The killing of animals has been a great source of debate
among many from CITES, wildlife conservationists, poachers and even animal
keepers. When is it right to kill an animal? Where is the line?
In the world of creatures, there exist carnivores,
herbivores and omnivores. Human beings are naturally made to be omnivores,
consumers of both plant and other animals. This is our nature. We were born
this way. At what point do we call our nature barbaric. By conserving animals,
aren’t we disobeying nature?
If animals can kill, why shouldn’t we? That’s basically how
carnivores survive. Bush meat poaching is very common around game reserves e.g.
in Uganda. At the rate in which the wild animal population is declining, we are
still hunting animals such as buffaloes for game in the name of nature. To what
end shall we clear the planet of non-humans?
I recently watched a documentary that showed how lions hunt
wildebeests and the people in the region later steal the kill. Is it morally
right for us to hunt with lions? The wildebeest was dead anyway. In Maasai Mara
1977, the wildebeest population was 119,000. In 1997, twenty years down the
line, the number reduced to 22,000. In the poachers’ defense, the population
decline is due to lack of food. The wildebeest was bound to die so we are just
making use of them before they go extinct.
When it comes to killing animals, on what basis do we decide
what animals to kill? This has been a very huge argument that has not been
solved. Many Kenyans, for example, cannot imagine hunting whales because there
are now whales in Kenya and any whale found would bring fascination. On the
other hand, countries such as Japan, Norway and Iceland are actively practicing
whaling for meat, oil and blubber. There are some communities that kill 4 to 6
whales a year. 1 whale serves as food for the community for 3 months. There are
approximately 2 million whales in the world so this does not make such a large
difference but what about a place like Faroe Islands where about 950 whales are
hunted in a year. I think whaling is generally a sensitive sore for me
considering I’m that Kenyan who has never seen a live whale and I know that
sperm whales reproduce around once in five years.
Peter Singer, a bioethics once said that our future selves
will consider meat-eating to be barbaric. I think it’s true. Think of how many
people are vegetarian because they find the act of eating meat disgusting. A
lot of animals are found sacred at least in one religion or culture.
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| Image source: Pininterest |
Some groups argue that rearing meat-producing animals is
okay because we gave those animals life and that their purpose for life was to
be killed eventually. These animals should thank us for their existence.
Really? Do we really grant life? I’m almost sure we would all object if human
babies were birthed by scientists in order to be used as guinea pigs.
Killing animals because they are dangerous is also another
defense for poachers. It’s quite interesting why more harmless, curious,
friendly and intelligent whales are killed than the man-eating sharks.
Recently, the whole mourned the death of Cecil the lion when lions are more
dangerous than the bird species we hunt. India has lately shown great strides
in the preservation of tigers. The number of tigers has increased by 33% in the
past two years as a result of mainly relocating people who live near the
animals and kill the tigers in the name of the danger they pose to them.
Anyway, I do not know about the morality of poaching. I do
not know about killing animals for the survival of species.
I know this though: Wild animals are I game reserves for a reason. They are
there for protection against those of us who do not know when to kill.
>>Read more on The Beauty of Game Drives
By Tracy Wankio
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