by Peter Silvester Hunting In The Headlines, Again!

The last hunting license to shoot human beings was issued and purchased in 1936. 88 years ago.

There were probably over 6 million elephants alive then, less than 10% of that number exist now. Elephants are the largest land mammals the male weighs twice as much as a female. Two thirds of their tusk growth is in the last third of their life. They are the most important breeding males in the population. Their genetic codes are almost extinct. They can live for more than 60 years in the wild. Very, very few do.

Today there is growing outrage over the targeted hunting of some of the world’s last “Super Tuskers”  These habituated mature elephant bulls are well known, some have been studied and carefully protected over the last 50 years, and just two have made it to 55 years of age. There are very few individuals that qualify as Super Tuskers on the planet today. Most of them live in the shadow of Kilimanjaro.

Kenya banned hunting of all wildlife in 1977, it was the first and for many years, the only African country to do so. Tanzania has not.

The Super Tuskers have names like Craig, Gil Gil, and One Ton, Kenya is their home, though sometimes they wander across the border into Tanzania.

For some, it seems the desire to shoot an elephant with tusks of over 100 lbs, no matter how tame, or easy to do, remains irresistible. An apparently priceless pinnacle of imaginary prowess.

The last time this population was targeted was in 1994, Then, after sustained public and political pressure, Tanzania agreed to leave them alone and issued no further licenses for that area.

A few months ago, that agreement was broken and in circumstances that shed a great deal of suspicion on the ethics and integrity of the Tanzanian Hunting industry, new licenses were issued. Three bulls have now been shot. At least two more licenses have been purchased.

To make matters worse, in a macabre twist after the tusks were hacked out, their bodies were burnt and buried making identification almost impossible, except by a slow process of deduction, a process that will not tie the body to the man that pulled the trigger. Imagine burning and burying 12 tons of elephant.

In the growing social media storm, the familiar bending of facts and ensuing confusion is the camouflage that benefits the villain. No body, no crime. Such confusion also paralyzes those in power. Or at least the ones who are not complicit. It buys time for another hunt.

All three Super Tuskers have been shot by American hunters whose personal fortunes are comparable to the GDP of Tanzania. The kind of money that buys immunity, privilege, and exception. The hunting company is owned by the brother of Tanzania’s richest man. The land they are hunting is the ancestral land of the Maasai, livestock herders whose beliefs forbid hunting. It’s no surprise that most of East Africa’s iconic wildlife lives on their land.

A spokesman for the hunting industry stated that the bodies are burnt because the Maasai don’t eat elephants and that they can’t be trusted not to poison the bodies. The Maasai don’t have a voice. There is nothing fair about this fight.

For some clarity, we approached Dr Joyce Poole who has personally studied these particular bulls, in some cases since they were born.

She has also spent much of her professional life collecting a library of elephant communication, a low frequency language which may be the first cognitive communication of another mammal that we might one day understand. If only we could talk to them now.

She has kindly allowed us to reproduce her recent article on the subject *here*.

For those that would like to sign the Petition imploring Tanzania to stop, please find that link *here*

It seems the hunting industry is unable to apply the controls it claims, and the responsible, sustainable rhetoric is exposed. The emperor has no clothes.

One thing is clear, corruption is a two way crime. It is inconceivable that those purchasing the licenses, and those organizing the hunts are not complicit in that crime.

Since the perpetrators are American, of that fact we are certain, perhaps it’s time for America’s Department of Fish and Wildlife to take action on that basis alone. They have done a great deal to help Tanzania and Kenya with wildlife crime in the past. Can they help? Would they? At least a stay of execution whilst the wider circumstances on who paid who for what is properly investigated.

The deadlock needs to stop. Now, before the Maasai have to endure the stench of another broken giant going up in smoke. Let us not forget whose livelihoods, whose heritage is really at stake here.

I do believe we all agree that the issuing of licenses to hunt humans is wrong on any level. I hope it will not take 88 years to agree the same to be true for Super Tuskers.

I appreciate some need more time than others, with only a handful left, may I politely suggest to those still at the back of the class, sooner rather than later would be good.

One wonders if it will take 88 years for humanity to look back on the issue of licenses to shoot Super Tuskers in disbelief? Will it take that long for us to hold up the mirror and put it down with universal disgust?

Header image by: Royal African Safaris Partner, Hannah Strand

Photos below article by: Elephant Voices