Oh Dear. One of the Last Credible Justifications for Big Game Hunting... Well, Maybe We Shouldn't Go There.

One of the strongest arguments big game hunters can raise is when they're killing animals as necessary for population control. Sometimes natural predators can't keep prey species in balance, usually after trophy hunters have killed off the predators. Then we may need to "cull the herd" to keep burgeoning populations under control before their sheer numbers devastate many other species.

Wait just a second. What species is the biggest predator of them all, the planet's one true Apex predator?  Why, of course, that would be us - mankind. We're already devastating many species at a voracious rate, enough that we've pretty much killed off half of the life on Earth over just the past three to four decades.

We're the biggest, perhaps only, genuine threat that imperils our planet's biodiversity leading to the collapse of many species as we near a critical loss of biodiversity that could doom us all to a very miserable way of life. We're the species that seems to have triggered a genuine, mass-extermination event. Aren't we the herd that most needs culling?

We could begin with a pilot project.  We'll put tracking collars around the necks of trophy hunters and set them loose on special ranches where they can be "taken" by those willing to shell out, say, $50,000 for the privilege. Permit holders will be able to "take" their trophy by rifle, bow and arrow, or even just the tires of a giant 4X4.

Then, maybe after we've disposed of the Walter Palmers of this world, we'll realize that culling the human herd isn't such a good idea after all especially when there are other ways to solve our overpopulation problem in just a couple of generations.