A Colorado man was banned from hunting in 48 States for his out-of-control poaching

"Why do Americans love to hunt and kill animals for sport"

A curious person asked the question, “why do Americans love to hunt and kill animals for sport”? Another person, presumable an American, answered the question asked on Quora. He notably did not like the carpet generalization of lumping all Americans as hunters upon reading his long-winded answer. He astonished me by first declaring that he loved to hunt, and his explanation for why Americans like him love to hunt blew me away.

He said, “The actual death of an animal is not a particularly enjoyable part of the experience. Hunting is a competition where the hunter strives to defeat millions of years of natural selection. Generally, the reward is a healthy, wholesome meal, or maybe even enough food to last a family for months.” He continued to say to the questioner, “I don’t expect you to ever grasp the concept.” He is right; I will never grasp a concept that finds joy in taking an animal’s life for sport. Yet, Americans have been of late making the news for getting themselves a ban on hunting.

Mr Iniki Vike Kapu (source)

A few weeks ago, A Colorado man, Mr. Iniki Vike Kapu, was banned from hunting in 48 states for his out-of-control poaching. Among his trophy victims included A bighorn sheep ram, Turkeys, and 12 deer that he had illegally killed across three counties. He pleaded guilty to illegal wildlife possession as he was slapped with a $900 fine in Chaffee county.

He was also fined $4600 in Fremont county and sentenced to six months in jail plus another three years of supervised probation as part of a plea deal. His ordeals went on as the Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) confiscated the weapons he used for the poaching before they decided to suspend him permanently. The CPW said, “Mr. Kapu’s crimes against wildlife are the essence of what defines a poacher by taking wildlife without regard for the laws protecting them. Iniki Kapu is viewed as a serious threat to Colorado’s wildlife, and his violations are among the worst. The severity and level of indifference for wildlife, in this case, are rarely seen and cannot be tolerated.” Colorado being a member of the interstate wildlife violator compact meant an automatic ban extending to the other 47 member States.

According to the advocacy organization Animal Matters, hunters in the united states are responsible for killing 100 million animals, including millions of animals whose killing the State wildlife agencies do not have recorded data. The same hunters are also responsible for 4,000 tons of lead shot into the environment, poisoning to the death of some further 20 million animals. Going by the data alone, I can understand why the questioner on Quora was rather fascinated or disturbed by American’s love to hunt animals for sport.

While Mr. Kapu’s permanent ban sends the right message to poachers, there are those notorious untouchables that not only have the means to buy hunting privileges to kill rare animals, for some, the taxpayers fork the money. Consider Donald Trump Junior, whose 2019 hunting trip to Mongolia to kill a rare Argali sheep cost the taxpayers a whopping sum of $ 77,000 for his secret service protection.

Trump Junior posing with a endangered Argali Sheep killed as trophy

The Argali sheep is a national treasure in Mongolia and is listed as threatened in the United States endangered species act. One of the Guides with Junior said, “Trump Jr shot his argali at night, using a rifle with a laser sight. He stopped the local hunting guides from dismembering it at the kill site, instead instructing them to use an aluminum sheet to carry the carcass so as not to damage the fur and horns.” I wonder what thoughts were running through his mind when he aimed to take the shot; the guides relate Junior’s adventure as a sort of a heroic feat.

There are poachers with deep pockets who scour the earth to kill animals for adventure. Most of the shocking animal kills were made by Americans who pay a hefty sum to tick off their kill List. It was only a year before Trump Junior shocking Argali news when another American, A woman from Kentucky, shot and killed a rare black giraffe in South Africa.

If indeed animals are to be protected, the US must educate hunters about the animals, and in that vein, perhaps a mandatory course for hunters would be Ideal. Nevertheless, I concede that no amount of education but laws will be the only chance that animals have for protection from the likes of Trump Junior.

Do you believe that animal’s lives matter?

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