Part 2:
For this next part let me use an analogy. Suppose you live in the middle of nowhere, have no concept of a grocery store, and if you did know what a grocery store was you have no money to spend there. Now suppose you have two bags of seeds. One bag has an assortment of the most beautiful flowers and plants, while the other has an assortment of vegetable, corn, wheat and etc. seeds. Which would you plant and lovingly cultivate? Why the vegetable seeds of course. Flowers are lovely to look at but they do not feed your hungry children. Matter of fact, you are going to get rid of the flower seeds because not only do they compete for garden space, they use up precious fertilizer, water, and labor. Since the vegetable seeds have value you are going to do everything you can do to make sure the seeds, grow and thrive so you can feed your family and have more seeds next year than you started with this year.
Now let’s swap the word seeds for wildlife. If you see the wildlife like the flower seeds you would probably starve yourself and your family. While pretty to look at, on the hoof African wildlife does very little to fill your belly. More than likely they will do you harm by wiping out your small family garden in a very short time. Imagine waking up one morning only to find out that a herd of elephant, buffalo, or whatever have eaten your entire year’s worth of food in a matter of hours. For a slightly different twist imagine a lion has slaughtered all of your livestock overnight and left you with nothing. If the wildlife is eating you out of house and home and starving your family you have two choices. Die or get rid of the wildlife.
If you see the animals as vegetable seeds here is how that works. Imagine you have some wild game on your property. Someone offers to pay you money to come in and hunt said animal. Not only will they pay you but you will get at least part of the meat as well. It does not take most folks too long to figure out that I want more of these animals for people to come hunt and give me money and meat. You will also want to take care of these animals to ensure you have more of them and will always have them. You will protect them from poaching and keep the hunters from taking too many. You may even stop farming or other practices detrimental to the herd growth. You may put up with a lion or leopard taking an occasional head of livestock because you know that a hunter will give you many times what the lost head of livestock would bring for the privilege of hunting it. The animals now have a value and like anything else if something has value most people want more of it.
