Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
The killing fields
Film lifts lid on vile animal trade Killers claim to aid conservation
is seen shooting a crocodile. It is an easy target but he cannot manage a clean kill. It is dragged to the bank and waits for death.
The hunter then shouts, “Let me put my beer down” before firing a bullet into its brain at close range. “Oh yeah, m ***** f ***** ,” he cries. “I’m done for today. It’s party time, boys.”
He still wants to kill a warthog, a baboon and a bush pig before he leaves – and finds time to share a creepy kiss with his partner while posing beside a dead wildebeest.
This is all legal with 150 farms in South Africa holding permits to breed lions for trophy hunting, including the Mabula game reserve in the northern province of Limpopo. Owner Christo Gomes, a cattle farmer before breeding big game, says: “You can pick the animals you want to shoot.”
That allows hunters to select the gender, size and colour of their kill as well as species. But not all hunters want to kill farmed animals. Glass, 45, a Texan sheep farmer, prefers to stalk them in the wild. He also has a mission to collect the “Big Five”. He has shot a buffalo, leopard, lion and elephant, and just needs a rhino.
Glass claims to love animals more than non-hunters. After killing a lion, he says: “It is more special for me as a believer when I shoot these animals, to know God placed them. When I put my hand on that lion, I know anyone who believes in evolution is a fool.”
He even says he helps with conservation: “If a species pays, it stays”.
Trophy hunting hit headlines in 2015 after US dentist Walter Palmer, 57, killed Cecil the Lion in Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park.
There are now just 20,000 rare southern white rhinos in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Namibia. And of 20,000 lions just 4,000 are adults.
Directors Christina Clusiau and Shaul Schwarz made Trophy to probe whether trophy hunting and farming rhinos for their horns, without killing them, really can save endangered species. Will Travers OBE, president of charity Born Free, said: “The footage of these trophy hunters is so shocking anyone with a beating heart will be appalled. We are told all the money will go into conservation but [a study] found only 3% goes to communities and conservation. If the British Government is not willing to ban bringing trophies in, there is nothing to stop it bringing in criteria that hunters have to meet.”
Schwarz adds: “The thought of putting economic value on animals is not pleasant. Do I understand why Philip Glass wants to kill an elephant? Hell no. But can this psychopath help conserve? That’s the question.”
Trophy is in cinemas now and also available by download and on DVD.
Extra reporting: Tammy Hughes