Actually, fires are sometimes set by firefighters and park rangers to control the spread of forest fires? So...
None of the animals killed in legal paid hunts are endangered. I don't like sport hunting, but I also don't see people giving 30,000+ dollars to a reserve in Africa 'just 'cause.' It sucks, but at least it's regulated and monitored. More focus needs to be put on the people sneaking into reserves and cutting the horns off rhinos than is given to rich morons (who do not hunt endangered animals, by the way). These poachers are the problem. The people smuggling animals out of the country as pets and as targets are the problem. The people who paid to be allowed onto a reserve with a guide (who works for the reserve and carefully monitors the ecological balance of the park) who picked exactly which animal to be killed with the least amount of impact on the population are not the problem. The lack of proper legal consequences/punishments for poachers and smugglers is the problem.
People who pay tens of thousands of dollars to hunt a single animal have done more for conservation than acknowledged because no one like when cute animals die. There are hundreds of threatened and endangered animals that are not adorable (insects, arachnids, amphibians) that you don't hear about and no one cares about because they're all so devoted to the cute/pretty ones. You can't get people to care when deforestation is decimating endangered insect and frog populations but mention a dead cute animal and people are through the roof. You can't get people to help an animal rescue unless you put puppies and kittens in the ad somehow, even though reptiles and birds needs rescuing too. Millions of dollars are put to artificially inseminating pandas, why isn't any of that being put towards conservation of other endangered animals? Why aren't more dollars going to programs for breeding and eventual release to the wild? Why is so much attention given to the birth of white tigers, who will never be released into the wild but only serve to make zoos more money? Why aren't more animal poachers and smugglers put in jail instead of just getting a slap on the wrist?
That is where the spotlight needs to be.
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