CANNED HUNTING MAKES DREAMS COME TRUE

1/9/2011

"The bullet slammed into the lioness and she spun into the air, falling against the electric fence behind which she was confined. Standing on the other side of the fence were her three young cubs - she had been separated from them an hour earlier.

"The overseas hunter fired another shot. She slumped to the ground in a crumpled heap. Both times, the hunter shot from a vehicle. He then posed with the dead lioness and pulled at her mouth to show her teeth."

collage by Betsy Seeton showing various hunters in the United States with their trophy kills from canned hunting lodges

This is how Gareth Patterson described a scene that some of you will recognise from The Cook Report TV documentary on canned hunting. (Source captiveanimals.org) But you don't have to go to Africa to kill the animals of your dreams. You can do it right here in America. There are over 1000 canned hunting sites available for your killing pleasure in the U.S. All kinds of rare, exotic animals are fenced in on commercial hunting grounds that you can shoot just about any which way you choose -- for a price. Zebras cost somewhere around $4,500 to put a bullet through. Lodging costs are on top of the kill price. Killing a Transcaspian Urial Sheep will set you back upwards of around $17,000 while a Siberian Ibex is more than $19,000.

The Blah Blah Blah Hunting Lodge advertises that their hunting adventure:
".... allows the opportunity to hunt and harvest the Trophy Zebra you'll want to hang on your wall...this hunt will offer 100% opportunity for a Mature Zebra. Year round, we offer hunts for beautiful Grants Zebra. There are no seasonal restrictions on hunting the Zebra in Texas, which makes it a suitable trophy year round."

( I guess the new word for kill is "harvest" .... )

I grew up eating elk and venison my entire childhood courtesy of my father who was an avid big game hunter. My brothers and I, along with my mother, helped pack out the meat from the forest and my father gutted/cleaned and packaged the meat in our basement using a band saw. But one thing he would never do, and would never support, is canned hunting. He hunted to put food on our table. He loved the hunt. He really did. But he told me if he had money he would not have hunted. He did it to provide for his family. He would not have done it for the joy of killing.

The caption for this posting is what some or even most canned hunters feel. Trophy hunters often have their wish list -- a bucket list if you will -- of animals they want to kill during their lifetime. I cannot fathom this mindset.

Canned hunters must have a perverted sense of joy and twisted sense of accomplishment along with what I can only describe as scary egos. These exotic animals are transported from their natural habitat and some are farm raised to continue the species for future hunting. They are on grounds that have fences. They are not living a natural life and they die a quite unnatural death. I will never understand the soul of these people. How they stand by their trophy kill with those "look-at-me" grins thinking they are powerful or strong or whatever it is that they believe they are. The whole concept of canned hunting is beyond my comprehension.

Canned hunting seems so obviously wrong that it feels almost silly making that point. Hunters I know would never go to a commercial lodge where animals had been stocked like fish in a pond and where the grounds are fenced. There's no real challenge. It's not 'real' hunting. It's disgraceful. The whole thing is a barbaric, inhumane way to make money and be entertained at the great expense of amazing wild creatures. "Harvesting" animals on canned hunts should not only be illegal it should be viewed as horrendously shameful.

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8 Comments

dwayne

9/26/2011 04:29:42

i have a vhs film i recorded about 10 yrs ago of a group of egomaniacs slaughting a black panther that had been kept in a cage on a hunting farm and was taken out on the range and released from the back of a pickup truck and then dogs were turned loose. it ran under the truck to hide but the dogs flushed it out n the cowards shot it . humans can be the most disgusting animals on earth.

sam

10/28/2015 17:11:50

and you were just recording?

Eileen Young

3/16/2013 12:31:50

This is just so sick! I can't understand anyone in their right mind enjoying this! These beautiful innocent animals just don't stand a chance! We have to get this banned! It has to be made illegal! Only low life do this kind of thing!! Time to stop all the killing of our animals!

duck and goose link

8/17/2015 06:05:07

The overseas hunter fired another shot. She slumped to the ground in a crumpled heap. Both times, the hunter shot from a vehicle.

Donna Gilmore

10/14/2015 09:24:06

I am appalled. Is there anyway to get info on the breeders? Any laws regarding this inhumane practice?

Betsy Seeton

10/14/2015 09:33:38

Hi Donna,

I agree; it IS appalling! Google "canned hunting" and "hunting camps". There are over a 1000 canned hunting businesses in the United States.

Here's an article by one of my favorite animal welfare organizations:

Canned Hunting in the United States

Imagine an animal running fearfully from a hunter, and quickly finding that everywhere it turns, there is a fence. Or, imagine an animal trustingly approaching a person after a lifetime of human interaction, only to be shot with a bullet or arrow, then suffering a slow, agonizing death. These scenes capture the manipulative "game" of a canned hunt.

Canned, "captive," "high-fence" hunts, "game ranches," or "fenced-in shooting preserves" are essentially private or commercial trophy hunts in which animals are raised or captured from the wild and released into a confined area to be hunted. Hunters usually pay the ranch operator for a guaranteed successful hunt. Hunters may perch safely in tree blinds or huddle in vehicles, targeting animals that are caged, lured to feeding stations, or drugged before they are killed. Most disturbing is that fact that these canned hunts often include exotic and endangered species.

