Drumroll please.....National Geographic responds!!!
 

Dear xxxxxxxxxxxxx,

Thank you for your message concerning Classic Africa, a tour operator with
whom we operate one trip in Southern Africa. We were unaware that there is
a hunting operation connected to this organization and appreciate your
bringing this to our attention. We are in the process of looking into this
matter, but as an immediate step, Classic Africa has removed our name from
its website.

In supporting our mission of "diffusing geographic knowledge" through
exploration, geography education and research, National Geographic's
position has always been to remain an objective provider of information,
and not to take a stand on issues. On this particular issue, leading
conservationists have varying opinions. We do appreciate your bringing
this situation to our attention, and your support of the society.

Sincerely,
Lynn Cutter
VP, Travel

Great for you Roccco. I will not knowingly do business with anyone that allows hunting for merely a photo op. Thanks for the sleuthing!

One can change things if one is determined - Roccco good for you!

Good for you!!!!! Rocco scores BIG!!!

Roccco:

Thank you Roccco,good work!

Thanks for all the support. I do hope that National Geographic takes a further stand and finds themselves a new tour operator for Southern Africa.

I must say that Classic Africa's opening page is not quite as attractive without that misleading near endorsement from National Geographic.

And although Classic Africa has tried to erase the existence of their hunting operation, I still have the combination to the vault:

http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache...n&ie=UTF-8

Doesn't Pierre have a great smile and a nice tan? :) And he looks, oh so manly with that big gun slung over his shoulder, looking for his next victim.

It has been said that a person's true character is not how they behave when they know people are watching, but instead how they behave when they don't think people are watching, and I think this is the case with Classic Africa/Classic Hunting Safaris. Hopefully, the Classic Hunting Safari website will be cached (stored) on the internet for a long time to come and they will have no choice but to come clean for their involvement in the hunting of leopards, lions, cheetahs and whatever else they can set their sights on.

Before I forget, I would like to thank Fodor's for allowing us to have a free forum to express ourselves on the matter of hunting. They must have received some complaints by now by those in favor of hunting, yet here we are. :)

Unfortunately, it appears that National Geographic is still doing business with Classic Hunting Safaris/Classic Africa.

Here is the package that I suspect is being run through Classic Hunting Safaris/Classic Africa:

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ng...trip_1086.html

It consists of the following:

Cape Town, Cape Grace Hotel (3 nights)
Sabi Sand, Kirkmans Camp (3 nights)
Victoria Falls, Royal Livingstone (2 nights)
Chobe National Park, Chobe Chilwero (2 nights)

Total price is $7,650 per person sharing
($15,300 per couple).

Nice looking package if you do not mind paying about $6,500 per couple too much, all while supporting the deplorable practice of hunting.

Cape Grace is worth about $1,250 for 3 nights.

Kirkmans Camp is worth about $2,600 for 3 nights. (www.e-gnu.com)

Royal Livingstone is worth about $900 for 2 nights.

Chobe Chilwero is worth about $1750 for 2 nights.

African flights (Cape Town - Sabi Sand - Joburg - Victoria Falls - Joburg) are worth about $1,750.

Allow another $550 for tours and transfers, and that's the package for two at a grand total of $8,800.

Too bad National Geographic refused to take a stand on this one. They did tell me that they are non-partisan, but by going through with this trip, I think it does nothing but condone hunting. Shame on National Geographic.

Rocco
Well done indeed for forcing National Geographic to at least review the issue. Shame they decided to allow their name to be used on a hunting site. I can understand their being partisan but endorsing hunting safaris is not a case of remaining partisan - it's falling down on the side of the fence that DOES support hunting.
Shame.

Hmmm, NG's reply is a total crock. When did they ever publish an objective article about hunting? And I don't think they ever will, because they would find that their readership is overwhelmingly against hunting our way to conservation...

Okay, National Geographic, Let's hear your response to these postings!
Good for you Roccco! Thank you for taking a stand. Keep on their tails!

I know I'm setting myself up for this one, but I cannot keep quiet.

