Trophy hunting ban

sir – Like Professor David Macdonald with the lion Cecil, I once suffered the loss of a collared study animal – a leopard – to a hunter’s bullet. It was devastating. But there is a reason that neither Professor Macdonald, nor I, nor any other conservation scientist I know of, endorses the celebrity-led animal rights campaign to ban trophy hunting (report, July 7).

The real threat to these species is habitat loss. Ironically, because hunters visit and fund areas that other tourists won’t, a hunting ban would almost certainly exacerbate this threat. Hunting would soon be replaced by agriculture and, instead of a few animals, ecosystems would be lost.

Reform trophy hunting? Yes. Regulate it? Absolutely. But ban it? Not when it means losing so much wild habitat, and not until a working alternative exists that equally supports so many ecosystems and communities. Dr Hugh Webster

Kirkmichael, Perthshire

sir – The sooner Boris Johnson announces the ban on animal trophies the better. I’ve never understood the desire to kill a species just to mount its head above your mantelpiece.

Owen Hollifield

Caerphilly, Glamorgan

sir – The Prime Minister has once again signalled, before the results of a Defra consultation, that the importation of hunting trophies is to be banned.

The evidence against such a ban is overwhelming. Disappointingly, Mr Johnson’s position appears to be heavily influenced by his partner, an animal-rights activist, and his antihunting friend Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park, who continues his campaigning as an environment minister. This is not good government.

Demonising hunters, who make huge contributions towards wildlife conservation, is a simplistic reaction to a far more complicated situation.

It is a paradox, but hunting benefits species that might otherwise be illegally killed for meat or the blackmarket trade in body parts, or lose their habitat to human encroachment. Charles Smith-jones

Landrake, Cornwall