Where is this happening? Asia? Africa? ...Right here in the United States of America. African antelopes and lions are bred and hunted in Texas, wild red foxes are caught, released, and chased down by dogs in Virginia, and elk in Colorado are born, raised and shot in a pen. Sadly, there are more than a thousand captive hunts in at least 28 states in the U.S. Of the 12 U.S. ranches holding current or recent government-issued endangered species permits, 11 are located in Texas and 1 is in Florida. The animal most commonly hunted at these ranches is the barasingha, or "swamp deer," native to India and Nepal. Other targeted endangered or threatened species include Eld's bow-antlered deer, red lechwe, Arabian oryx, and several species of antelope. The going rate for a canned hunt varies; one ranch website advertises a guaranteed kill of a barasingha for $4,0001.

Canned Hunts
The ranch owners or operators often acquire these animals from breeders, dealers, auctions, or even zoos or circuses. While operations claim to offer only non-endangered exotic animals, illicit dealers in the exotic "pet" trade often enable the acquisition of endangered animals for hunting.

Another appalling truth is that there is currently no federal U.S. law that specifically bans, oversees, or regulates these activities. Discretion and authority over these private hunting activities are left to state wildlife agencies. Because canned hunts most often take place on private property, such as game reserves that are not governed by the same wildlife laws as public lands, requirements and restrictions are loose and vague. On private lands, for example, there are no "bag limits" or caps on numbers of kills; canned hunters are not required to carry hunting licenses; and they do not need firearm experience. These lax requirements allow people with little experience to participate, often exacerbating the agony of the animals when multiple shots are required to kill them.

The only federal laws that touch on these activities are the Endangered Species Act and the Lacey Act, and solely in the context of endangered and protected animals. The U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA), passed in 1973, prohibits taking, importing or exporting, selling, or offering to sell any listed endangered or threatened species. The Act defines "taking" as harassing, harming, pursuing, hunting, shooting, wounding, killing, trapping, capturing, or collecting, or attempting to engage in any such conduct. An exception is made by allowing the issuance of a permit authorizing otherwise-prohibited activities for scientific purposes. Often, canned hunt owners or operators will have a permit for importation, captivity, breeding, and hunting of these endangered species. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) issues all such permits, and grants canned hunting ranches permission to kill endangered and threatened species as trophy animals based on "the propagation of the survival of the species" exception.

Canned hunts are not only appalling because of the cruelty involved, but also dangerous because of the health risks they pose. When exotic animals are transported long distances to canned hunt facilities or housed under unregulated conditions, diseases such as tuberculosis, brucellosis, and chronic wasting disease (which is similar to bovine spongiform encephalopathy, also known as "Mad Cow Disease") can spread to nearby cattle, to local wildlife, and even to humans.

This is not just an American problem. Canned hunts are happening all across the globe. South Africa is making a name for itself as the canned hunting capital of the world. (link to our UK site) Private ranches are freely breeding lions and other animals, often hand-rearing and bottle-feeding them until the day they are released to an enclosure to be

Kasey Barrier link

10/20/2015 13:09:21

Canned hunting makes dreams come true - are you insane. This is the lowest form activity known to man. Only a person with absolutely no self esteem or compassion could possibly find this rewarding. I imagine most of the men that do this horrible activity have some kind of erectile dysfunction (or no penis at all) and this makes them feel manly. Really sad - may your god punish you for your lousy stewardship of his creations.

Lionel Schlemmer

5/7/2018 07:23:05

"Canned Hunting" is exactly what the name implies, Hunting. In my opinion, if you're against any legal form of hunting, you are anti hunting. For an issue such as "Canned Hunting" it is a matter of the individuals ethics. I personally am not likely to hunt on a game farm, but I am not against it. there are no laws against shooting a Transcaspian Urial, Siberian Ibex, Markhor, Zebra, Elk, Kudu, Eland, Gemsbock or any other animal, as long as its legal to own, (like Lions and Tigers have strict legulations on owning). If a person owns any animal, it is then considered livestock, and you can do anything with your livestock as you wish. In the 1990's my father was Taken to court by the state of MN because he was allowing people to "hunt" our deer and elk. He won the court case because the Rocky Mountain Elk and Whitetail Deer we owned were Livestock, therefor deer and elk farming is labeled an Agricultural Pursuit and was regulated by the U.S.D.A. My Father fought the MNDNR on behalf of the Minnesota Whitetail Association, and he is the sole reason why Game preserves for deer and elk are legal. Before then he sat on the State Board to make the CWD regulations for deer farmers, he alone has done more for the Whitetail in Minnesota than any other person. The water with deer and elk was muddy because Whitetail are native to MN so the MNDNR wanted to be the people with their fingers in the jar. For them it wasn't a matter of ethics, they wanted the money. An Audad, Urial, Markhor, Ibex, Deer, or Elk on a farm, is considered livestock, and a farmer is free to do with his livestock as he pleases. In a couple of years I will be FARMING these animals (Markhor, Ibex, and Urials) in western North Dakota, and I will be selling them to Hunting Preserves, simply because their my animals and I can.

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