Not That I’m Saying Eat the Red-Shanked Douc
Telegraph Blogs - Privatise the elephant, by Daniel Hannan
Free market principles find validation in even the unlikeliest places. Consider the report that Masai tribesmen have killed four elephants and wounded ten more close to a Kenyan game park. Amid the plunging spears and steaming gore is a lesson in how property rights encourage conservation.
Ponder the stories of two African states. Kenya banned the killing of elephants in 1979, effectively nationalising its herd. At around the same time, Rhodesia (as it still was) made elephants the property of those whose land they were on. The result? Thirty years on, Kenyan elephants have been all but wiped out, while Zimbabwe’s are as numerous as ever.
Woah. Either Zimbabwe’s managed to do something right, or Bobby Mugabe’s managed to not screw something up.
…The Masai who carried out the recent slaughter were, according to their own lights, behaving quite rationally. Unless they are given incentives to do otherwise, Africans have every reason to hunt elephant to extinction.
The Zimbabwean government does give local people incentives to do otherwise. Knowing that there is money to be made from them, Zimbabweans treat elephants as a renewable resource, culling some for their meat and hides, but making sure that the herd’s survival is not threatened. (An easing of the ban on ivory sales would make the herds even more valuable, and so, paradoxically, boost elephant numbers.)
The foundation of capitalism is Aristotle’s observation that that which no one owns, no one will care for. Here is proof.
A couple years ago I had Rush on when Peter unwittingly came into the room, just as Rush was announcing his full-proof plan to save some endangered species or other (let’s say it was the Red-shanked Douc, although it wasn’t): “Eat the Red-shanked Douc”. At which point Peter turned on his heel and quit the room in disgust.
But, you know, he had a point.
March 19th, 2008 at 2:34 am
Eating rare animals is an excellent way to preserve them, and I eat Gloucester Old Spot sausages at every opportunity. Delicious.
Of course you don’t have to eat them to preserve them. Over the last 300 years or so large tracts of England have been managed in part to ensure a consistent supply of foxes for people to hunt. With the recent hunting ban the foxes have been deprived of even this marginal utility, and are reduced to mere vermin. The result is that more foxes are being killed than before the legislation - foxes kill game birds which people are still allowed to shoot, so they’re now actively killed (rather than just hunted, which as often as not resulted in the fox getting away). There would have been even more killed but for the fact that the ban’s expected to be reversed by the next government. If it isn’t, and grain prices continue to rise, expect to see copses and coverts in the hunting counties to be felled. Without hunting, foxes have no utility, and neither does their habitat.
March 19th, 2008 at 7:12 am
Well, true, but I’m not in favour of hunting elephants.
March 19th, 2008 at 8:34 am
You are forcing me to repeat the story of the smart-aleck traveler aboard an elegant ocean liner priding itself on serving anything guests desired:
Guest: “I can have anything I want?” Waiter: “Certainly, Sir.” Guest: “In that case, I’ll have an elephant chop.” Waiter, w/o missing a beat: “Is Sir dining alone?” Guest: “As you see.” Waiter:” I am sorry, but we cannot slaughter an elephant for only one guest.”
March 19th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Heheh.
March 20th, 2008 at 5:09 am
Older version: I can has Elephant ear sammich? African or Indian?
March 20th, 2008 at 9:08 am
“Rhinoceros steak?” “White or black?”
March 21st, 2008 at 8:10 am
Even more older: Can I has elephant ear sammich with mustard? No outta mustard.