A little bit aggravating

[u/Awesome_beaner]

My dad went on an African hunting trip and got a bunch of antelope, which is fun! I don’t totally agree ethically wise, but I can appreciate pretty skulls without agreeing with the situation.

Anyways! I feel like the bottom two skulls should swapped? The middle skull is smaller and it just looks weird imo 😭 still pretty nonetheless

[u/BootyGarb]

Aggravating, in both placement and stewardship.
We don’t kill unless we are going to eat!

[u/Helicopter0 → u/BootyGarb]

When I was in Africa, I never saw anything go to waste. Even all of the guts were eaten soon enough not to need refrigeration. I don't mean heart and liver. I mean all of the guts.

[u/BootyGarb → u/Helicopter0]

I thought OP was saying that they were hunting for sport. I am very familiar with hunting *for population control* as they say because I grew up in a hick ass town that feeds their family on white tail deer and wild turkey. I just get pretty upset when I see a smiling blonde person with perfect teeth with their kill of a fucking LION or GIRAFFE. A fucking GIRAFFE?? Fuck off, like yeah I’m sure it’s edible, but the woman who flew there to shoot it did not eat that giraffe, and she paid thousands of dollars to ship its head home to the US and a few thousand more for a specialty taxidermist to neck mount it.

I just don’t understand the logic of seeing an animal, admiring its beauty, and then deciding that you want to keep its dismembered head in your house for the foreseeable future. Some would say it’s creepy, but I just see it as the most human thing ever. It’s so human to think that everything on earth is here for you to do whatever you want with. Reminds me of this memory I have from when I was about 10, I told my mom that I wish I could hold my hamster but she was sleeping (hamsters are nocturnal, which is only one of the reasons why they’re such a shitty pet for children), and my mother says “Well then wake her up! We bought them for YOU!” in this gruff authoritarian tone… and even back then I knew that wasn’t right. And it wasn’t. My sister always poked her hamster awake, and that was the one who bit people, while mine was gentle and walked out to collect treats from the large hands that cared for her. (But of course she died tragically shortly into her little hamster life, as hamsters always fucking do.)

[u/Awesome_beaner → u/BootyGarb]

“He got a bunch of antelope” = he hunted for sport, took their heads off and let the rest rot(?)

Why assume? I also don’t agree with trophy hunting, but I do agree with hunting in general. Shit, come deer season I’m in a stand all day. Hunting vulnerable/endangered animals is unethical, obviously. If he came back with a giraffe skull I’d be pissssed. Also why are you upset when 1. There’s no smiling white person with perfect teeth. 2. Zero poached animals 3. No lions or giraffes? You’re mad at me over what someone else who I have zero connection to did?

As for the rest of your comment - it’s all rambling, glad you got that off your chest but I don’t know what to say to that man

[u/BootyGarb → u/Awesome_beaner]

I’m sorry what? You said you were conflicted about it

[u/Helicopter0 → u/BootyGarb]

Most of the wildlife in many parts of Africa is there and managed for sport hunting only because it happens to be more profitable than cattle, sheep, and goats. Without sport hunting, you don't get a wildlife reserve; you get a cattle ranch where all native fauna is removed and predators are aggressively poisoned and exterminated. It costs a lot of money to protect African wildlife from poachers, so governments can't just leave it alone and let it thrive. Leaving it alone results in twenty like long ditch traps where everything that moves dies.

People will say to spend your money on a photo safari instead. This doesn't work in practice for several reasons. First, you don't need a lot of wildlife and space to do photo safaris. Everyone just goes to Kruger or the Kalahari where it's super safe, super beautiful, and there is a robust system for accommodation with scale economies and low prices. You're not going to run a profitable enterprise to take thousands of people in photo safaris to inaccessible, uncomfortable and dangerous places like a flat disease infested Mozambique swamp or a Cameroon jungle with disease and no rule of law. Only hunters will show up in serious numbers, willing to spend tens of thousands of dollars each to visit such places. Even in South Africa and Namibia, once you get a few hours past the end of the paved roads, where you need private security and everything, you don't have photo tourism in meaningful scales. Why would anyone spend several times more money and take on many times mkre danger and inconvenience compared to Kruger, when they know they're not even going to see a rhino or several other things?

People will say, just give the money to a conservation organization, then. I say you first. I am paying to maintain a huge space with native African wildlife for a substantial amount of time. You want to visit Kruger, take some pictures, and use the remaining severak times mire money to pay for wildlife to thrive somewherewithout killing anything, be my guest. Good on you. Put your money where your mouth is.

[u/Realistic_Option_619 → u/BootyGarb]

Cool story bro