The Patriot Post® · When Hunters Leave Africa

Last year, the bleedin’ heart liberals lost their collective mind over the fact that dentist Walter Palmer shot and killed a lion named Cecil during a hunting trip to Zimbabwe. Big whoop. Hunters go to Africa. They kill animals, and the licensing fees help the conservation efforts on the continent. But thanks to the outcry, hunters are no longer booking trips to the African Savanna. Now, the place where “Cecil the Lion” was bagged and tagged is facing a bit of a lion problem. The lion population at Bubye Valley Conservancy has ballooned to more than 500 felines. Combined with a dry summer that caused the grassland to grow stunted, the lions are laying waste to the other animal populations. As a result, the conservancy is saying it might have to go out and kill 200 lions.

“The astronomical fees foreign hunters paid to shoot animals in Africa directly supported the continent’s conservation efforts,” wrote The Truth About Guns’ Nick Leghorn. “It was a mutually beneficial, self-sustaining system. Now that the hunters are gone, there isn’t enough money to support Hwange National Park’s operation and the ecosystem is out-of-whack. Lions will be killed, anyway, without any of hunting’s enormous economic benefits.”

Furthermore, think of the economic loss to the region. Think of the lost jobs, the money not coming into the area because there are not the hunters willing to pay for lodging, food, transportation and guides. Anti-hunting groups had their field day, but they aren’t going to be concerned about the effects of their rabid protesting.