Out of Africa

TROPHY hunting is a highly emotive subject (Mail). But a practice in other sovereign nations is certainly not a matter for our Parliament to legislate on.

We are used to seeing African wildlife on our TV screens — cuddly leopard cubs, stately elephant matriarchs and frisky wildebeest — so find it hard to accept trophy hunting is good for sustainability.

Is it financially sustainable? Money generated contributes to anti-poaching patrols and prevents further loss of habitat, the biggest factor in the decline of wildlife.

In nations where hunting takes place, it’s clearly acceptable to the local people.

If it prevents one child being grabbed by a lion or one village losing its entire crop to marauding elephants, it’s acceptable to me.

We shouldn’t be telling poor Africans how to manage their wildlife. That is as daft as them telling Scotland how to manage its red deer.

LINDSAY JAMIESON,

Sherborne, Dorset. THERE are three distinct issues: trophy hunting; canned hunting; and culling.

Trophy hunters want the biggest and the best of the species they intend to kill. And they are the very animals, such as bull tuskers or bigmaned male lions, that should be left to sire more progeny. There can be no excuse for canned hunting, whereby lions are bred on farms and removed from their mothers at birth.

Tourists are told they are orphans and pay to pet them as cubs and go walking with them before they become dangerous. And that is when they are earmarked to be drugged and shot at close quarters. It’s a cruel, moneymaking business.

Culling is undertaken by fully qualified rangers and has nothing to do with hunting.

ANGELA HUMPHERY,

London NW3.