In Colombia, this practice is still legal so the Attorney General seeks to prohibit sport hunting

It seems prehistoric and wild to think about hunting animals for fun. Worldwide, sport hunting is still practiced despite the suffering animals experience. It is common to see pictures of people posing proudly next to corpses of elephants, giraffes, rhinos, etc. Moreover, there are companies dedicated to offer specialized hunting services. Despite causing outrage, sport hunting is still a legal practice in countries like Colombia.

Leer en español: ¡No más caza deportiva!

For this reason, the Attorney General of the Nation of the coffee country asked the Constitutional Court to declare that this practice cannot be carried out. According to Semana Sostenible, "for the control organism the rules that currently regulate this activity are contrary to the ecological dimension of the Political Constitution of 1991, because killing an animal for recreation is ignoring the progress made in terms of environmental protection in the country".

I deeply agree with the Attorney General's Office, because nowadays thinking about hunting animals it is satisfactory for human beings, is nothing but cruelty in its maximum expression. Considering animals as objects that we can kill for fun, goes against everything that has been fought in environmental matters.

It is true that sport hunting is carried out, occasionally, to control the growth of a species or as a source of food. Although I am also in disagreement with the first case, because many times the population growth of a species is due to the action of the human being, in these situations the hunting is not done for fun or as an entertainment plan. The indignation against hunting focuses on that it is done for fun and in which there is no more motivation than to entertain people while shooting helpless animals.

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This is why the regulator entity stated that "sport hunting ignores the duty to protect animals as sentient beings and not as things, and this type of hunting is not justified activity for reasons of subsistence, or population control of the species". Animals may not be recognized as subjects of rights, but it is clear that they feel pain and hunting them, torturing them, and killing them for fun only demonstrates the savagery that human beings can achieve.

According to Semana, the lawsuit to prohibit this practice was filed by Laura Santacoloma and magistrate Antonio José Lizarazo is taking the case. The rules that are intended to be declared unconstitutional are Law 2811 of 1974, arts. 248, 252 and 256 of the National Code of Renewable Natural Resources and Protection of the Environment and Law 84 of 1989, arts. 8 and 30 of the National Statute for the Protection of Animals.

Does nature also want to prohibit sport hunting?

As if it were poetic justice, in May 2017, Theunis Botha, professional South African hunter, was crushed by an elephant in Zimbabwe while hunting. El Mundo reported that Botha "had fired three of the pups that were attacking them when a fourth animal wrapped its trunk around Botha and lifted him up IGNORE INTO the air. A member of the expedition intervened to save his companion by opening fire on that elephant, which fell on Botha causing death”.

Botha had a company specialized in hunting (dogs direct the hunt and warn their masters about the presence of other animals) to hunt leopards and lions. The hunter was considered a pioneer, because this practice had lost followers after being practiced in the Middle Ages in Europe.

This same medium highlights that the remains of Scott van Zyl, friend of Theunis Botha, and who was also a professional hunter, were found in the stomach of two crocodiles that devoured him while he was hunting.

LatinAmerican Post | Marcela Peñaloza
Translated from “¡No más caza deportiva!”

* The opinion of the editor does not represent this newspaper

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