Nikolaj Bichel
@Nikolaj_Bi
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PhD from @HKUniversity . Hunting and conservation research. Author of @BritishEcolSoc book of the year for 2023 - Link below. Open for remote work.
Hong Kong
Joined February 2020
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Pinned Tweet
Paperback version finally available for €38:
We're pleased to announce that Trophy Hunting by
@Nikolaj_Bi
&
@AdamHartScience
is our
@MarshAwards
Ecology Book of the Year! 📚🏆
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@BrandonRochon_
@ProfFeynman
I think you may underestimate how many "major topics" there are and how much knowledge is required to form an informed opinion. "I don't know" is fine for many major topics.
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At the risk of possibly directing a bit of traffic to this account, for which I apologize, I want to emphasize just how shady and disturbing it and everything it stands for is by leaving you the option of checking it out for yourself, as I cover some examples.
Thread. 🧵1/21.
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So here's something bizarre... I've been criticizing
@Perfectly_Green
over the past few days for their artificial grass business. Today I received the message below. Do I laugh at this or start looking over my shoulder for artificial grass mafia hitmen? 🤔
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Stop putting the word "innocent" in front of "animals." There is no such thing as an innocent animal just as there's no such thing as a guilty animal. Animals are not moral agents, they just are. They can do things you like or don't like, but not morally right or wrong. 1/3
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I'm in the process of editing my thesis for the book version these days w.
@AdamHartScience
. A part of it that I really enjoyed writing was on what bumper stickers and decals for cars might tell us about some relationships between hunting, men, women, and sex. Short 🧵 (1/11).
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The UK government recently announced a trophy import ban, which – if it is ever implemented – will most likely harm conservation efforts abroad.
This thread is not about that. This thread is about the alleged nearly 7000 species that this ban is supposed to protect…
1/23
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My first publication based on my PhD is going to be... my whole damn thesis. I just signed a contract with
@SpringerNature
for the book version, and I'm proud to say that so did
@AdamHartScience
who will co-author this first comprehensive academic trophy hunting book with me.
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Been keeping this secret for a while, so I'm delighted that it's now official. 😊
"The Marsh Ecology Book of the Year is awarded to the book that has had the greatest influence on the science of ecology in any two-year period."
We're pleased to announce that Trophy Hunting by
@Nikolaj_Bi
&
@AdamHartScience
is our
@MarshAwards
Ecology Book of the Year! 📚🏆
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This is the spokesperson for the environment for one of the biggest political parties in Denmark, standing in front of a field of Lupinus polyphyllus, an invasive species in Denmark, writing: "Biodiversity at full blast on my home soil."
This is what we have to deal with.
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"THIS is why we hunt predators!"
What? To save deer? Then later hunt the deer?
Some hunters and hunting orgs are just as illogical and oddly nature detached as the animal rights activists who save prey from predators.
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First and only publication based on my PhD is published today by
@SpringerNature
. The whole thesis in book form, slightly expanded and much improved by me and
@AdamHartScience
.
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Once again, you cannot undersell how brave it is for someone with Monbiot's public profile to take a stance like this that is so tremendously unpopular with most of the people who follow him and are unaware of the realities. And I'm sure it makes a big positive difference.
I'm not a voice piece for anyone, and you slander me by saying so. I hate trophy hunting and I'm repulsed by the people who do it. But the evidence shows powerfully that, when well-regulated, it creates a powerful incentive for the conservation of both species and habitats.
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When an article about UK's trophy import ban finally quotes conservationists and African community leaders instead of just British animal rights activists, celebrities and lying campaigners, it needs to be shared widely, so you see much of this right now.
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Those figures absolutely don't speak for themselves. They are removed from all kinds of context like total livestock numbers, other causes of death, total costs, mitigation options, economic benefits of wolves, etc. Cheap and primitive propaganda.
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Just saw (not for the first time) someone with "loves nature" in their profile text say that some very normal predation event was horrible.
Sometimes people accidentally type "nature" when they meant to type "cute cat videos."
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We need to fix this.
Start by unfollowing and blocking accounts like this.
There's more to say about the shady ways these accounts operate, using bots (look at the replies and quote tweets), but I'll keep it about the animal issues for now.
21/21
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"He ran into the bushes and out came a coyote with unfortunately the dog in its mouth."
That's not an aggressive coyote, that's an aggressive and stupid dog. Such is the cost of breeding snack-sized dogs that chase after predators into bushes.
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An Animal Rights (AR) and Animal Welfare (AW) thread.
