Carriers lighten their load with a hunting-trophy ban
South Africa Airways executes an untimely U-turn on carrying hunted-animal remains in its holds
By M.R.
WALTER PALMER probably hollered with excitement when he pulled the trigger that killed Cecil, a 13-year-old Zimbabwean lion. A dentist from Minnesota, Dr Palmer is one the estimated 15,000 American tourists who visit Africa on hunting safaris each year. Their numbers may dwindle in 2016. Cecil, it turns out, was an illegal kill. His execution prompted a groundswell of revulsion around the globe, forcing Dr Palmer into hiding and reigniting the debate over trophy hunting. If social media voices are anything to go by, people don't much like the thought of rich whites travelling to Africa to kill things—licence or not. America's airlines, which have facilitated the trade for decades by allowing hunters to ship their trophies home, are taking note.
Delta Air Lines, the American carrier with the largest footprint in Africa, confirmed on Monday that it is banning all lion, leopard, elephant, rhinoceros and buffalo trophies from its cargo holds. Its decision was, effectively, a capitulation to an online petition that has amassed nearly 400,000 signatures (and which was launched months before Cecil's death). Two other US carriers—United Airlines and American Airlines—quickly followed suit.
American embargos are important because its citizens make up by far the largest contingent of hunters. But their acquiescence is just part of a larger movement in the airline industry. According to campaign websites, the following carriers have banned hunting trophies over recent months: Air Canada, Air France, British Airways, Brussels Airlines, Emirates Airline, Etihad Airways, Iberia, KLM, Lufthansa, Qantas, Qatar Airways, Singapore Airlines and Virgin Atlantic Airways. All should be commended. Others may have done so and failed to publicise it, or may do so in the coming days.
One notable, bitter exception is South African Airways (SAA), the flag-carrier of the African country with the briskest trade in lion hunting. An estimated 1,000 captive lions are killed each year in South Africa's "canned hunting" industry. I call SAA's absence bitter because in May, when we last wrote about canned hunting on this blog, I heaped praise on its temporary decision to ban trophy-kill cargo. "It wants to nullify a potential storm of bad publicity before it arrives," we wrote, with unsettling clairvoyance. Yet in July, days before that storm arrived, SAA reversed its ban and resumed shipping hunting trophies. It claimed to have worked with South Africa's Department of Environmental Affairs to ensure that only legal kills will be carried. But few in the general public care whether an animal was felled legally or otherwise; most think the practice toxic either way. Of the 30,000 Facebook users who pressed the “like” button on Gulliver’s last article—many of them vowing to patronise SAA in future as a result of its stance—how many will now re-evaluate their booking preferences?
As a litmus test for public opinion on the subject, Gulliver indulged in one of his guilty pleasures on Monday by tuning into The Five, a panel discussion show on Fox News, the right-wing American news channel. Gun advocacy is de rigueur on Fox News. Yet even The Five roundly condemned the actions of Dr Palmer and another hunter, Sabrina Corgatelli, an accountant from Idaho, who has jumped on the media bandwagon by posting photographs of herself with a giraffe she killed (pictured above). One panellist, Kimberly Guilfoyle, reconciled her rare departure from gun advocacy by soothing her religious convictions: "There were giraffes on the Ark for a reason," she rather quaintly said. When even Fox News won't defend your right to shoot something, you know you're on the wrong side of public opinion.
The pro-hunting lobby maintains that it supports African economies and protects endangered species by creating a market for their lives. Hunting "places a value on wildlife and wild areas, creating a direct incentive to purchase, own, protect and conserve this precious resource," argues the Professional Hunters' Association of South Africa, which played an active role in convincing SAA to overturn its ban. But, for Gulliver, the economic and market-based arguments are an irrelevance. So what if hunting is economically rational? Slavery is economically rational too, that doesn't make it morally defensible. Oftentimes it is pragmatic to build tourism industries around these vulnerable ecosystems, thereby monetising their protection. But right-thinking societies do not conserve animals by sating the bloodlust of gun-toting Westerners. State-owned SAA should do a U-turn on its U-turn.
