Circle of Life: Elephants trample poacher, lions mop up

Rhino poacher trampled to death by elephants then eaten by lions at Kruger National Park in South Africa

I'm not against legal hunting. But don't ever assume the wildlife will go quietly.

 

I'm gonna call him Stampy.

 

See, I don’t like calling hunting a sport because the animals don’t have guns. But this episode makes things a little more fair.

 

Do bowling pins have any defense?

/devil’s advocate

 

If you didn't have legal hunting the surplus animal population in some areas would out-grow the food supply and they'd die a slow death by starvation.

 

Does that apply to any animal besides deer?

 

It’s a weak one, but it’s called the gutter. Sort of like a moat around a castle.

 

That's true when you talk about deer in a predator deprived forest. Africa, with AK-47 armed poachers killing already rare elephants and rhinos for their tusks and horns, is a different story.

 

When I was a kid I read a book by a guy who was a White Hunter in Africa from 1920 or so until the 50's. One of the things he did was to hunt rogue elephants. He saw a number of their kills. They'll run you down and stomp on you, sure, and they're a lot faster than you'd expect. Some would slap a man down with their trunk and then kneel on him,or gore with their tusks. Worst one to my mind was grabbing some poor bastard up by the legs and slapping him against a tree a few times.

 

I don’t have objections to hunting per se. I just don’t like how it’s called a sport. A sport is supposed to be a competition.