Discussions on Twitter between conservationists and people who call themselves Animal Rights Activists (ARAs) can sometimes be confusing when both AR and AW are involved.
1/
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This is like having someone whose house was destroyed by a freak asteroid decide that now asteroids are one of the most urgent threats to humanity and that Earth needs an asteroid shield.
I'm thinking
@vonderleyen
should sit this one out.
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I'm looking for a polite way to tell someone that their 5 minutes of googling for articles about a subject that is literally my job and has been my job for the past 5 years is probably not going to show me something that I've never seen before or convince me that I'm wrong.
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Right... because that's a wild lion. 🙄
I sometimes despair that wild animal populations will just die off in silence while feel-good emotional animal bullshit accounts and their followers are busy mistaking influencer bottle-feeders of sanctuary animals for their saviors.
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Our book has a cover. ✌️
The background is a collage of pages from the 1892 first edition of Rowland Ward's record book, "Horn measurements and weights of the great game of the world," now public domain and online here:
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Apparently there's a word for people who don't think that we should seek to abolish predation in nature. We are "bioconservatives."
If you don't know, now you know.
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This should be generating much more outrage than it does. It's been going on for a long time and is still legal in several states. Imagine if hunters did anything like this. But unfortunately these fish don't have the charismatic appeal of most hunted animals.
“Catch & Release” BOWFISHING??!!
There you have it, bowfishers shoot an Alligator Gar, but don’t want it. So they pull out the arrow and release it.
The shot fish will almost certainly die, and hunter didn’t even use it. SMH.
📹Catching Dinosaurs
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If you ever find yourself arguing that natural predation is a "threat" to your "sport," whether it's hunting or fishing, then you need to find yourself another sport, because you're not environmentally mature enough for your current one.
"TIME TO ADDRESS THE HERD OF ELEPHANTS IN THE ROOM!" 👀
Window dressing, however good for public relations it may be, isn't how we should tackle predation, the number one threat to our sport...😡
Read Des Taylor's latest article here:
#fishing
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What I find much more fascinating about is the layout of the agricultural land.
Am I to understand from this photo that each property has their own narrow strip of agriculture and that none of it has been bought up by a few big farmers?
6000 people live in soluszowa, poland
on one single street
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Imagine if this were the other way around.
"More than 100 wildlife conservationists sign open letter to Hollywood directors with their urgent advice on how to make better movies."
Wouldn't everyone find that rather odd and presumptuous?
So why isn't this? 👇
Stars sign open letter urging PM to ban hunters importing trophies
More than 100 celebrities and other influential figures have urged
@BorisJohnson
to honour his promise to ban hunters from bringing home trophies of their kills 🦁 🐘 🦒
via
@MailOnline
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3. Almost all the context is with animal babies. Puppies, kittens, ducklings, fawns, piglets, cubs, etc.
Baby animals are a poor basis for decisions about pet ownership. Animals grow up. Never mind bears and tigers; you probably don't even want an adult duck or pig.
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Forget trophy hunting; this nature-detached hatred of coyotes and other predators (the competition for deer) in ultra-conservative, dominionistic hunter circles is hunting's root problem. Begin tackling this and you'll automatically get at some of the issues with trophy hunting.
"THIS is why we hunt predators!"
What? To save deer? Then later hunt the deer?
Some hunters and hunting orgs are just as illogical and oddly nature detached as the animal rights activists who save prey from predators.
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It's not news that these accounts exist, but this really is just the epitome of the sickness in our relation to animals and nature today. While I'm sure its followers would think the opposite, it represents and encourages complete detachment from nature. And it's only spreading.
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Providing medical treatment and rehabilitation for common zebras injured in unsuccessful predatory attacks and then labelling it "wildlife conservation efforts" is strange and confusing.
Not going to judge using resources like this, but I question calling it conservation.
This week, two common zebras in Meru National Park sustained injuries resulting from unsuccessful predatory attacks.
KWS team of experienced veterinarians with support from
@SheldrickTrust
worked tirelessly to provide essential medical treatment and rehabilitation for these
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What does Jane Goodall say about UK's exports of thousands of red deer hunting trophies every year then? Why ban imports but not exports? Is it because banning exports would impact local livelihoods while banning imports only harms livelihoods abroad?
Eco-imperialism in action.
.
