Regardless of how you view race, whether or not the words ‘reparations’ and ‘affirmative action’ make your blood boil, most of us view things like the Klu Klux Klan as bad. Yet even the KKK at its worst would shudder at some of the well-meaning animal rights policies imposed on various countries in the name of extremist conservation. My son recently discussed with me the substance of some of his courses at University of Texas. They concerned the “natural rights” of animals. I am proud to say that at Texas A&M, animals were given due consideration in the animal husbandry class by teaching the best method to cook steaks—I digress. According to my son, as we humans evolve we will begin to see all animals have “natural rights” akin to those declared in our Declaration of Independence, and as we develop we will begin to see the immorality of taking the life of any creature that can feel fear or pain. This, of course, ties with the view that Colonel Sanders “murdered” far more lives than Adolf Hitler, because Hitler killed “only” 6 million Jews, whereas Colonel Sanders “murdered” billions.

Those of you familiar with PETA will recognize the latter as one of their famous quotes. Yet how many people think it is “moral” to kill a whitetail deer, yet inherently “immoral” to kill, let’s say, an elephant? It’s fascinating to see people draw lines around what is acceptable to hunt and what isn’t. Each has a different view. At dinner one evening, talking to people who live and hunt in Africa, I posed the question “Surely an elephant that takes human life needs to be put down,” and they resoundingly said “NO!” – because if a human gets killed by an elephant it is his own fault. He’s done something wrong. There we have the essence of one of the most racist agendas facing human culture today. The lives of indigenous Africans are not as valuable as whites of European extraction, therefore they must be sacrificed to further the extremist views regarding conservation foisted on them by radical animal rights groups.
You see, in Africa, the people scratching out an existence from the meager soil don’t deal in global moralities. Theirs is a day-to-day struggle, and many animals, elephants in particular, threaten their existence. Virtually all animal rights activists believe that because elephants are sentient beings they should not be killed or culled for any reason. Ignoring the fact that in many countries a human is executed for taking another human’s life, elephants because of their cute and cuddly demeanor should be spared the same.

The hype regarding elephants in the wild versus the reality could not be more disparate. I can speak with some knowledge, far more than most animal rights activists, as I have had a friend killed by an unprovoked elephant attack. The most courageous people I know are the indigenous Africans who spend every night of their growing season with a stack of rocks and pots and pans in a small flimsy blind waiting to see if elephants are going to destroy their village crops. Elephants in just one night can wipe out a village’s food for a year. To argue that elephants should be allowed to do so by animal rights activists ignores the plight of the village left to starvation. It doesn’t matter who got to the valley first, there is plenty of wild fodder in most instances for elephants to live on but they choose to decimate villages. If the villagers object, the elephants many times will attempt to slaughter them.
In rural African villages, a hunter is a life saver, a provider of food, a source of much-needed hard currency and employment. A single elephant shot in the area surrounding a village typically means their fields are safe for three months to even as long as half a year. The meat can typically feed up to 7 villages for over two weeks. Likewise the elephants are saved from overpopulation, and the money goes to the tribes to fund schools and other improvement projects. The animal rights activist would leave the villages destitute. The reason is simple. To most animal rights extremists, it matters not at all that a dozen villages, children, mothers, and families, will die of starvation, sacrificed to an extreme animal preservation ideology. After all, these aren’t white neighbors. But let a single stray dog attack someone on their street and they will call the pound to have the dog dealt with, even though their neighbor wasn’t fatally wounded. Where is the balance?

Yes, poaching is a problem. We are hunters and not poachers, but how many animal rights activists see the difference? Have you talked to your kids recently about what they are learning in high school or college? We are losing the war to the anti-hunters, not on a fair moral playing field, but on one slanted and biased against us. We are losing the war from first grade onward. Hunters in turn cannibalize themselves.