Abstract
AbstractTrophy hunting has occupied a prominent position in recent scholarly literature and popular media. In the scientific conservation literature, researchers are generally supportive of or sympathetic to its usage as a source of monetary support for conservation. Although authors at times acknowledge that trophy hunting faces strong opposition from many members of the public, often for unspecified reasons associated with ethics, neither the nature nor the implications of these ethical concerns have been substantively addressed. We identify the central act of wildlife “trophy” taking as a potential source of ethical discomfort and public opposition. We highlight that trophy hunting entails a hunter paying a fee to kill an animal and claim its body or body parts as a trophy of conquest. Situating this practice in a Western cultural narrative of chauvinism, colonialism, and anthropocentrism, we argue trophy hunting is morally inappropriate. We suggest alternative strategies for conservation and community development should be explored and decisively ruled out as viable sources of support before the conservation community endorses trophy hunting. If wildlife conservation is broadly and inescapably dependent on the institution of trophy hunting, conservationists should accept the practice only with a due appreciation of tragedy, and proper remorse.
Highlights
Trophy hunting has attracted wide academic and popular attention in recent years
We observe a strange disconnect between many conservation scientists’ perceptions of public disapproval, at times attributed to unspecified ethical issues; and their determined defense of trophy hunting as a conservation tool
The moral infraction may be somewhat ameliorated by remorse in our hearts for the blood on our hands, we suggest the bridled enthusiasm with which trophy hunting has already been championed as a conservation success story (e.g., Di Minin et al, 2016; Nelson et al, 2013) is misplaced
Summary
Explicit engagement with ethics has been limited in the scientific conservation literature (but see Macdonald et al, 2016 and Nelson, Bruskotter, Vucetich, & Chapron, 2016 for exceptions). Hunter motivations are known to be multiple and mixed, such that any individual hunter can be motivated by a diverse set of goals, for example, to provide meat, to enjoy immersion in nature, and perhaps to collect a trophy (Ebeling-Schuld & Darimont, 2017; Fischer et al, 2013) For this reason, efforts to draw a conceptual or moral distinction between any two instances of hunting are bound to be frustrated when based on hunter motivations, except in rare and exceptional cases where hunters are singularly motivated (List, 2004). In contrast, may increase pressure on wildlife by selectively harvesting individuals with evolved, fitnessenhancing traits (e.g., large body size), or targeting members of threatened populations (Ripple et al, 2016) On these grounds, some may argue sport hunting is generally justified from a consequentialist perspective, but trophy hunting is not. Building upon debates in the environmental ethics and conservation literatures, we hope to make a novel contribution by focusing attention on the “trophy” itself, and the connotations this carries when situated against the backdrop of Western social and intellectual history
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