system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: Regulated Hunting is the most effective short term solution we have to protect many of the endangered species.

Privatizing wildlife, putting a monetary value on an individual animal and allocating a certain number of them to be hunted for a price, is the short term solution to an ever pressing issue of wildlife extinction by humans. 


The theory goes like this:
1. You have 100 elephants each valued at $200k, living on your private land (that used to be intensive farming) in South Africa. 
2. You protect them from poachers to the best of your ability because they have a monetary value to you, rather than being just another animal that runs around and ruins your crops (which is how a lot of people, especially in Less economically developed countries, view wildlife). 
3. You have an official quota to allow 5% of your herd to be shot. Hunters come in, shoot 5 elephants that are old, sick, not capable of reproducing etc, in a humane manner. 
4. The hunter gets their thrill (rather than going through illegal channels), and the owner now has $1M from those animals, which he can use to further protect the herd, and spend in his local economy. Furthermore, the meat all gets harvested and given to communities to eat. Nothing goes to waste. 
5. The herd reproduces to say 105 elephants the following year, allowing the species to grow in numbers. 


South Africa has seen a huge bounce back of wildlife numbers since this has started to take place. Sadly, a lot of local people, don’t see any of the money that supposedly comes from National park tourism etc, and therefore don’t see the animals as bringing them anything. Elephants, for example, are hated by many because they destroy crops which  are often the people’s livelihoods. 


I understand, it is hard to see animals be bred to be hunted, but they live in huge areas, and many would probably otherwise be extinct if it weren’t for this method. Zimbabwe used to be the gem of Africa but has now descended into environmental chaos due to mismanagement and lack of regulation on hunting and tourism. 


Education is always the best answer, but this takes time and we can’t expect people to change overnight. Many also need to get out of their economic situation to start seeing wildlife as an asset rather than an enemy. 


I’m curious to see if anyone has any well formulated arguments against this, as all I’ve seen online so far is people screaming “YOU SHOULD NEVER HAVE TO KILL AN ANIMAL”. To me it seems these people don’t have any sense of longevity.
gpt
> You have 100 elephants each valued at $200k, living on your private land (that used to be intensive farming) in South Africa. 2. You protect them from poachers to the best of your ability because they have a monetary value to you, rather than being just another animal that runs around and ruins your crops (which is how a lot of people, especially in Less economically developed countries, view wildlife). 

These two points are rather self-defeating. For someone who sees these animals as pests, 200k in hand beats a living elephant. By attaching a monetary value to the elephants life, you're going from a rigid, absolute justification for protecting the elephants (biodiversity must be protected at all costs) to an arbitrary one (biodiversity must be protected to a certain number). The former is far more reliable, especially in nation where the premise of the arbitrary limit (biodiversity protection) can be eroded by other interests.

> You have an official quota to allow 5% of your herd to be shot. Hunters come in, shoot 5 elephants that are old, sick, not capable of reproducing etc, in a humane manner. 

This isn't humane. Elephants are highly social animals. Suggesting that shooting 5 old, sick elephants is the equivalent of us killing off our grandparents. This is why elephant culls often target whole herds. There are no consistent metrics for finding "tolerable" kills.

> The hunter gets their thrill (rather than going through illegal channels)

Accommodating for the hunter's need for a thrill is also a double-edged sword. While you're only permitting it in controlled amounts, to someone who doesn't care about why you're controlling it, you're essentially stating that said thrill is not something problematic. This is especially bad for 1) places where said control is not present, like countries without such restrictions, and 2) places where said control is too much, such as for species which are too far gone for their numbers to take even the reduced number of kills.