Spix Macaw Sighting?

[banuvatt]

Has anyone ever seen this video? it looks pretty convincing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZi0g_UXcts

[Pajarita]

Yes, I remember that video - I think it was determined that it was one of the birds from the foundation center in Brazil and not an actual wild one. There are no wild spixes - not yet.

[banuvatt]

All I hope is that Brazil doesn't go through permitting trophy hunting because if they do their entire effort to save the Spix macaw and so many other species was a waste.

Now the typical response to this is "the money from trophy hunting goes to help conservation." Even if this was true trophy hunting makes a very small profit despite charging tens of thousands of dollars. It only makes a profit of 250 million dollars worldwide mostly based in South Africa.

Ecotourism makes 75 billion dollars worldwide... 84% of that money goes to fund national parks while 99% of that money goes towards threatened species. Conservation does not need to make a deal with people who their only interest are in the survival of endangered and rare species is to stuff them and to make them into mounts. Ecotourism makes 385 times more than trophy hunting does. Now I don't know about you, but you don't need to be a mathematician to know that means trophy hunting is obsolete. Trophy hunters need conservation in order to continue to do what they love which is shoot, and kill rare, and exotic animals to show off how wealthy and successful they are.

[Pajarita]

I don't think that anybody who follows these things believes that trophy hunting helps conservation any more... It's just something they say so they can keep on doing it.

[banuvatt]

I understand hunting as a sustainable resource. But, not going to some foreign country, and shooting exotic and rare animals. This really is just a reminiscence of the colonial period where hunting in foreign lands was and still a luxury of the rich and powerful.
The main reason these poor animals have to die is... to fuel someone's blood lust and be target practice not to mentioned be stuffed and end up hanging on someone's wall. I criticize game reserves especially because it's practically shooting fish in a barrel. There is nothing about it that says sportsmanship the animals are kept in an enclosed space, eat and drink out of a trough, they hire guides to do the hunter's hard work for them, all the hunter has to do is point, and shoot. It's a pay for win if anything, there's as much sport in it as there is fishing out of a fish tank.
There is nothing enjoyable and there should be nothing about taking a life of an animal. Life is a precious gift and should be appreciated. It should not be taken out of fun or as a way to spend one's leisure time. What's worst is the whether if an animal is good for hunting as sport is measured on much it struggles for it's life. If animals don't follow what is desired by hunters and run or fly away, but, just sit still they are good as dead. If an opportunistic predator or a "un-sportsmen-like" hunter comes by. If they do decide to flee it makes them fair game to being shot or chased and being torn apart by dogs.

[Pajarita]

There is absolutely no good reason for hunting. It doesn't matter what species or circumstances we are talking about. In USA and in the greatest majority of the cases, hunting is not done because they need to eat, it's done out of a sick, perverted pleasure in killing driven by a complete lack of empathy. It's more than an unenlightened or archaic practice - those can be corrected- it's a power/control cruelty trip driven by apathy. And dangerous! Because people who lack empathy for animals, also lack empathy for other human beings. Empathy is not something that can be partial -meaning, you have it for humans but not for animals- it's either there or it's not.

[banuvatt]

No offense I just feel like that's kind of contradictory no? You just said that hunting is not justifiable under any circumstance, and you then brought up sustainable hunting. In the USA sustainable hunting for the vast majority of the time it is no longer necessary this is correct. The same can't be said for those who live in the Arctic where nothing grows, or the deep jungle of Central and South America. If you meant hunting, you meant sport hunting then I do understand. People who turned into psychopaths usually hurt animals first.

[Pajarita]

I think you are confused, I never even used the term 'sustainable hunting', you did. I don't think that anybody needs to actually hunt nowadays unless we are talking about an indigenous tribe that has no real contact with civilization - like the ones in Amazonia (nobody hunts in the Artic because they need to eat - Innuit did that but they eat supermarket food now, just like everybody else). But cultures that depended or still depend on hunting to eat are actually much more respectful of animals than people who hunt just to kill (as in trophy hunting or people who claim they do it to eat the animal when, in reality, it's nothing but an excuse to justify their love of the hunt).

[banuvatt]

Well you didn't use the term itself, but you used the definition. When you brought up hunting in the USA. I mean I think hunters only like hunting because it's the adrenaline rush, and the challenge of killing the animal. You aren't allowed to shoot birds like pheasants when they are sitting down hiding. So you use dogs to flush them out which makes it fair game. Just as you aren't allowed to shoot turkeys when they are roosting. Hunters can and will say that it is because "it's not sportsman like." But, I do recognized that it can be seen more as because it's more fun to shoot a moving target instead of a still one. This is because well it's more challenging, and hunters will say that hunting is about challenge, and skill. Animals that are harder to kill(meaning they run or fly fast) are classified as being good for hunting as sport.