Big Trophy Hunting | Explorer

BRYAN CHRISTY: The hunting held out one place as the gold standard for trophy hunting, a place they say big game hunting is honest and killing saves lives. I set my coordinates for Southern Zimbabwe, the same country where Cecil was shot and killed not long ago. According to a Safari Club International study, more than 18,000 hunters from around the world spend upwards of $325 million on hunting in Africa yearly.

These are some of the most iconic animals on the planet. So seeing them shot may be difficult for me, and more difficult is likely to be hanging around the actual people who have chosen to bring tens of thousands of dollars to kill animals here and bring them back as trophies. I'm not sure how I'm going to react to that. And I'm not sure how I feel about it.

Bubye Valley Conservancy is a massive privately owned area. They invited me to observe a trophy hunt, where I would meet their team to better understand conservation through the eyes of a hunter. At Bubye Valley, trophy hunters have a menu of animals to choose from. The price for a zebra or a giraffe hunt is approximately $8,000. A cape buffalo hunt runs $20,000. A leopard hunt can cost as much as $28,000, and a lion hunt costs $100,000 per cat. It is because of this money that outfits like Bubye Valley claim they pay back into a conservation system.

What are we looking for? Came here primarily for cape buffalo and eland and kudu. What made you choose those three? And then I had just gotten out of the Marine Corps, just about 33 years old, and saw "Out of Africa" and the big cape buffalo herds that they had, and I looked at those. So it's been a long pursuit. I mean, my god, half my life. I'm finally here. There are a lot of lions in this area.

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So you want to take a leak or anything like that, don't go wandering off. You don't have to warn me twice. There's way too many. We've offered to send 200 lions anywhere in the world. You know, it's just anybody who wants them.

That's amazing. Maybe pay for transport. We'll give them. And there are no takers.

BRYAN CHRISTY: But BVC clearly didn't do all they could to find a home for the lions. They gave an interview for a British newspaper and sent out a couple of emails. But I can't conclude their outreach was exhaustive.

Blondie Leathem, General Manager of Bubye Valley, thinks about conservation in different terms-- land. How much land do you have? It's about 3,200 square kilometers. So it's the size of maybe Rhode Island in the United States, a whole state.

Yeah. That's right.

BRYAN CHRISTY: Before it was a hunting Conservancy, Bubye Valley was a cattle ranch, and wildlife was denied access to the land. Ranching nearly pushed the endemic animal populations to the brink until the Conservancy came in and reintroduced the native wildlife.

BLONDIE LEATHEM: About 10 years into the Conservancy, we had enough animals that we could take-- the hunting actually covered all of the running costs. Americans looking at this and saying, you know what? I'm against hunting. Why should you be permitted, in a world where lions are diminishing, to continue to hunt lions?

If we didn't hunt lion, we wouldn't have lion. You've got 850,000 acres dedicated to wildlife, one of the highest lion densities. It is funded by hunting. You take away the hunting, there is no alternative way of funding an operation this size. It would have to revert back to cattle. Then it will be more vulnerable for resettlement. So it's a no-brainer.

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