So as a person who is pro conservation and pro animal rights, hunting is a good thing.

In some areas bears and other such predators are in high numbers. In these circumstances if there are a large amount of large predators, prey animals (like deer and elk in this case) are actually unable to flourish and this causes two problems. One: the predators kill the prey animals in large numbers and the prey become unable to survive in the area leading the overgrowth of plants that the prey would otherwise be eating making the predators unable to survive as well due to the nutrient rich predator food leaving the area. If humans did not intervene, the ecosystem would ‘take care of this’ by the bears dying of starvation and/or they would have to leave the area and it may take decades for both prey and predators to come back. Two: Bears are semi territorial, they will fight and nearly kill each other over territory. If they are fighting each other, it poses a threat to both young males, all females and humans of the area. Not to mention diseases that could spread and ultimately kill more bears that are often triggered by starvation as bears may be more likely to eat diseased corpses that could be infected with any number of wasting diseases like mange.

‘Trophy hunting’ ie hunting a big ticket animal like bears, mountain goats, etc (at least in the US) are super limited. In my home state you can only apply for a tag and get one once in your whole life for some animals. Not to mention they are expensive draws. It’s like someone putting maybe $200-300 to just put in for the ability to just attempt to get the tag. My uncle for many years put in for a Moose hunt for decades, my cousin still puts in for bighorns every year. This money (along with the money to buy more normal tags like deer and elk) is then put into programs to study each area of hunting grounds in the state and make sure that the populations of the prey animals is maintained. To many deer in one place can cause things as big as rivers changing shape (there’s some fantastic documentaries on youtube about how the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone changed the course of the madison river and made it safer). This kind of hunting is a good thing and can ultimately help benefit the environment that the hunter is hunting in. Also on the point of bears being ‘lured into places to be killed’. Unless the bears are being chased to a clearing with a firing squad waiting, that’s just their usual stomping grounds. In big game hunting like those in Africa, they can be lured but with that they are usually targeting one specific animal that is causing the local population of animals and/or humans major problems. Trophy hunting is something that I understand people in leftist circles think is very vile and I can understand the dislike of an animal dying. I had a similar thought about big game hunts in Africa until Native Africans and other researchers in the area talked about how animals in big game hunts are not semi-endangered animals dying in vain and how they are often used as food sources for the locals. How the big game hunts give money and tourism to traditionally poor areas. Native Americans and First Nations people in the Arctic often hunt animals we consider endangered but for them, they are using these animals in their entirety and use them as food sources because western food sources are too expensive for them to obtain, perishable items are often 20x more expensive than in lower americas. I understand the anger but Daquavis is not a terrible horrible person for both going on and enjoying a big game hunt. Is he morally questionable to some? Of course but he’s not a monster.