Did American Conservationists in Africa go too far?

 

• “We watched through binoculars as the slaughter continued along the shore,” Owens wrote in “Cry of the Kalahari.” “Trembling with rage, I pushed the control wheel forward and we plunged toward the lakeshore. The poachers were preoccupied with their butchery and did not see the aircraft until it was at ground level, roaring across the plain toward them at 160 miles an hour.” (page 3)

Maybe – seems dangerous to be so reckless with an aircraft with human lives on the line but also was done out of rage which is understandable  

 

• Later, he orders his scouts, “If you see poachers in the national park with a firearm, you don’t wait for them to shoot at you. You shoot at them first, all right? That means when you see the whites of his eyes, and if he has a firearm, you kill him before he kills you, because if you let him get—if you let him turn on you with an AK-47, he’s going to cut you in two. So go out there and get them. Go get them, O.K.?”’

No – it’s your job to defend your life not get killed

 

• Over time, the Owenses, raising money in the United States, built a small network of grinding mills, fishponds, and sunflower-oil presses, with the goal of weaning local people from illegal hunting, and from providing help to the battalions of commercial poachers passing through their villages on the way to the park. But one of the scouts assigned to North Luangwa soon informed the Owenses that men from Chishala were serving as meat carriers for poachers based in another village: “ ‘From Chishala!’ I cry out,” Delia wrote. “Those men we gave jobs, and the soccer ball?” (Page 9)

No – There are helping the local to help stop poachers.

 

• “In the late nineteen-seventies and early eighties, there was a spike in the killing of Africa’s savanna elephants, caused largely by increased demand in Asia for ivory carvings. In 1979, there were about a million three hundred thousand elephants in Africa; ten years later, the population had fallen by half. By the late eighties, some countries, including Kenya, had found the problem serious enough to institute a shoot-to-kill policy, allowing poachers to be shot on sight. Zambia, which had no such official policy, was heavily afflicted by poaching. Its central government was corrupt in places, and ineffective at policing the country’s distant corners. For poachers, North Luangwa’s isolation made it a favored hunting ground.”

Crossing the line favoring animal over humans

 

• I asked if he had considered alerting the police in Lusaka that he had witnessed a killing by an American visitor to Zambia. He said, “That was way above my pay scale. I was working for ABC. It wasn’t my business to do that.” Everson would not say how he got back to camp after the shooting, but he said that he did not see Christopher Owens again. (page 26*)

Even author is like “woah” did you call the police after witnessing a killing