Safari Club International draws
hunters to Las Vegas for four-day convention billed as the ‘Ultimate Hunters’
Market’ – highlighted by auction of animal hunts
Sam Levin in Las
Vegas
Wednesday 3 February
2016 22.18 GMTLast modified on Wednesday 3 February
201622.48 GMT
The world’s largest trophy
hunting club was on the defensive at its giant annual auction in Las Vegas as
animal rights advocates and conservation experts traveled from across the globe
to condemn the industry that killed
Cecil, one of Africa’s most famous lions.
The Safari Club International on
Wednesday kicked off its elaborate four-day convention and “Ultimate Hunters’
Market” inside the Mandalay Bay luxury hotel and casino – drawing 25,000 people
to the members-only show. In ballrooms and convention halls with signs
describing the event as the “THE BIGGEST THE BEST”, hunters mingled with
outfitters, gun makers, booking agents, taxidermists and other industry
representatives and enthusiasts.
The Safari Club is on track
to auction off a total
of 301 mammal hunts across more than 30 countries that will result in the
killing of at least 600 animals, according to the Humane Society’s analysis of
the convention’s listings. The targets include baboons, grizzly bears, cougars,
African lions, coyotes, wolves, jackals and many other mammals.
At the Luxor hotel next door on
the Las Vegas strip, wildlife and conservation researchers gathered with
leading animal advocates on Wednesday morning to decry what they described as
the cruel and unsustainable practice of killing animals for prizes – invoking
the name of Cecil, the black-maned lion lured
from a national park in Zimbabwe last June and killed by Minnesota
dentist Walter
Palmer.
“It is really terrible,” said
Josphat Ngonyo, executive director of the Africa Network for Animal Welfare,
who travelled from Kenya to Las Vegas to protest the club’s auction. “Not all
the animals that are hunted are hit on target. Many of them are hit in the
wrong places, and they are injured … and take endless days before they die.”
Over the past decade, trophy
hunters have killed roughly 29,000 mountain lions in the US, according to
a report
released Wednesday by the Humane Society of the United States and
Humane Society International. Often hunters and guides use cruel methods, such
as traps or packs of radio-collared dogs that pursue lions until they climb up
a tree and are easy shooting targets, advocates said.
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