Hey, welcome to Beyond the Scenes, the Daily Show podcast that goes a little deeper into segments and topics that originally aired on The Daily Show. That this is what this podcast is. This podcast like you have to go get a haircut. You get a fresh haircut, right, and then at the end of that haircut, you laid down and they give you that hot towel and the steam just seeps into your poors and just for a couple of seconds, life is perfect and none of the problems that you were thinking about. We're permeating into the subconscious and then they snatch that towel off and you're back out into the world with your problems. That's what this podcast is, the wonderful hot towel of progress. Today we are discussing trophy hunting in Africa. This is a topic that Trevor covered during the segment we call if you don't know, now you know? Play the clip. What's interesting about trophy hunting is that we all assume people do it because they don't care about that aims. But according to the hunting community, they do this because they can't too much. I know it sounds contradictory, but hunters love animals. Hunters are the ones that are giving so much back to preserving these wild species. A lot of people talk about the conservation that hunters are the real conservationists. Everybody thinks that the easiest part is pulling the trigger, and it's not. That's the hardest part. But you've gained so much respect and so much appreciation for the animal. Wow, that's one hell of a way to show you appreciation and respect. Another argument trophy hunters used is that they're actually getting rid of the slower, weaker animals who are holding back the rest of the herd, but that might not be the full story. Trophy hunters kill some of the biggest, most magnificent animals, which is bad for the health of the species because genes may no longer be passed onto future generations. By taking those guys out of the gene pool, it weakens the genes of the entire population. Over the lad thirty years, the average size of a male lion has dropped, specifically because of trophy hunting. That's right. Despite what they say, trophy hunters actually like to target the strongest specimens, which I don't support, but honestly, I mean I understand it's called trophy hunting for a reason. Yeah, you wanted to look like you battled an alpha male to the death, not like you snuck into its nursing home and then smothered one of the lions with the pillows. Just like go to sleep, Scar, go to sleep. Joining us to help break down this topic, I have two people. One of them is a Daily Show writer and the Pride of Uganda, one of the most stylish people, and he was the first person on the last person off the dance floor at the Daily Show Christmas party. Not that that detail has anything that even the expertise on this topic. Mr Joe opio Jo, how you been, brother, I've been doing great. We're back into the office, as you probably know, so we're slowly easing back into walk and the pandemic. You know, it was tough. It was tough, but nothing that someone who grew up in Africa hasn't first before. So yeah, I'm happy to have a pleasure to discuss this particular Joe. I'm happy that you that we're back in the office as well, because now we have somebody to help you with technology to get you on the show. That's why it's been so long. We've been trying to get you on the show, beginning you to set up a microphone at that again as to what we discussing today. Also joining us is an anti poaching activists and the author of the book Undercover Trophy Hunter. He is EDWARDO Gonsalvez. Edwardo, how are you doing over there? You over there in the UK? Where are you joining us from? Right now? I am in the cold and great UK, and and wow, it's it's pretty grim over there. And yeah, but look, I'm very happy to talk about this issue. Great fan of the show. We do actually get to see it every now and again here in the UK. And yeah, I mean, whatever you want to know, I'm gonna see if I can answer those questions. Well, I appreciate you for joining us from somewhere as grim and as dark. You know. It's like, that's why I like Europe. Europe, it's just grim and right now America we have a grim and gray future, big difference, but nice and sunny. So Joe, I'll start with you. A lot of topics on the show usually come from writers that are close to the issue or have some level of connection to the issue in the real world. How did Trophy hunting in Africa come into play, and whose idea was it to do a segment on this. It's kind of had to attribute credit to a particular person. But I think this was mainly trivial because the topic had been calculating in the air. People have been talking about it for some time. And this is if you know Trevor, this is a classic Trivor segment. It's global in scope, it's complex in nature, it's a very very nuanced Because TV hits things that are black and white. He loves like exploring the gray, and this topic like gave him that, and also of course about Africa mostly so that was close and dear to his heart. But I think it the conversation was in there, especially because pictures that pictures are the magged of Dawn and Eric posing with these animals that had killed, had slaughtered, and then like a few years before that, there was of course talk about the dentist and so the lions. So it was a topic that wasn't there, and it was a kind of topic that usually because of the qualities that discussed, resonates with Trevor, and so he said our team or cracked him of such as the tagged him to work on it, and they brought the research in and it was still as engaging as I thought he would be, and so we sat down wrote it and then came up with a great