Does Trophy Hunting Spoil The Gene Pool?

Yesterday I posted a rebuttal to a Newsweek article that supported the theory that trophy hunting was creating “weak and scrawny” game animals. The Newsweek article used information from a study done on big horn sheep on Ram Mountain in Alberta, Canada, that made the claim by some involved in that study that in 30 years it was trophy hunting that had caused a reduction in body size and horn length and mass. Since that posting, my mailbox has filled up with information.

Trophy hunting, as used in this post and related articles, can be best described as the effort of hunters to select an animal for harvesting that has large antlers/horns in combination with big body mass. The theory is that this type of harvesting selection is creating weaker and smaller species because hunters are culling out the best of the litters to hang on their walls. This simply is not true. Read more