Mate, Dangerous game hunters will say anything to justify the taking of a beautiful cat ! The point is they enjoy the thrill of the chase and the sense of dominance over a powerful predator, but feel they need to justify their action to those that would not understand the thrill with an explanation that makes it easier. I'd take it with a grain of salt. And by the way I don't have any issue with sport hunting - to each his own. I would not do it but I understand the sport behind it.
The financial aspect - YES. Its true. However the reason hunters are willing to pay to get the lion is not for conservation but for the thrill of the hunt. The fact that their money goes towards conservation makes it easier for them. So for those who enjoy taking cats as fair game its time to be honest and admit that they do it for sport. And you know what - that's perfectly OK. However to do it and then claim its for conservation is not correct. If their sole purpose was conservation get a camera, forget the hunt and just donate the money !
Hmm! No one said anything about justification. Man likes to hunt, whether it's for food or a trophy, it fulfills some primal instinct in him. Every legal hunter buys his game. Very few people in developed countries have to hunt for subsistence any more. Today's hunter buys his game, whether it is the money expended in licence fees, the cost of the equipment used or the effort made towards fair chase and to follow the rules. Personally, I've never hunted anything that I couldn't eat but it's precisely because I want to keep hunting (what I like to hunt) that I support other types of hunting. If I just did it to eat meat, I could go down to the corner grocery store and pick up a pound of hamburger. It would be a lot cheaper in time, money and energy to do that, rather than hunt.
"just donate the money"? Seriously?
In reality that doesn't happen much. There are millions of animal and bird lovers in North America. They are out there with their cameras all the time and, by God, they believe in conservation. What is donated by them towards conservation is a drop in the bucket compared to what hunters and fishermen put out. Without getting something in return, no one is going to plunk down thousands of dollars. If you were to ban hunting in North America today, the conservation dollars WILL dry up. With no money coming in for research and to pay Rangers, you can eventually kiss a lot of species goodbye. That's just simple reality. Hey, it's happened all over the world.
To impute that hunting one species is sporting and hunting another is not is a rather specious argument. Similar to the argument; "why do you need an AR15 when you can just shoot with a bolt action rifle"? Or "why do you need a semi auto rifle when you can just use a single shot for everything"? People like that are often referred to as "Fudd's" after Elmer Fudd from the Bugs Bunny cartoon. Fudd's reason is that it is OK to ban one type of gun because they don't use it. More rational thinkers might compare behavior like that to an Ostrich sticking it's head in the sand.
“Never give in, never give in, never; never; never; never – in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense” — Winston Churchill, Oct 29, 1941
