Does this picture look familiar? Well this picture was taken by ‘big game hunter’ and ‘conservationist’ Kendall Jones. The picture is part of a news and social media story that has recently gone viral. Jones hunts big game animals and posts the pictures of her kills on her social media pages. She is looking to start a TV show in 2015 which follows her exploits, and has recently become the subject of much (justified) outrage. The viral news story can be found here.
“In 2008, (age 13) I took my second trip to Africa to start my Big 5 experience”.
**The ‘big 5’ is referencing to the 5 most coveted big game animals to hunt, the lion, elephant, leopard, buffalo, and rhinoceros.**
“The first animal I ever shot was a White Rhino with a .416 Remington!”
“On this trip I also took some plains game, such as impala, kudu and mountain reedbuck home.”
Do Kendall’s actions appall you?
Well you are not alone. Thousands of people have joined her social media sites to criticize her actions.People from South Africa demand that she ‘leave their animals alone’ because what right does she have to ‘kill off another countries’ animals’. Others shame and threaten her, and have set up petitions to shut down her social media sites and stop her hunting exploits.
However, Kendall and her supporters continue to pursue the big 5 claiming that big game hunting is necessary to control populations, and to protect livestock, noting that permits sold for hunting animals gives all of the money raised back to fund schools and water wells. As a result, right now Kendall is hunting “leopards, elephants, hippos, crocodiles, zebras and impalas with bows and guns” in Zimbabwe and South Africa.
Personally, I am against trophy hunting. In Kendall’s news story, she describes a type of trophy hunting called canned hunting. This is a legal practice where animals such as the big 5 are bred and farmed in order to later be hunted in captivity.This practice is inhumane. The animals are contained within a compound and are not given a fair chance to run and hide. Sometimes they are even baited within the compound to make the hunting even easier. In Australia, Jason Wood organized a campaign to ban trophy hunting. He has illustrated how inhumane canned hunting is:
“I don’t even call it hunting, most of the time they have bait there. There’s this very graphic video I’ve seen where you have a lion just lying under its food and it just gets shot. And the very distressing thing is the lion is perplexed as to what is going on – why, because it is used to interaction with humans.”
The Good News
As a result of Wood’s campaigning, Australia has banned trophy hunters from bringing home all rhino body parts they collect from overseas. While this may seem like a small step, it is a significant one. If a hunter cannot bring home their ‘trophy’ for their mantle and prove that they were ‘skilled’ enough to kill a rhino, there is a lot less incentive to pay $40000 to go and kill it. In addition, hopefully this will be an example that will persuade other nations into doing the same.
While Kendall is still able to go trophy hunting in foreign countries, it is essential for nations around the world to not only ban trophy hunting, but also to follow in Australia’s footsteps and ban the importation of the body parts they gain abroad.
Sign petitions and find additional information here:
https://www.change.org/search?q=trophy+hunting
http://www.change.org/petitions/republic-of-south-africa-government-ban-trophy-hunting
Kendall’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/_kendalljones_
Kendall’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kendalltakeswild/info
Photo Cred: cbc.ca
As always: comments, questions, concerns or even random thoughts? I would love if you shared them with me so please comment below!
21st Century Explorer 
Maybe you could be a little more objective in your blog posts:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/03/070315-hunting-africa_2.html
Trophy hunting has helped increase the population of the white rhino by over 10,000 through increased money in conservation and increased incentivization to farmers. I think that’s some relevant information.
Thank you for bringing this to my attention! As this is such a riveting topic, I will be doing a follow-up blog today to talk about this article and issue some more. Stay tuned!
Ben
Hi Ben,
Great article – it brings up a couple of key points in terms of wildlife conservation. The first being that people think that paying $40,000 for a tag to go kill a rhino is going to help ‘conserve’ the population. While it does raise awareness, it’s also a bit of an irony that endangered or the ‘big five’ have to die to make a point about wildlife conservation. Wildlife conversation has never taken on that trademark of a dark side until recently.
It is also somewhat of an unfortunate instance that African countries have to rely on this type of tourism to add to their economy, and might speak to the perils of the order of the state in some of these cases that this is looked upon as a last resort rather than promoting other forms of smaller (terms of $$) tourism.
If people want to truly practice wildlife conservation – forgo the bullet and just cough up the $40,000 to protect the species you ‘love’. Future generations may not even get to shake paws with a Lion if these shenanigans keep up.
It might be GAME OVER for the Lion, but it’s GAME ON for Kendall.
tmoteo
This is an excellent reply, thanks Tomm! I will be doing a follow up blog about this topic to address this issue some more. In the mean time, for more information take a look at Simon’s reply to this blog.
Ben
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