@JaneGoodallInst
says at
@APPGTrophyHunt
event:
Britain is allowing in trophy hunting imports & this is shocking. How can it be possible that civilised people get a thrill from killing an animal? If Britain imposed a trophy hunting ban it will set an example for other countries
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I can't recover from this clip. Even ignoring everything about the dangers, the kid, wildlife harassment, etc... That zombie sprint towards the bears, in a group, it's so weird and unhinged. What's the rationale? Must get close really fast to watch bears? What human does this?
This is absolutely insane.
A group of tourists in Yellowstone was spotted exiting their cars and sprinting towards a mama bear and her two cubs.
One of the tourists had a child in his arms.
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2. Many of these animals may or may not be wild animals. They may have been taken from the wild, they may be part of illegal wildlife trade, they could be invasive if released (remember: kids) etc. And many of them look cute in a photo but are absolutely not suited to be pets.
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Dubai is absolute Hell on earth. A glamorous, golden hell. Fuck that place and anyone who supports it and its lifestyle in any way. Dubai is everything wrong with the world.
Dubai - what are you thinking?
Beaches now illuminated dusk ‘til dawn to allow ‘night swimming’. This isn’t ‘night swimming’.
This is destroying the natural night environment and taking with it the lives of countless wildlife.
Why would anyone want to swim in an LED bath?
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One of the last two NORTHERN white rhinos. There are like 16k white rhinos left. I struggle to find anyone who's as careless about getting basic facts right as Dyer; I don't think there's anything malicious about it here, but it's just so sloppy, and it reaches a lot of people.
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August 2023 estimate is there are now 30 adult wolves and 14-20 pups in Denmark. Scientists say there's habitat and food sources for 2-6 times this number.
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I think the idea of inclusivity in academia should involve not writing in an obscure way that which can be written just as well in a simple way and be understood by laypersons. Too many social scientists and philosophers hide banal points behind incomprehensible language.
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Accounts with a million followers who appear credible in the environmental space and who believe that they don't need any knowledge about a complicated subject because their moral intuitions alone are fully enough to know the right solutions are a problem.
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And herbivores (which are usually the ones people like to call innocent) aren't any more innocent than carnivores. Animals do what animals do, and neither sheep nor wolves can be innocent. 3/3
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Seems like the water-tourism version of safari vehicles crowding African wildlife. 🫤
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So here's a thread of people being nasty to someone that none of them knows, for no apparent reason other than that he doesn't seem "rural" enough to them, I suppose. Plus the usual loathing of anyone with a formal education.
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I'm tired of seeing the Trophy Hunting (TH) argument about whether TH is more colonialist or us dictating to Africa how to manage their wildlife is more colonialist. And I have contributed to this myself.
But my opinion doesn't really matter, and here is why.
🧵 1/18
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Since much of what I do here on Twitter is address misinformation from antihunting campaigners, I think many of my followers probably have an impression of me that I'm more uncompromisingly pro-hunting than I actually am.
Here's a thread about my stance on hunting. 1/16.
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If a dog kills a child, it's not an evil dog or even a "guilty" dog in a moral sense. And we don't euthanize the dog to punish it. We euthanize it because there's a risk of it happening again (and partly because of our own irrational sense of justice and to punish the owner). 2/3
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As here, where wildlife harassment is encouraged, not because the animal is smiling per se, but because it's reaction is "cute."
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Our fascination with the cuteness (small, round, big eyes, fur, baby features) of animals at the expense of nearly ALL other attributes have lead to a situation where we essentially want all our animals to look the same: An indefinable little ball of soft fur and big, dark eyes.
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Them: "Hitler ate babies."
Me: "There is no evidence that Hitler ate babies."
Them: "So you support Hitler?"
I'm annoyed by how often this kind of exchange happens. Facts matter. Truth matters. I will correct incorrect statements no matter who or what they're about.
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Have you ever seen those airport documentary series where passengers get in trouble for bringing with them an apple or a banana or - God forbid - a bit of dirt?
I want an episode where a passenger gets in trouble for trying to bring in 13 undeclared elephants.
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Some may be puzzled about why I go on about this, because "it's just two zebras" or "they meant well," but I do so because I think rescuing wildlife from predators is symptomatic of a growing nature detachment that is becoming a greater problem than most people are aware of.
Completely agree - this increased rush to treat injured wild animals, even from perfectly natural injuries in a National Park, is harmful to wild systems. Something we touch on here
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For anyone who might have an interest in my PhD-thesis about trophy hunting and hasn't received a copy from me already, it's finally been uploaded to the Uni's thesis library here:
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It bugs me that the "animal lovers" who refuse to believe what conservation scientists say about complex subjects such as hunting tend to have Twitter timelines where they routinely make fun of antivaxxers for not believing in medical science.
