Rhino horn is glorified fingernail tissue. No way does it give wood except with placebo effect. Even with farmed rhinos, poachers would still see big $$ to be made be getting horn anywhere they can.

Not sure how to educate a nation of a billion fools on the topic.

And Yemenis have an endless appetite for rhino dagger handles. No easy answers.

I gather that some environmental groups are advocating high dollar licensed hunts of critters like mountain sheep as a way to bring income to locals to prevent excessive subsistence hunting. May well be some merit to that, I mean what do I know, I don't live in those places but elephants somehow seem in a different class.

I like the elephant back tours to see rhinos thing. Not going to feed a nation though.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

This just in: Aklim prefers Cialis to Viagra. Details at 11.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Was it in his pajamas?

My favorite shareholder of Auburn Automobile stock.

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Current:
1985 300D aka Miss Margaret
1991 300SE aka Alarice
1995 SL320 aka Samantha
1997 K1500 Silverado
Past:
1999 E300 ex-wife got it and let her son ruin it
1984 190 2.3 ex-wife got it and let her son destroy a great car
1985 300D (CA version) aka Maybelline lost to deer at high speed.
1981 300D aka Madeline (went to salvage at near 400k) rusty, yet best car I ever drove
Wishlist:
McFarlan TV6 (only a few privately owned)
ReVere with Rochester engine
1917 Premier (only one left)

For the same price, why not get the most bang for the buck?

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01 Ford Excursion Powerstroke
99 E300 Turbodiesel
91 Vette with 383 motor
05 Polaris Sportsman 800 EFI
06 Polaris Sportsman 500 EFI
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Red
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04 Tailgator 21 ft Toy Hauler
11 Harley Davidson 883 SuperLow

Education, clearly, is the best long-term solution to practically any given problem.

It is equally clear that prohibition is the worst long-term solution to practically any given problem.

Usually the best average solution is to make something so valuable that people have an incentive to conserve it for future profit. Without a profit motive for conservation there is only the profit motive of black markets.

The goal should be twin: Make conservation profitable and black markets unprofitable. This is what has been happening with crocodylids in the USA and some other parts of the world. It works.

I agree that elephants and rhinos are hard to captive raise. But zoos do it. Zoos could turn a tidy profit my sawing-off the horns of rhinos and elephants and sell them to open bid oil sheiks and Chinese needing a virtual lift. And the horns and tusks grow back.

But they a long time to get profitable. So do trees.

Commercial hunting of animals sickens me on numerous levels. None the less the situation in Africa and other third world dungheaps is complicated. There are countries where for many years nature conservation was so successful that elephant herds increased to such an extent that they are not sustainable. That is to say, in the areas left such as parks and game reserves human encroachment on their borders means they are not able to be kept inside the footprint of the area without extreme damage to the area. Nowhere in the world is there sufficient space for elephants to roam 'freely' as they used to do in centuries past.

In such instances sickening though it is to my mind commercial hunting for a hefty fee can aid conservation both by keeping numbers low enough that they don't pose a wider problem and funding conservation and game management programs.

However. In most of the world the real problem is not commercial hunting. It's poaching. There is as CMB said no way to educate a nation of a billion morons who think they can only get it up if they slaughter the rhino herds, so the demand will always be there. Thus the only thing you might be able to do is to wage war against the criminal cartels and their poaching front men who are decimating the herds of big game in their last remaining habitats.

These sacks of **** poisoned 90 elephants with cyanide recently in Zimbabwe. There was a poacher who posted his murder of a Rhino online for kicks a month or so back. These bastards should be treated as the criminal scum they are and dealt with accordingly.

Unfortunately I think there is little chance of that happening.

In the North American scenario. I agree. Baiting wildlife and murdering them is disgusting and the "hunters" are contemptible. If you want to hunt, you need to go hunt! For real. Not like some pussyassed coward who can't hack it in the forest.

- Peter.

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2021 Chevrolet Spark
Formerly...
2000 GMC Sonoma
1981 240D 4spd stick. 347000 miles. Deceased Feb 14 2021
2002 Kia Rio. Worst crap on four wheels
1981 240D 4spd stick. 389000 miles.
1984 123 200
1979 116 280S
1972 Cadillac Sedan DeVille
1971 108 280S

What kind of gun would be best for taking down an elephant?

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2015 BMW 535i xdrive awd Stage 1 DINAN, 6k, <----364 hp

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2013 Jaguar XF, 20k <----340 hp Supercharged, All Wheel Drive (sold)

An elephant gun.

Which these days is the preferred weapon of the third world. The AK47. No need to worry about shot placement. Just spray a magazine into the animal and hack the tusk off the corpse.

- Peter.

__________________
2021 Chevrolet Spark
Formerly...
2000 GMC Sonoma
1981 240D 4spd stick. 347000 miles. Deceased Feb 14 2021
2002 Kia Rio. Worst crap on four wheels
1981 240D 4spd stick. 389000 miles.
1984 123 200
1979 116 280S
1972 Cadillac Sedan DeVille
1971 108 280S

He went on safari I don't see what the problem is as long as it was a legal kill, which in Botswana it would be.

That's a very pricey trip, a couple of people in my Rod & Gun club have done it.

Freedom Helicopter Hog Hunt High Definition - YouTube

Some NRA members have interesting hobbies, and they drive the anti's nuts. Because I guess if your not doing a charity run, drinking coffee in a Starbucks something is wrong?

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Oh come on, I think they are relics of a fantastic era. Like Churchill going on safari in a pith helmet drinking whiskey, shooting rhino, painting, and stomping all over Africa like the British owned the place...which they did.

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
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Holland & Holland

Holland and Holland Finest Sporting Guns and Rifles | Clothing & Accessories | Shooting Grounds in London, New York and Moscow

They know how to outfit. .577 is an old and common caliber, their are a number of others as well, most of the larger ones pack a massive punch for Rhino, like the .700 Nitro.

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

I know a guy who killed and elephant, he even had a mounted giraffe ironically he was caught being mounted by a big black guy in a interstate rest area....go figure.