Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill

Baroness Sanderson of Welton Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 16th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Mancroft and I am very pleased to hear that he would like the Bill to reach the statute book, for I rise to speak in support of it and of my noble friend Lady Fookes.

I am not going to go over the arguments as to whether trophy hunting is important for conservation. As we have heard already, plenty have used the science to say that it is and others have used it to say that it is not. Frankly, I very much doubt that either side will change its mind by listening to the evidence put forward by the other. Instead, there is another and more fundamental question to consider. It is whether we really believe that, in this day and age, trophy hunting can be seen as a reasonable endeavour, even in the name of conservation, as its supporters claim.

Many in this Chamber have talked about how distasteful this is as a practice. We have not actually spelled out the reality, so I will take a minute and go through what it means. A group of men, sometimes women, will pay to go on what seems, on the face of it, to be a standard safari. There is a nice lodge, a glass of wine and plenty of time to relax in between game drives, but there the similarities end. You do not have a guide on these drives; you have a PH—a private hunter—and there is a difference. A safari guide has to learn how to interpret and be respectful of the wilderness and its wildlife. They are the link between nature and guest. A private hunter just has to know how to hunt. What they really need to do is make sure that, if their clients miss, they can tell them where to shoot next. In truth, that is the only tricky bit. It is called hunting but very often there is no chase, and it does not take great skill.

I asked the South African wildlife journalist and academic Dr Adam Cruise, who is here today, to tell me a bit about it, as he has been on many of these hunts. He explained:

“The animals are used to the vehicles and the elephants and the lions don’t run anyway. It’s as simple as going out, seeing the zebra, say, getting out of the jeep, taking a few steps and shooting the zebra—if they get it wrong the first time, which they often do, the PH is there to guide them ... bit lower, bit higher … while the animal writhes on the floor. It can often take them 10 or 15 minutes to die but when the job’s finally done, the staff clean off the blood, the client has his picture taken, jumps back in the jeep and the team will either put the animal in the back if it’s small enough or chop off the head if it’s a lion or an elephant and leave the carcass behind.”


He went on to talk about one hunt he was on:

“A lot of the animals are bred for the purpose so even something like a rhino can be quite tame—”

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

My Lords, I wonder if my noble friend would be so awfully kind as to give way? What she is saying is very interesting, of course, but she is talking about canned hunting in South Africa. That is not the subject of this Bill.

[Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)]

I am not talking about canned hunting. I am talking about the experience of an academic and journalist who has been on many different types of hunts, including canned hunting. I am not talking only about that, so if my noble friend would let me finish, I would be grateful.

It is reasonable that, if we are going to talk about this, we talk about the reality of it. Dr Curtis went on one hunt where the rhinos were grazing around the chalets. He asked the client, “Which one is next on your list?” Pointing at Dr Curtis’s hand, which was stroking the rhino’s head because it was so tame, the client said, “That one”. I take the time to speak about this because, when I hear such things, I just think that there has to be a better way.

I would say to my noble friend that I am not some woke warrior. I do not think that this can be compared to a grouse shoot. I am not even a vegetarian, and maybe there is hypocrisy in that. However, I think that the killing of these magnificent animals for no purpose whatever is sickening. We have some children here today. My godchildren will not go to a zoo because they do not like to see wild animals caged up; they would rather watch Attenborough on television. The world is moving on.

As has been said by many in this Chamber, nobody here wants to go on these hunts; they want to support conservation, and I appreciate that. However, I point out that only 11 of the 54 countries in Africa allow trophy hunting. It is true that some of them do not have the game to support it, but Kenya does—admittedly in reduced numbers, as my noble friend Lord Reay has pointed out—as do Malawi and Ghana. They face the same problems with habitat and want to protect their communities. They want to support them but they do not want trophy hunting on their land. Does this not rather disprove the point that trophy hunting is a necessary evil? It is not; it is a choice.

In this country, we are doing something smaller in scope. Some noble Lords have argued that it is so small that it is nothing more than virtue signalling. Others have said that it is not small at all and that its impact is quite damaging, and that it is not up to us to tell other countries what to do. On the latter point, I agree that it is not up to us to tell other countries what to do, but we can, as a country, take a stance. I think we can take a stance on this pathetic sport. That is not virtue signalling; it is the right thing to do.