Govt urged to ban primate hunting

A global animal rights group has asked the Namibian government to ban the trophy hunting of primates. This follows the international outrage that ensued last month involving an American wildlife official, who has subsequently resigned.Blake Fischer, who was a member of the Idaho Fish and Game Commission, shared the photos of his hunting trip in Namibia during which at least 14 wild animals were killed. These photos, which he emailed to about 100 people, then found their way onto social media platforms.In the photo that caused the most outrage, Fischer can be seen smiling with four dead baboons laid out in front of him. He killed them using a bow and arrow.“It was unfathomable that anyone could mercilessly hunt down a family of animals simply to impress his wife, as Fischer boasted in his email, which was sent to more than 100 recipients,” said Kitty Block, president of Humane Society International. Included in the email were photos of Fisher and his wife posing with animals they shot and killed, including giraffe, a leopard impala, Sable antelope, waterbuck, kudu, warthog, oryx, eland and a family of baboons.“So I shot a whole family of baboons,” Fischer wrote below the baboon photo. Fischer included at least 12 photographs in the email, each containing a caption explaining how they hunted the animals.Bock pointed out this was not an isolated incident when it comes to American trophy hunters.According to her, between 2007 and 2016, the United States imported the lion's share of primate hunting trophies internationally - a whopping 80% or 8 896 of these 11 205 hunting trophies.Other countries that imported primate trophies over the nine-year period were Spain (490) trophies, South Africa (401), Germany (322) and Denmark (310), according to Humane Society International's analysis of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species data. On average, Americans imported more than 800 primate trophies each year, including Chacma baboons, which Block says is the species Fischer hunted, vervet monkeys, yellow baboons and African green monkeys.“Primates are our closet cousins in the animal kingdom, and these intelligent, beautiful and sometimes mischievous animals deserve to be celebrated and protected, not hunted to death,” Block said. According to her, primates are easy targets for trophy hunters because unlike highly sought-after species like elephants and rhinos, the cost of trophy hunting primates is often nominal or even non-existent. “After the story of Fischer's killing spree went public, we wrote to the Namibian government to ask that it ban primate trophy hunting,” said Block. The organisation is also exploring legal action to prohibit the import of primate trophies to the United States.After immense pressure, Fisher resigned from his position. ELLANIE SMIT

Govt urged to ban primate hunting

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Namibian Sun 2025-12-31

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Govt urged to ban primate hunting

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Namibian Sun 2025-12-31

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