User:Nom Chompsky/sandbox

= Drafting Article: Trophy Hunting =

African Trophy Hunting
The practice of trophy hunting supersedes that of ranch or farm hunting, but game ranches helped to legitimize trophy hunting as a facet of the tourism industry in Africa. The first game ranches in Africa were established in the 1960s, and the concept quickly grew in proliferation. Statistics from 2000 illustrate that there were approximately 7000 game farms and reservations operating within South Africa, established on about 16 million hectares of land in the country. Game ranches attract wealthy tourists interested in hunting, as well as foreign investors on a large scale.

Game Auctions
Game auctions help provide game farms and reserves with their wildlife. These facilities are important in terms of tourism in Africa, one of the continent's largest economic sectors, accounting for almost 5% of South Africa's GDP, for example. South Africa in particular is the main tourist destination on the continent, and as a result, hosts a large number of game auctions, farms, and reservations. Game auctions serve as competitive markets that allow farm and reservation owners to bid on and purchase animals for their facilities. Animals purchased at auctions for these purposes are commonly bought directly as game, or are then bred to supply facilities. Animals used for breeding are generally females, which cost more on average than males due to the increased breeding prospects they present. In addition to sex, other factors that contribute to the prices of animals on auction include the demand for particular species (based on their overall rarity) and the costs of maintaining them. Animals that receive increased interest from poachers, such as rhinos or elephants due to their ivory horns and tusks, present additional risks to game farm operations, and do not typically sell well at auction. However other herbivores, specifically ungulate species, tend to fetch exponentially higher sums than carnivores. Prices for these animals can reach into the hundreds of thousands in South African rands, equivalent to tens of thousands of American dollars.

Effects of Trophy Hunting on Animal Populations
While locals may hunt certain species for sport or as pests, particularly carnivorous species such as leopards, these animals, as well as lions and cougars, are known to exhibit infanticidal tendencies which can be exacerbated by the removal of adult males from their populations. Males are hunted more frequently than females in order to minimize impacts to species reproduction. However, the removal of these males still degrades the networks and groups these species create in order to survive and provide for offspring. [also impacts overall gene pool diversity by focusing on particularly desired elements of an animal, elephants hunted for ivory are already showing that females are losing tusks in African populations] Hunting regulations and laws proposing constant proportions or thresholds of community members for these species have been proposed in African nations such as Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe, but are exceptionally difficult to enforce due to the logistics of tracking carnivore populations.

Arguments
Proponents of game and trophy hunting claim that the economic benefits presented by the practice are essential to nations in which ecotourism is not as viable or popular. Additionally, locals in more rural areas of Africa express that there is tension between human communities and certain species that pose dangers to them and their livestock. Members of these communities rely on current hunting regulations that allow them to retaliate or preempt against the threats these species can pose. Programs such as CAMPFIRE (Communal Areas Management Program for Indigenous Resources) in Zimbabwe have been implemented to allow landowners to benefit from the presence of wildlife on their land by marketing it to individuals such as safari owners or game ranch owners, framing wildlife as a renewable resource. Aside from the economic boon presented by the program, CAMPFIRE has also served to mitigate illegal poaching or hunting in certain areas, as well as helping farmers more easily access essential resources that they sometimes have to compete with animal communities for.

Trophy hunting has received a large amount of popular attention internationally as a result of incidents such as the death of Cecil the Lion, garnering a widely negative perception of the practice in many sectors of the general populace. Attention has been drawn both popularly and academically to the ethics of trophy hunting and trophy hunting facilities. Generally speaking, ethical arguments against trophy or sport hunting practices frame them as exploitative and abusive against animals. Evidence has been found illustrating that wild game hunting can also impact the reproductive and social processes of animal species, as well as increase aggression between species members, ultimately impacting the stability of different wildlife communities.

Peer Review - Geshan

The way you organized your article is flawless. It is easy to navigate through and your writing is direct and straight to the point. You explain your points well, but it would help to showcase and provide more examples. Like in the first section you could provide examples of game ranches and the roles they played. The other thing you could do is try to implement more sources which could end up giving you more content. Just make sure it stays within the framework of what you are trying to convey. Overall I really liked this. One other thing you could add are pictures.

Dr. Shaffer comments:

Well organized and good information in clear language. The African trophy hunting section in the current Trophy Hunting article is not so long or detailed. You should think about how to incorporate the existing published info into your article, as the original author will likely get tetchy if you delete their work. :) You might also want to address the additional cultural/ethical controversy posed by those opposed to trophy hunting outside Africa - aka Cecil the Lion that was killed by a US dentist or the photos posted to Twitter/Instagram of people trophy hunting giraffe, rhino, etc. that people get upset over.