Killing just for the fun of it? Who is the animal now?

Dr Walter Palmer, the American who killed a famous lion in Zimbabwe recently, has apologised for his illegal hunt, saying he had relied on the expertise of his local professional guides to ensure a legal kill.

“I deeply regret that my pursuit of an activity I love and practise responsibly and legally resulted in the taking of this lion,” he said.

But it was perhaps the following statement that made him one of the most hated men on the Internet last week: “I had no idea that the lion I took was a known, local favourite, was collared and part of a study until the end of the hunt.”

The Yelp page for his dental practice in Bloomington, Minnesota, was inundated with trolls by an irate audience. “Want to see your cash go to killing animals in Africa?” a reviewer posted. “Lions, rhino, endangered or not... he kills the lot and spends big for it. So next time you pay him for an implant, veneer, crown or a cleaning, know that you are financing one animal to kill another.”

Zimbabwe has has not been amused by Cecil’s killing, and environment minister Oppah Muchinguri has said that the Prosecutor General has already started the process to have 55-year-old Walter Palmer extradited from the US.

I must admit that the mention of “sport hunting” distresses me a great deal. I know too well that opening the gate for hunting, wherever, in whatever name and for whatever benefit, is like opening a can of worms.

A few months ago, I read an open letter to an American Rhino hunter, Mr Corey Knowlton, by Ms Raabia Hawa, an honorary game warden with the Kenya Wildlife Service who is also the founder of the Walk With Rangers initiative.

“Please Sir,” Hawa wrote, “I plead with you to understand what we are facing. Exactly a year and some days ago now, my colleague and good friend was shot by poachers. He stood right in between a rhino they were targeting. He took the bullet for the rhino. He didn’t ask its age, he didn’t ask if it was a breeding bull, he didn’t ask if it was male or female, white or black. He just saw poachers and a rhino, and did what he knew he had to do.

“That, kind Sir, is true conservation, management and protection that will ensure the survival of our precious rhino species.”

The letter, titled “From a wildlife warden to a trophy hunter”, sparked off a heated debate on online forums. Kuki Gallman, a conservationist, author, founder of The Gallmann Memorial Foundation and honorary game warden, cited her 40 years of experience working humanely with wild rhinos in Africa while expressing her disgust for sport hunting:

“If the person bidding to shoot the rhino bull has that spare cash available, why not donate it to the cause and leave the poor rhino alone? The old rhino does not deserve a bullet,” said Gallman.

Hunting has never been and will never be in the true interest of the African people or nations. What sport hunting does is not conservation, and governments that continue to allow such “fun hunts” on endangered and critical species must be ashamed. Indeed, it should hit Africans hard that our great herds are gone.

National Rifle Association (NRA) lobbyist Tony Makris is a fanatic of killing big game, and in one of the episodes of the NBC sports show Under Wild Skies, which he hosts, he is seen shooting down a bull elephant.

The NBC Sports Network has faced a backlash on Twitter for carrying episodes of the programme.

WHY?

In the video, Makris, wearing a brown safari hat, is seen tracking the elephant, taking aim and shooting it twice. The large animal trumpets, and Makris and his guide retreat to reload.

“Somebody got a little cheeky there,” he says, chuckling as the elephant storms in their direction. Makris then raises his rifle again and shoots the elephant “between the eyes”.

In the next scene, he and his guide stand next to the dead elephant and talk about how they snuck right into its “bedroom” to kill it. The next clip shows the group sipping champagne as the guide talks about the “special” act of bringing the elephant’s ivory back to camp. Is this really in sync with our cultural practices as Africans?

One Facebook group, The Animal Shame, shared another story on May 28 last year about the killing of another elephant. The poor animal was asleep, unaware that an enemy was within range.

My heart throbbed and my spirit whined as I watched the sickening footage of the shocking moment when the sleeping elephant in Zimbabwe was woken up by American trophy hunters and shot before it had the chance to even get to its feet. The killing was filmed as part of an American hunting TV show called Mojo Outdoors.

I believe very strongly that we are in the wake of a crisis that has gripped our region. Poachers have decimated our herds, and Africa is no longer teeming with wildlife. We, Africans, have been duped into believing that sport hunting will aid conservation in Africa. It will not.

Aside from gaining Africa huge disrepute, it will go against the very fibre of what we, Africans, are trying so hard to achieve — the protection and true management of our last wild things.

I have struggled to understand why Safari Club International (SCI) and Dallas Safari Club (DSC) continue to put prices on the heads of our wildlife. It is laughable that they even think they have any right.

The wildlife of a nation remains the sovereign property of its people.

Trophy hunters will say that Africa’s wildlife is worth the thousands of US dollars pumped into conservation for their death. But imagine what would happen if a single tourist came to the region and spent some money shooting our wildlife with a camera and not a gun!

The legacy of these animals would be ongoing, and the number of tourists that would spend money in the region, just to come and see them and their subsequent offspring, would be exponential.

Studies have shown that only 3 to 5 per cent of the income from such hunts ends up benefitting the locals. There are much better ways to earn this kind of money — revenue from nature tourism, where the animal is not killed, brings in three to 15 times what’s brought in from these trophy hunts in Africa.

Moreover, it is equally unethical to use two sets of measures for poachers, who shoot a wild animal for financial gain and are arrested or shot; and for a wealthy legal hunter who can pay a fortune for the pleasure to kill it. In both cases a dead animal is the end product.

Zambia’s Minister of Tourism and Arts, Sylvia T Masebo, announced in December 2012 that specific hunting licenses would be suspended indefinitely as they had “been abused to the extent they threatened the country’s animal populations”.

By January 2013 the Zambian government put laws into effect that banned all lion and leopard hunting, citing that these populations had declined in recent years.

Botswana took a similar pro-conservation stance as President Ian Khama pledged that “the shooting of wild game for sport and trophies is no longer compatible with our commitment to reserve the local fauna”. Botswana has instituted a country-wide ban on sport hunting, beginning January 1, 2014.

From where I sit, we should be protectors of life; ensuring animals are treated humanely, not because we are rangers and scouts, but because we are animal welfare enthusiasts. We must only take that which is sustainable and in a way that will not bring harm to the delicate balance of nature. This is our way, the way of true Africa.

I urge all African leaders to consider what philosopher Immanuel Kant advised: “He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men.

We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.” Human life and wildlife are wired to coexist in a seamless harmony, and it is my submission that if you allow your animals to be gunned down for profit, then that’s not true conservation.

Sebastian Mwanza is the communications officer, Africa Network for Animal Welfare (ANAW)