroy local economies in Africa”. While this page claims to be created by groups across Africa, it is entirely funded by SCI.
As I have written in the past, there are very isolated places where currently hunting is a good way of supporting wildlife populations. This is not something that I believe should continue for any long period of time. To the contrary, it should end as soon as possible – many of these areas are infected with insects that give nasty illnesses, if these can be eradicated, many if not all of these areas could be better supported longterm through ecotourism.