German trophy hunters shoot hundreds of wild animals of endangered species

German big game hunters kill polar bears, lions, or giraffes and bring the skins, teeth, and other parts home as a trophy.

In the past year, 2020, amateur hunters from Germany brought home hundreds of animals listed in the Washington Convention on Endangered Species as trophies.

They imported 543 hunting trophies from Africa, Canada, Argentina, the USA, Namibia, Tanzania, Tajikistan, Russia, and Mongolia, according to a response from the Federal Environment Ministry to a request from Green MP Steffi Lemke.

“It is completely absurd, while more and more animal species are facing extinction, parts of protected animals are still being brought to Germany as hunting trophies – quite legally,” said Lemke, the nature conservation spokeswoman for the Greens.
“The destruction of their habitat, the climate crisis, illegal and also legal trade put entire animal populations under pressure.”

Among the trophies: 164 zebras, 109 baboons, eight elephants, 14 lions, three white rhinos, one polar bear – and 40 giraffes that have just been protected in the Washington Convention on International Trade in Endangered Wildlife (Cites).
According to Cites, endangered animals are also hunted. In 2020, for example, a white rhinoceros from Namibia, four saber antelopes, eleven leopards, and three cheetahs were introduced to Germany.

“In view of the dramatic situation with the loss of species, the federal government must act and stop the practice of hunting trophies for protected species,” demands Lemke.
“The Germans are the greatest big game hunters after the Americans and Spaniards,” said Daniela Freyer from Pro Wildlife.

“It has to do with the country’s hunting tradition, but also with its ability to pay.”

According to the species protection organization Pro Wildlife, the giraffe populations alone shrank by 36 to 40 percent between 1985 and 2015. It is estimated that there are less than 100,000 giraffes across Africa. Habitat loss, poaching, and legal hunting threaten the animals, criticizes Pro Wildlife.

German hunters are among the leaders in trophy hunting after the Americans and Spaniards.

Some European countries have already banned the import of hunting trophies of certain species or are preparing corresponding laws.
The German government, on the other hand, is sticking to the approval of the import of hunting trophies and claims that these would provide a financial incentive to preserve hunted species.

In addition, The German government is currently funding development projects in Africa that “have points of contact with countries and areas with hunting components” with around 140 million euros.

“It is high time that the German government banned the import of hunting trophies and financed sustainable projects that recognize that living wild animals are worth more than dead ones,” said the Pro Wildlife spokeswoman.

Of course, magnificent specimens can be seen in photos on the Internet, at hunting fairs, and in the catalogs of hunting providers.
Hobby hunters – and more and more often hobby hunters – present themselves in victory pose with killed animals.

Showing the booty is part of it. Taxidermists then take care of it.
The skin of a giraffe can turn into a rifle bag. The preparation of a whole animal costs several thousand euros.

Just for Valentine’s Day, a gunsmith with the heart of a killed giraffe posed for the camera. Opponents advertise on Facebook to ban them from the social network because of their posts with dead animals.

The woman, in turn, explains on Facebook that trophy hunting is an instrument to save certain species from extinction.

The South African and psychopath Merelize van der Merwe here in a pose with the heart of the giraffe that she killed

Last year, for example, according to a supplier’s catalog, a 14-day trip to hunt polar bears in the hard-to-reach Canadian Inuit region of Nunavut cost 52,500 US dollars, including the shooting of a bear.

A three-week lion hunt in Africa, on the other hand, should cost just under 80,000 US dollars per participant, with full board and daily laundry service.
A twelve-day leopard hunt in Tanzania with accommodation in luxury tented camps and raw preparation of the trophy was available from around 30,000 US dollars, the shooting fee for a leopard was around 8,000 US dollars.

Leopards are subject to the strictest protection as well as cheetahs. For cheetahs, which already have a small gene pool, the Cites Conference of the Parties has set export quotas for live specimens and hunting trophies: According to this, five animals from Botswana, 150 from Namibia, and 50 from Zimbabwe can be exported as trophies every year.

According to the IUCN, there are still almost 6,700 adult cheetahs worldwide, and the population is decreasing.

https://wildbeimwild.com/unkultur/trophaeenjaegerin-posiert-mit-giraffenherz/43172/2021/02/23/

And I mean…In Africa alone, more than 18,000 foreigners hunt big game each year, killing more than 100,000 wild animals. Elephants, leopards, lions, cheetahs, rhinos, polar bears, brown bears, hippos, zebras, monkeys, wolves, and wild cats are among the threatened and protected animal species whose trophies are legally imported into Germany.

Every year trophies of several hundred protected animals are imported into Germany – quite legally and often even with the approval of the responsible authorities. In 2019 alone there were 750 animals of threatened or protected species.

Dozens of tour operators specializing in hunting trips in Germany offer the shooting of endangered species quite legally.

The industry’s Eldorado is the annual hunting fair “Jagd & Hund” in Dortmund, Germany: you can see smirking hunters on photo walls.
They kneel behind freshly hunted brown bears with blood oozing from their mouths; with swollen chests, they can be photographed between the tusks of an elephant or heave a dead leopard into the air;

Hunting associations such as the Safari Club International (SCI) and the “International Council for the Conservation of Hunting and Game” (CIC) even keep record books and point catalogs for the “most important” trophies and awards medals.

Locals go to prison for many years if they are caught with an elephant’s tooth – and then a rich trophy hunter from Germany comes and can simply take his elephant trophy with him!

After international outrage, France became the first EU country to stop the import of lion trophies in 2015, and in 2016 the Netherlands imposed an import ban on trophies for all protected animal species.
The government of Great Britain plans to work out an import ban in 2020.

It is a moral shame to go trophy hunting.
This is a remnant from the colonial days when there was still big game hunting for whites.
Someone who kills another living being, cuts out their heart, and boasts about it, fits the definition of a sociopath.

One day, trophy hunting is listed as a sign of a psychiatric disorder.

My best regards to all, Venus