True hunters and fisherman are conservationists that love, respect nature. They are people that love the outdoors, nature and the challenges to compete with them without negative effects, on the contrary they survive under conservative protection.

Preservationists and city slickers, townies and bunny/tree hugging liberals know zero about nature and caught up by soft human emotions to preserve without knowing the damage that expanding development does. They are sentimental ignoramuses, that go with the protesting flow of misconstrued knowledge.

Big game survives because of hunters. Today hunting is reserved for the very rich and so is fishing for salmon and trout and big game fish in exotic places. The hunters give huge benefits to impoverished people in the form of meat and jobs. Without that the game would become scarcer and eventually die and be wiped out completely.

Fisherman today normally release their catch, the odd trout, salmon or sea fish can be kept if so desired for a gourmet treat every now and then. That never interferes.

I release most of my fish but keep the occasional trout for my wife who delights in eating them.

Big game hunting, I used to do in the palmy days of Rhodesia ,on the other hand is far beyond today of affordability. I enjoyed in my very young days and seen the dangers of hunting, buff, leopard and lion. I don't have a lust for that anymore and it;s just as well as I cannot afford it.

Hunting "Dagga Boys" was the greatest rush of all. They are the old tough discarded leaders of herds that are frustrated and very dangerous and they have no further use to the breeding stocks as they have kicked out and are just seeing the last years of retirement years without no release but anger.

https://youtu.be/3yOUQTRXW8k

Seb, I am not a fan of anyone who hunts wild animals, either for the fun of it, or just because they can afford it.....

I have been offered many of these expensive hunting trips, but I have politely declined each one

I am not naïve to what happens with our meat and all of the other products that we eat every day, but to hear people brag about shooting some helpless animal, from over 100m or 500m away..... saying hey, "I got that lung shot"......or even worse...… "We had to track it for a few hours, because my shot was a bit off":......makes my blood boil.

It takes no real skill at all, to shoot a large stationary, non threatening animal from a distance of 100m - 300m..... no skill at all..... in my honest opinion.... that is a coward.

I guess the main problem that I have with it, is that this type of hunting is not limited to the old breed stock..... in many instances it is the young mothers and fathers that are killed for some morbid human satisfaction, and babies are left to die on their own because of it.....

I do understand the concept of culling the old breeders and such, but I can't understand how a aged lion cannot see out the rest of it's life naturally, without someone wanting to put it's head up on a wall somewhere...…or the fact that that Lion was specifically bred to be shot.

Then you have these despicable human creatures that allow Lions to be hunted by shooting them through a wire fence...…

Imagine this guy..... flying half way around the world, to point a gun through a wire fence...… aiming at a defenseless stationary Lion......pulling off one shot...… flying back home......then waiting for his trophy to be delivered..... hanging his trophy up in his man cave, and then proceed to brag to all his mates about how he scoured the savannahs, tracking wild animals for hours and days at a time, and that this was the result of his 5 day wilderness hunt...… a head from a Lion that was killed in some built up enclosure....

Yeah..... it makes my blood boil

Ja, I get your message, it's not entirely wrong because you will always get those with no ethics but in the true context of obeying the ethics I don't find anything wrong with purists that stick to the code.

It's always unfortunate in life you get others that distort the values and principles that set the wrong opinion.

People don't bother to understand and get the wrong information...it's just weak, lazy, emotionalism without the effort to find out.

There's a huge difference in life between wisdom and learnt knowledge. You can get knowledge through universities and false knowledge by newspapers and the masses but true knowledge comes from the university of life, ie experience and being there...if you understand my mail.

I do hunt still, but only wing shooting for greywing francoln (partridge) in NE Cape Highlands. There are more of them now than there were 20 years ago because the farmers look after them (less fire breaks etc) and nothing can beat an old fashioned partridge pie or stew.

There are rules and ethics to the hunt which involves a lot of walking, positions and dogs.

Rainbow Chickens breeds ,anemic, poisonous chickens, raises and slaughters chickens that are cooped up and live a hellish life yet millions eat this crap without thought.

Ethical hunting is moral in this context. You cannot group man's activities under one heading.

I don't hunt and I don't kill for sport. I don't like killing, but has done it when necessary in the past.

Hunting has an ugly side to it, but the positives far outweigh the negatives. 

Like any other kind of farming, some unintended "eggs" get broken, singling out hunting is naive in the extreme. Even vegans and vegetarians leave dead creatures in their wake. Animals and plants dies daily to keep humans going.

"Like any other kind of farming, some unintended "eggs" get broken"

There is a huge difference between genuine unintended "eggs" being broken with the sport of hunting..... and a man made billion rand / dollar industry, which specifically breeds our big 5...... purely, and only,  for overseas caged hunting, but yeah, I get your point

"Ethical hunting is moral in this context. You cannot group man's activities under one heading"

100% agree Seb…. I'm just pointing out that, as with most things that go wrong in this world.... people always try and bunch it in amongst something that is socially acceptable, to try and hide or minimise the bad aspects of it

One thing most people in the conservation industry will tell you is that if you remove hunting from the equation, you'll have a hard time replacing the conservation funding that it brings in.

While I hate cruelty to animals more than most things, I am also forced to admit that rather unintentionally breaking a few eggs, its more a case of wanting to make an omelette and having to break them.

Hopefully, there is a better solution on the just beyond the horizon.