ender, which was the sketch about a rich African coming to New York to hunt down uh, white people's pets. And the segment was it go. But it was a tough, tough segment. It was a tough segment to do more than more simply because it involved the slaughtering of animals and the things. The Daily Show is a comedy show, so we have to make the thing funny, and that was tough. That was really tough because it's like trying to do it's got a segment about the war crimes that Russia is committing in the Ukraine. You have to make people laugh. You're not a straight news program. People have come for the comedy, so that made it tough. But it was I thought, and Trevor thought, and the entire Daily Short team thought. An issue was exploring now see for me being dumb American and my scope and knowledge, and this is basically hunting video games where you go on some big game reserve where you know, you pay money and you pay for whatever you kill. But then there's also the aspect of aproaching, which is like it's all abhorrent, but one version is legal. One version. What were some of the reasons that you all started discovering us to why people participate in trophy honey, When we started doing the research and when the tag team got onto it, we found that it's sport to people, the collity sport. Of course, the argument that people are against it say, this is a sport where one team has no idea that they're participating. If it's a sport, then both teams should know that they're competing, and both teams should accurately be on a level competing field. But yeah, yeah, we realize that so many people were passionate about it. So many people, like both pro and anti were passionate about it. The hunters, of course, have their reasons, and among the reasons, I think the two that really stuck out to me one that actually, trophy hunting is one of the most effective ways. This is what they said, it's one of the most effective ways to conserve and then get species and animals. I see it. Don't laughing because the things that's laughable but are these people really genuinely believe this. They go like, hey, it's like I feel like it's like you know when it's like if it's like if your parents was abusing you. And then he was going like, yeah, this is the best way to raise you. So they were saying. One of the things they said is we love animals. They hunters genuinely say this and they believe it. They say, we love animals and that's why we hunt them. And then they say, actually, they hardest thing shooting the animals, and of course the joint that would be, you know, you can just shoot pictures of the animals if you love them so much. So they said they had the thing is to pull the trigger. And again it feels like an abusive parent telling you this hurts me more than it hurts you, but I have to do it because I love you. But the genuinely believe this, and of course they also generally believe that every money they pay to hunt these big game animals actually helps concert the animals. So for me, that was very, very surprising, and it was like it was the genuine belief that they have that they love the animals and they're helping conserve the animals by hunting them. That surprised me most well. I am appreciative that I was able to be in a sketch with you on this and show off my inauthentic African accent. Authentic first of all, Now, what you're not gonna do is disrespect my accent that I've been working on. I've been I've been trained at Julio. Not you say Julio this next door. I'm saying your accent gives cultural appropriation and bad name the America. For the past few decades, you have come to Africa to shoot our animals. I don't say you do this to help us. We are so grateful. We want to return the favor. You see all of these straight dogs and cats that are letting across your country, I'm going to here them. That's right. As part of a new program, rich Africans will pay to hunch thraight dogs and cuts in America. How are you so terrible? I know white people who are better African accents. You are insulting me, and I do not appreciate your insults. But I always, always, always, love, always love doing this. And we've done a bunch of sketches with you where like you have to do the African voice, African accent, and because people laugh at me because I think I can never done American accent. It's impossible. I can't. And then I look at Roy and I go like, okay, at least it also goes the other way because African, My African accent is so terrible that Africans don't even get offended by, like they send me messages on Twitter and stuff, and it just that was terrible. Roy, well done. They treat you the way it kind that gotting teacher treats a kind getting away was drawn Stickman. Well done. It's very yea, because I've like even day you know, they're the African whole. Normally they're very patronizing towards you. And this is because everyone assumes. Everyone assumes that an African accent. Eyone assumes that Roy, you know, stand up comedian extraordinary. Yeah, I shouldn't be able to do an Afghan accent. And then yeah, we know why he went to a knock off Juiard Julio d Now you swimming waders on this topic where there are no punch lines, there are no jokes. It is straight up stop this action from happening, you know, as an advocate for the Cars to band trophy hunting, how do you feel watching the segment? Because I always feel like with issues this series, you could always watch it and go oh, but you didn't mention the thing the other thing. So how did it feel seeing the segment, you know, trophy hunting. I don't know if it stopped shocking me. I mean, it shocks me and it doesn't shock me because I've now spoken