Is Hunting bad for Conservation?

Hunting is not widely practiced in Singapore. Even when you google “hunting in Singapore”, results show “head hunting”, “house hunting”, “job hunting” and etc. Nevertheless we still have crow hunting and fish hunting (fishing).

Photo by nimrodcooper

There are mainly three types of hunter: utilitarian, dominionistic and naturalistic. Utilitarian and dominionistic hunters are much more common than naturalistic.

Utilitarian Hunters

Utilitarian hunters hunt animals for practical things like their meat, skin or any valuable body parts. They perceived animals by their practical usefulness. And usually such hunters are raised in rural, farm areas.

Poaching is another kind of utilitarian hunting, but with endangered and protected animals as target. In Singapore, poachers set traps to catch endangered animals in our natural reserves and parks. Poachers hunt them for food, cash (sell to pet shop) or keep the animals as their own pet. Most targets are birds, but there are also other endangered animals like pangolin. Poachers usually set their traps at night when it is dark, more likely to catch these animals, unlikely to be caught by the authorities. Such traps sometime even injure other animals that are not their target.

Dominionistic Hunters

Dominionistic hunters view hunting as a kind of sport or social activity. Usually hunters would try to compete with each other. Hence, hunting is a platform to display their shooting ability, display of prowess. The main objective is the social aspect about hunting, instead of getting the animals. To them, animals are trophies, not food or anything of practical use. Usually this group of hunters has very little knowledge about animals

Though not popular in Singapore, there are hunting trips organized to other countries. The hunters perceive this as recreation activities with education purposes to teach patient, determination concentration and discipline. They will first train by shooting clay animals in Singapore before proceeding to real hunting. For more information about such organized trips, refer to http://www.singaporesportshooting.com

Hunting trips in Singapore also focus on conservation aspects. Because hunting generates revenue, it gives locals reasons to retain the wilderness (which is the animals habitats), instead of using the land for other development. Also, because residents live near these lands, dangerous animals like hyenas, lions, tigers are not allowed to stay. This may results in imbalanced ecology. Hunters take over the role of predators and control animals’ population. Moreover, there are rules for hunters to abide for sustainable hunting. Rules include no vehicles allowed; only hunt mature animals, limited number of game to hunt and etc.

An local example of population control is crow hunting. Usually, hunters for crows (pests in Singapore) are to resolve human-animal conflicts. Main objective is to keep crows population stable. Crows dirty our environment and spread disease, which can be very dangerous due to bird flu. Furthermore, they bred fast. Population of crows needs to be monitor constantly to avoid possible unpleasant events.

Naturalistic Hunters

Naturalistic Hunters take hunting as an opportunity for close contact with nature. Hunters take the role of predator and see animals as prey. To them, this is intense participation in the nature. These hunters have more knowledge about animals and are actively involved in nature during childhood.

One of the most common related activities in Singapore is fishing. Being surrounding by water, there are many possible places to fish: shores, jetties, ponds, even reservoirs. Some fish with friends and treat fishing as an opportunity to gather. And some avid fishers often fish alone for quality time with the nature.

 

 

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