continuity of parks

BBC photo
Shooting for Wildlife

Who was James Westhead? We couldn't be sure. All we knew was that the man's by-line, or that of someone pretending to be him, had appeared above a brief piece for the BBC online in which he described going four-wheeling "through the underbrush" in Texas, on his way to visit the YO Ranch--a "world leader in wildlife conservation."

Daily hunting packages started at $350 per person. Trophy fees ranged from $450 for a native wild turkey to $8500 for one "super exotic" Pere David's Deer, of a species native to China, then listed as critically endangered by the IUCN.

Pictured here is a beautifully conserved specimen of one of two types of Oryx, originally from a range on one or the other side of the Tana River in Eastern Africa. According to the American Wildlife Federation, "[t]he social system of the oryx is unusual in that nonterritorial males live in mixed groups with females, or with females and their young." Original predators included "lions, wild dogs and hyenas."

President of the American Wildlife Society, Robert Brown, lamented the state of hunting in America: "We're turning wild animals into domestic animals. The hunter is no longer using his instincts and his reflexes."