Trophy hunting was an issue in the recent provincial election, just as it has been in several other past provincial elections.
It’s an emotional issue for many people. Unfortunately, it never seems to gain enough traction to bring about any legislative changes.
As a result, one of the most despicable activities of anything imaginable in the outdoors will continue.
Trophy hunting for big or small game animals or birds is a repulsive activity that harkens back to the Neanderthal Age, when cavemen needed those trophies to display their hunting prowess to any available cave woman who might be wandering around in the nearby wilderness
Nowadays, the amount of revenue derived from the sale of licenses, permits and all the other expenditures of a trophy hunting expedition, including political donations, cannot mask the social stench, nor justify the primitive brutality and needless barbarism of the activity.
Several decades ago, I worked at the Haney-Pitt Meadows Auction Market. Occasionally, we had the misfortune of having a customer book in some dusty, smelly, pathetic old bull moose or stag deer head.
I could never understand why any normal person would want something like that lurking above them in their living room; or, in some cases, in their den, or even their bedroom.
It was always men who brought those so-called trophies to the auction. It was never women, but I suspect the men were acting under strict orders from their wives to get the ugly things out of the house.
In my mind, trophy hunting belongs up there in the same category as keeping wild animals in a zoo or allowing the incarceration of orcas and other cetaceans in aquariums.
The tired old argument that aquariums and zoos provide an opportunity for education on wild game and marine life that would otherwise not be accessible to the general public is no longer valid.
Television programming provides a much more realistic educational background on anything that flies, swims or otherwise roams the earth.
The activities you observe at a game farm or zoo give a false representation of any wild creature’s existence in the wild.
There should be no confusion between game hunting for legitimate purposes and trophy hunting. These are two distinctly different activities.
A person hunting game animals uses the meat or other products for consumption while trophy hunters often leave carcasses rotting in the wilderness, taking only what is necessary o satisfy their lust for the trophy.
Everybody gets their dander up when a bear is shot after being found wandering around a residential neighbourhood, but too few people are similarly aroused by reports of bears in the wild being slaughtered for their paws or livers or other items destined for foreign markets.
The slaughter of bears is illegal and rightly so.
The slaughter in British Columbia of game animals or birds for trophies anywhere in the world should also be illegal.
If a person wants trophies hanging on the walls of their home, they should invest in good quality framed prints, sculptures or paintings. No fuss, no muss and, even with good quality products, the cost is significantly less.
We have several water colours of wild birds, an eagle, a few other animals, a female orca and a couple of Robert Bateman wildlife prints adorning the cluttered walls of our apartment. No wildlife was harmed in their production and we get immense pleasure viewing them.
Sandy Macdougall is a retired journalist and former city councillor.