Have any of you seen the poverty in Africa (not just the bad living conditons in the compound behind Singita Ebony etc...) but really seen the poverty? Been out to real rural villages. Travelled the highways and byways with the African people. Seen people eating rotten food from a dump (this is not a once-off, either). Seen the bloated stomaches of children - no rain for 18 months and a completely failed crop and a dictator stealing the USAID food? When you see it you will understand why hunting has to be - in Africa. Tell a starving man, tell a starving mother watching her children die - that she cannot shoot the game in the area. It won't even register in his or her mind because it makes no sense. Look into the CAMPFIRE programs - which, admittedly have probelems - and you will understand that in the rest of the world you need to have an incentive to protect the biodiversity. The animals have to be worth saving - in monetary, community upliftment, or food terms - for them to be saved. Think outside of the box and you will see hunting from another perspective. Done with controls and ecological monitoring hunting brings much needed revenue to the people of the area and gives the people an inncentive to protect the animals.

Yes there are problems with hunting and corruption, but on a whole it benefits everyone. And this ex vegan has seen first hand how hunting can benefit the environment. Sorry to admit it - as I never would have agreed with this before I left America, but I used to echo all of the sentiments of this thread.

This is an issue that needs to be looked at from a realistic point of view. And lay off NG, I think most of us would never have dreamed of Africa were it not for that magazine.

I hear the wrath rolling in off the Atlantic ..............

---on the ground in Africa--

Mads
All valid points but I think this discussion is centred on the TOURIST hunting industry - those organisations that create fenced parks stocked with canned game and sell hunting safaris to foreign tourists who prefer to take home photos of themselves holding the dead carcass of a beautiful leopard rather than photos of the leopard going about it's normal life.

This does not benefit those starving African people you talk so eloquently about.

I have always felt very differently about hunting for survival by people who need to eat and have no legitimate way of doing so and the trophy hunting of tourists.

Sorry, typing too fast.

What I missed in my message above was that these organisations running hunting are not often involved in local community upliftment projects (other than the fact that they, like non-hunting tourism, create employment opportunities). Nor do I get the impression that profits filter through to the community at a higher or faster rate than they would from a non-hunting tourism operation.

ttt for an interested party

Thanks, Rocco, for taking action!

Hunting

It may not sit well with many of you on this site, but think of it from this perspective. White trophy hunters were the first conservationists. They realised that shooting all the prime game would iradicate future stocks. If you look at the animals that are shot, they are beyond reproduction etc, having only a few years to live naturally. im with Mads on this one, its helps employ more people in the camps. Also, I would as kthe question, which camp in Africa does not not have some connection with a local community project. AKA hunting helps funds this projects as wel as conservation efforts.

Get with it, Conservation is not only about perserving what is there, but also maintiaining a system that ensures sustinable development

photoholic,

While I grudgingly accept that regulated trophy hunting is good for conservation, you should also accept that there are plenty of abuses of regulated hunting, with hunting operators allowing more than the quota of animals to be killed, the underreporting of the animals, and thus not only the depletion of the animals but also the cheating of the payments that go to the government and local villages.

Also, much of my personal opposition to hunting has to do with the fact that I believe that there must be something terribly wrong with a person who would kill "for sport." What is the mindset of such a person? I just fail to see the pleasure that could be derived out of killing a beautiful animal just for the opportunity to pose next to its carcass or, worse yet, to have it stuffed and shipped home. I would just as soon feature a human corpse as I would a leopard or lion corpse, that is how sick I think it is.

It is just a shame that Africa is reliant upon the vast sums of money brought in by trophy hunting. Of course, I wouldn't want all of Africa to be one big Kruger National Park with 1 million visitors each year for each sizable park, but with a few more visitors, Africa would survive just fine.

I could be mistaken, but I believe that Kenya still does not allow hunting. While some say, and this may be partially true, that Kenya's wildlife is worse off for this stance, I do think it has more to do with the fact that Kenya has such a huge population compared to Zambia and especially Botswana.

I do admire the stance that Zambia has taken on elephant hunting. While it is, technically, allowed, the hunters are NOT allowed to take the tusks out of the country. Very few hunters are willing to drop the $30,000 necessary for the license to kill an elephant in Zambia since they are not allowed to take the tusks.

I don't know if this is some kind of twisted Christian attitude or not, where man is all powerful and animals are lesser regarded, but if that is the case, I am ashamed of my fellow Christians. If anything, I have higher regard for animals than I do for my fellow man.

Anyway, in time, I pray that conservation efforts may thrive without trophy hunting, which is really an obscene and deplorable activity, in my opinion.

Thanks so much for exposing this Rocco.. I will send an email to Nat Geo immediately.