This is a well written article on the subject of trophy hunting and conservation.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hunting-big-game-why-people-kill-animals-for-fun/
POWER PLAY
The slaughtering of large, dangerous animals as a spectacle dates back thousands of years, with records from the Assyrian empire (about 4,000 years ago to around 600 B.C.) describing kings that boasted of killing elephants, ibex, ostriches, wild bulls and lions, according to a study published in 2008 in the journal Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research.
These hunts were carefully orchestrated and conducted for the amusement of royalty and as demonstrations of their strength, Linda Kalof, a professor of sociology at Michigan State University, told Live Science in an email.
"Ancient canned hunts were spectacular displays of royal power and dominance, and always took place with the king's public watching from the sidelines," Kalof said. "A successful hunt requires the death of unrestrained wild animals — animals who are hostile, shun or attack humans, and are not submissive to human authority."
Even today, acquiring trophy animals is a way of displaying power, Kalof noted. In some African countries, where big-game hunting and trophy display are expensive forms of entertainment practiced predominantly by white men, hunting recalls ideologies that are deeply rooted in colonialism and patriarchy, Kalof said.
THE HIGH COST OF HUNTING
And then there's the money involved. Legal hunting, which is conducted under the supervision of government agencies and official guides, involves expensive permits and is limited to specific animal populations and only in certain areas. Illegal poaching, on the other hand, circumvents all regulations and targets animals regardless of their age, sex, or endangered status.
The price tag attached to legal big-game hunting is considerable, once you tally up the costs of travel and lodging expenses, state-of-the-art equipment, local guides, and hunting permits. Government-sanctioned hunting is a booming enterprise in some African countries, with visiting hunters spending an estimated $200 million annually, The New York Times reported in 2015.
And when American dentist Walter Palmer notoriously shot a 13-year-old lion named Cecil in Zimbabwe in July 2015, he purportedly spentapproximately $54,000 just on permits for the privilege.
In other words, people who hunt recreationally — and share photos of their trophies — are broadcasting that they can support lavish habits, biologist Chris Darimont, a Hakai-Raincoast Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, told Live Science in an email.
In a study on contemporary trophy hunting behavior, published in March 2016 in the journal Biology Letters, Darimont and his co-authors investigated whether evolutionary anthropology could provide answers about motives for recreational hunting. They suggested in their findings that men use hunting to send signals about their fitness to rivals and potential mates, noting that even subsistence hunters (those who kill animals for food) targeted animals that were more challenging for them to catch, simply to let others know that they could afford to take that risk.
"The inference is that they have the physical and mental characteristics that allow them to behave in a costly way and absorb those costs," Darimont said.
And by sharing images of their trophies on social media, hunters can now trumpet messages about their personal wealth and social status to a global audience, he added. [Black Market Horns: Images from a Rhino Bust]
FUNDING CONSERVATION
