Shark fans beg for help for endangered jaws
IT’S been a baptism of fire as South Africa’s hunting professionals stake their right to kill for pleasure at the world’s biggest wildlife trade convention.
For the past week, professional hunters at the 17th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora have been stating their case as to why killing wild animals equates to conservation.
The offensive the two lone hunting stands have faced on the exhibition floor at the Sandton Convention Centre — where wildlife rights organisations and governments have been hammering home the importance of protecting species — has been immense.
Within hours of pinning up posters with figures purporting to show how animal numbers have grown through hunting, they were met by animal rights groups in adjacent stands turning their TV screens — showing horrific videos of poached animals writhing in pain — towards them.
For Dries van Coller, the vice-president of the Professional Hunters Association of South Africa, the week has been “rough”.
“We definitely don’t feel welcome here and there is a lot of animosity, but we are here to . . . present the true facts on wildlife protection,” he said.
For Coller and his crowd, their logic is simple. Hunting keeps and enforces the natural order and in doing so creates a safe environment for animals to thrive in.
“The people here, who claim to be pro-animal rights experts, are all armchair-based activists who do what they do out of guilt. One month it’s the whale’s turn to be saved, the next it’s rhinos. But these people never really know why they are saving the animal, unlike the hunter who actually goes right down to the grassroots, into the bush, where we see the impact of what is happening.”
A rhino activist, who asked not to be named, said: “They claim they play a role in conservation by keeping animal numbers under control, by helping local communities, but how? The figures are used to manipulate and that’s what they do.” MENU ITEM: Sharks are under threat SHARKS may elicit less sympathy than elephants or rhinos, but experts say the feared predators are under increasing pressure from unmanaged commercial fishing and desperately in need of further protection.
Unregulated fishing and international trade in shark products for human consumption have led to a precipitous drop in numbers.
An estimated 100 million sharks are killed every year, according to an authoritative 2013 study, a number that conservationists say threatens the survival of many shark species.
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species conference, which is under way in Johannesburg, is to vote on whether to increase protection for the silky shark and three species of thresher sharks.
The decision would put them into the CITES “Appendix II”, which bans all trade in parts, unless under stringent conditions.
“The demand particularly for fins, for meat and gill plates is higher than ever,” said Andy Cornish, an expert on sharks at the World Wildlife Fund.
“Many countries have no management whatsoever for sharks — anybody can take whatever they want.”— AFP
We definitely don’t feel welcome here and there is a lot of animosity