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I worry that many politicians take subjects like conservation, animal rights, climate change, animal welfare, pollution, biodiversity, etc. and lump it all together as "green stuff" and assume that what is good for one of the above must also be good for the rest.
Not so.
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No matter how I pronounce "mammalogist," it feels wrong. It should be mammalologist. That's a nice word to pronounce.
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According to people on Twitter over the last two days, my work on hunting is too uninformed because I'm not a hunter and too biased because I am a hunter (which I'm not).
Is there some completely uncontroversial bug I can study or something instead of this crap?
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There's so much more to trophy hunting than lion conservation in Africa.
I submitted a book manuscript about all of it to
@SpringerNature
today, based on my PhD and co-authored by
@AdamHartScience
.
Last you'll hear about it until the book is out, promise.
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And when irresponsible breeding practices and costume play no longer make animals cute enough, we take it one step further... We don't even need real animals anymore. Some of the photos on this account are stuffed toys, and most people who follow accounts like this can't see it.
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I'm screenshotting this instead of retweeting it and encouraging others to do the same. At this point, we have to consider the possibility that going viral among us environmentalists is their goal, and if so, we should not be helping them to take advantage of the algorithms.
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Look at these. Five wildly different species in these four screencaps, yet they look incredibly similar. And whenever we have a choice, we breed them to look like this, increasingly often to the detriment of the resulting breeds who pay the price for our sick obsessions.
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I think the notion that these attitudes cannot be reconciled runs into into either the naturalistic fallacy or the mistake of thinking of wild animals as moral agents.
Thread. 1/16
@IanCarter67
@call_una
Then let me phrase a question: How do you reconcile your ethical, moral and welfare objections to hunting with hounds with your apparently unconditional support of releasing wolves into the UK?
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Catchy name? ✅
Large mammal? ✅
Big, brown, babylike eyes? ✅
Lots of soft fur? ✅
A touching story with clear heroes and villains? ✅
And so, people march on Downing Street to save a single domesticated alpaca.
While nature crumbles all around us.
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"Hi, I'm a birder! I've never researched trophy hunting before, but let me tell you exactly how it all works and what all the easy solutions for people and wildlife are!"
No offense to birders; it just happened to be a birder today. It will be some other naturalist tomorrow.
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I must agree with this today. When biologists say that it negatively impacts wildlife, then I trust their judgment, and I also prefer not seeing signs of human presence everywhere in nature.
Yet there is another side to this, which I find is a bit sad. 🧵Thread, 1/15.
Don’t make these at national parks. I will kick them all down.
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Something that's strange about growing up in the countryside and living as an adult in a major city is that I never abandon the habit of trying to briefly make eye-contact with every person that I pass. I rarely succeed; born city-people look down or straight ahead.
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If someone told me this was real and someone else told me it was a stuffed toy, I wouldn't know who to believe. I hate that I sometimes can't tell.
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Loosely accusing
@AmyDickman4
of being bought and then suggesting to "take it offline." What a classy bit of hit-and-run defamation there
@ChrisGPackham
. ☹
@AmyDickman4
@BASCnews
@GWCT
@WildCRU_Ox
@CBTHunting
I don't see a Times article and the BBC as 'biased attempts to discredit conservationists' , I see it as impartial journalism . I love evidenced based decisions , but whilst I can be paid - I cant be bought , and I look to the 'bigger picture' . Shall we take this offline ?
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I'm tired of hearing about Chris Packham. Tired of his haters obsessing with him as the root of all evil and tired of his fans referencing and tagging him on everything. I just don't think he's that interesting or relevant and I don't think he needs to be part of all discussions.
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Moving on from why this encouragement of animal ownership is bad but staying with the topic of baby animals, it is clear to me that while our attraction to these features has always been there, our fetishization of "cuteness" has gone completely off the rails.
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Yes. Short thread. (1/9).
I think compassion is important. But I believe that compassion in conservation should be very broad. It must be compassion with people who live alongside wildlife, and it must be compassion with all flora and fauna. Compassion with all life.
Would it be a controversial statement that compassion has no place in conservation?
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Except for wolves, because they killed my pony...
President
@vonderleyen
”We are a continent of unique biological diversity. Loss of Nature destroys not only the foundations of our life, but also our feeling of what constitutes home.
We must protect it.”
