The difference of a wild lion over a CBL lion isn’t the method of take. It’s where the money goes. The 2 or 3 wild lions taken from a 100k acre area generates money for anti-poaching, stop human encroachment, general protection of other species. Without these funds the area suffers, seen once lion importation became very difficult. The 20, 50, 100(?) CBL lions taken each year from a single 10k acre property just form part of farming economy to farm more lions not conservation value. The area would be a normal game ranch without hunting CBL lions. Shooting CBL lions isn’t adding additional protections to the ranch.
I have shot sable and wildebeest on the same ranch as people were hunting CBL. I think the money went to the exact same places - the land owner, PH, trackers, ranch staff, breeder and then those people spend their money, some of it locally and some of it mail ordering something that isn't produced locally.
All wild free ranging animals should have some portion of revenues going to local communities, like Zimbabwe has done with their very successful CAMPFIRE program. The thing is, CBL cannot be released into the wild. They are necessarily released onto fenced properties and so the economics for them fallows the economics for all fenced ranches. Private property and land owner managed revenue streams. CBL on those properties are just like buffalo, sable and impala.
The sad reality is there isn't much in the way of free range anything in South Africa. If there was, it likely would be devoid of wildlife unless South Africa changed their conservation model to something more like Zimbabwe or North America, which are based on public ownership of wildlife and management via government oversight and regulation. That works well in the USA and Canada. It does not work well in Africa due to the level of corruption that prevents benefits from filtering down to the local level, which is why Zimbabwe had to create their CAMPFIRE program and cut so much of the corruption out. I have no delusions that South Africa would fare any better than Zimbabwe on corruption and anybody who has spent any time in RSA would almost certainly agree with me.
South Africa's model of private ownership for wildlife has been very successful there and also in large parts of Texas and Argentina. I think it is good to have multiple models to choose from as one size certainly does not fit all. Now, when a country wants to implement a hunting based conservation model, they have multiple options and can debate and discuss and then finally choose one that best fits their reality on the ground in their country.
We already see many hunters who look down on estate hunting. If it isn't free range, it isn't hunting is a belief that is deeply ingrained in many hunter's mindsets. Those are the hunters the animal rights people love - the ones that they can turn on the other hunters and shut down half of hunting. They have a long term goal and that goal is to end hunting for all people and force Veganism on the world. Many of the people in that movement don't even realize that is where they are being led, much like many people who support socialism don't realize where that road leads - they cannot think more than 1 move ahead in chess and just see the immediate benefit and are oblivious to the long term costs. Once CBL is dead and gone, the focus will be on CB something else and they will probably go with something iconic or charismatic. Probably not buffalo because they look too much like livestock to people who don't know better. Maybe they will try and stop the hunting of zebra and giraffe or maybe they will just wait until there is an opportunity to sieze. Perhaps you or a friend will accidentally, in our quest for pure wild unfenced hunting, shoot an animal that turns out to have a collar we couldn't see. Sure, it will be a legal hunt, but that animal will cease to be "research specimen LP-246-077B and will suddenly be renamed Louis. He will be given a back story and you will find yourself asshole of the world with people picketing your dental office or wherever you work, get death threats, lose your job because of the backlash your employer doesn't want to face or have your business run into the ground if you own your own company.
And when the press reaches out to the head of the country's conservation program and ask them about the death of Louis, the most famous Zebra Unicorn in Wakanda, he can say "Who? Never heard of him" and it still won't matter. The marketing machine will be running. And you will be running. And most of the hunters around will say, "Yeah, he is a dick. I am not like him - I don't believe in his form of hunting. Fuck that guy." We already saw people in the hunting community push one of their own under the bus. Don't kid yourself. If you fall into the ARA crosshairs, you are next. How many hunters will come to your aid and how many will just try to distance themselves from you? We are full of people who say we need to stand up to cancel culture. Then we kick CBL hunters in the nuts and shove them into oncoming traffic and think we are part of the solution when instead, we are just what Joseph Stalin referred to as useful idiots.
I don't mean to be attacking anybody here, but just trying to get them to realize that we need to follow the Reagan doctrine of "thou shalt not speak ill of any other conservative" and apply it to our own.
And back to the topic of how dangerous Dangerous Hunting can be? Go ask Walter Palmer.