#SOTEU
This is why we must keep delivering on all
#EUGreenDeal
fronts ⤵️
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Is the general public aware by now of what a pangolin is and that it's threatened by illegal wildlife trade? How many do you think know?
I'm out of touch with what people not in conservation and not in my Twitter circle know.
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This is brilliant. I'm making my discussion points like an actor from now on; through contemplative black/white photos of myself with quotes by myself.
Narcissistic? Naaaaaaah!
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It's actually quite pathetic to see a company that makes rifle optics and runs a big-game hunting blog try to convince their birdwatching customers that "trophy hunting" is indefensible and not endorsed or supported in any way.
Either own what you do or stop doing it.
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The animal rights activists taught us today that Africans are stupid for living in lion habitats.
Conservation is so much simpler than I thought! Just don't live in lions habitats!
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Because there's nothing cuter than if you can create a story of how animals of different species are "best friends" or "in love" or "protecting each other."
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What I mean by that is that this probably represents all that is good and lovely and joyful and happy in the world to a majority of people, yet it represents so much of what is wrong with the world to me. Their "timeline cleanser" is one of the biggest problems on my timeline.
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I'm getting this on a T-Shirt.
@BritishEcolSoc
@Nikolaj_Bi
@AdamHartScience
@MarshAwards
@springer1842
@uniofglos
Two notoriously biased anti-ban UK lobbyists, with no particular expertise in any area relevant to subject, write a book to promote trophy hunting and are awarded prize by the society of ecologists? Seriously?
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Yes, there is a group of us who talk much more about the benefits of hunting than the negatives. Here is a thread about why. I identify three reasons, to be covered in the following:
1. Prevalence.
2. Intuitions.
3. Misinformation.
🧵 1/21
@AmiesPhilip
@AmyDickman4
I’m not a scientist but I am a communicator. I know how it works when I see someone be constantly positive about one solution (hunting) while highlighting only the negatives of another (photography, observing).
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The Mirror thinks hunting trophies represent a twisted relation with animals. They can, sure, but usually not.
Now, here's an article that The Mirror apparently doesn't think represents a twisted relation with animals.
Think about that for a while.
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I'd like to live in a world where people are thoroughly warned about the dangers of wild animals, but where the consequences are on them if they ignore the warnings. Protecting people from their own stupidity has gone way too far here.
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1. As per the profile text, the content targets children, who are notoriously bad at taking care of pets and very likely to lose interest in them, after which their pet animal's future is likely to be grim.
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I took this nice photo of a horse today.
To bring you a smile.
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@CBTHunting
This is so wrong. The only way this photo is possible is with a tame lion that has been bred in captivity for the "cub petting" voluntourism industry and later "walking with lions." This is the same industry that's responsible for canned lion hunting. How can you condone this?
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It is not unprofessional to call liars out for lying. Not even in red font.
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"Hunting/shooting is conservation" and "hunters/shooters are conservationists" are grossly oversimplified slogans. They're scarcely better than antihunting mantras such as "killing is not conservation." All such punchline propaganda rhetoric is just dumbing down conservation.
I see on my timeline the statement shooting is conservation, well is pheasant shooting conservation?
millions of pheasants
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An immensely important thread about the increasingly damaging impacts of animal rights ideology.
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If you think you're morally obligated to treat zebras suffering from predator attacks and deprive other predators/scavengers of a meal in the process, then what's to stop you from being morally obligated to begin preventing predation in the first place?
@Index_49
@MontelAswani
@SheldrickTrust
A question for you- Would you rather the vet team just leave it there in pain and agony till it dies?
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Some day I'm going to find out what the hell "nature-based solutions" actually means.
But not today.
Not today.
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Just like the anthropomorphic idea that smiles are the same in animals as they are in humans, which may also lead to mistreatment of animals, as their mood and condition is misinterpreted.
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And then we try to make them even cuter by dressing them up.
But not just in human clothing. Oh no. That's not cute enough for us anymore.
We dress them up as other animals.
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This is one of the more fair and balanced articles, critical of trophy hunting. Not the same amount of misinformation here that we usually see. And honest recognition of conservation benefits and of how colonialist attitudes aren't limited to hunters.
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And then there's the possibility of harm to animals aside from keeping them as pets and, as often happens, abandoning them later. Such as forcing them into unnatural interactions with each other, which you don't know how they will react to.
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It's a shame to see how the debate has become about the "murder" of "Freya the Walrus" instead of a more general debate about lacking public wildlife education and questionable official handling of human-wildlife conflicts.
"Freya was murdered" was not the right takeaway here.
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