to and read the accounts of so many trophy hunters and the things that they say as if it was a normal thing to say. I mean, there's one guy who was a president of Safari Club International, and he's talking about how the most intimate um and um and most moving thing you can do in life is to hunt an elephant, and he talks about the joy that he feels when he sees a lion's head blow up in a cloud of smoke. You know, you and they talk about it's it's um it's like losing your virginity when you shoot your first animal. It's like it's beyond parody. It's almost if these people exist on a different plane. They are not part of the human race. And you know, what that actually makes it sometimes a bit of a difficult issue to engage because it is so I mean, it's so disgusting for a lot of people. It is so upsetting to see these essentially defenseless animals killed just for fun and whatever. The trophy hunters say that retroactively trying to justify it. They don't fly halfway around the world to kill an animal for anything other than the pleasure of it, because that's what they enjoy doing it. And we actually sort of thought, well, look, I mean, there are some people who just turn away from the issue because it is so distressing. I mean, is there another way we can engage with them? So we actually set up a fake trophy hunting company. It's got a website. It's called Trophy Hunting Holidays dot com. It's kind of like the Amazon of trophy hunters. These are the click and kill travel firm specialists. And we've recorded these mock TV adverts. So we've got a couple of actors in there. You've got these guys come and earn your stripes shoots Zebra today just one thousand dollars. We've got a series of these adverts going out there, and we thought you know, is this a way to engage with you. But all of the stuff that was in there, it was all based on a hundred percent fact. There is actually a website. It's a bit like the Amazon for trophy hunters. It's called book Your Hunt dot Com. You can literally go on there and check an animal that you want to shoot. So it's got three hundred different different species, three hundred fifty different species. You can choose from everything from squirrels and skunks to lions and leopards. I mean, you name it. You want to shoot a kangaroo, a wallaby. I mean it's all there, and yeah, it's all the details how you get there, how and then you know they'll help you find somebody to skin it and and preserve it and take it home for you. They're still true to their employers. Were better than Jeff business. I guess they have that going for them in the trophy hunting world. This is one of the things that because I've spoken, you know, to people in Africa who are village headman, their community chiefs, their local MPs and counselors, and ask them what they think about it, and they say, look, whatever these guys say, we don't get to see any of the money. They say, you know the money comes from trophy hunting back into the communities. Well, we ain't seen a cent of it. And the only people who are employed by these but in terms of local, local, rural communities, you know, they they've got a menial job as a skinner or a cook, or as a cleaner, they'll only have two or three. The money stays either in the US or Europe, because a lot of European and American companies own these trophy hunting outfitters. That's the name of the companies that do this. Or of course you know, they sell these holidays in the big conventions in Las Vegas, in Germany and Spain, and the money stays in those accounts in those countries. So the amount of money that ever reaches somebody at the end in the community is zilch. I mean, everyone I've spoken to and says, look, you know, it's crazy. We don't see any of it. And and we simply don't understand this because look, even if somebody here is really hungry or really desperate, they cannot go and touch that animal. But a big fat white American can fly halfway around the world and kill that same animal just for fun, because that's all it is. It's for pleasure, it's for entertainment, it's for joy. And when you talk to the trophy hunters, as I have, I pretended to be a trophy hunter to sort of get behind the scenes, if you like to actually say, look up, you're talking to one of one of us. Now we're the same, we're both trophy hunters. What do you really think about this? And that's you know, they're telling me, Lucky, it's great, it's so much fun. You know, we go hunting in the day and then at night we grab a few beers. Can we go and shoot some of the monkeys out of the trees just for fun? And I actually say this as if this is a normal, acceptable human thing to say this is their mindset, their mentality. That almost feels like the craziest undercover operation, because what if they go like, oh, you have to kill an animal to prove that you're not a fed The thing? For me, one of the problems I have on fest value. Forget the moral and ethical questions. The big problem I have with it is the optics as an African, the optics of a white man with a gun storming Africa just isn't great without his truth with con your ism. The thing is Africans have a lot more pressing issues at right now, so maybe trophy huntings they're not exactly at the top of the list. But the optics if I were a trophy hunter outside, the optics just doesn't up my cause the history of the continuation colonialism, with the history of colonialism, white men coming into Africa with guns and then saying we're doing this for your own benefit, for your own good, the optics isn't great. And then also there's the fact that who is the first of trophy hunting in the West. It's don't Junior and Eric Trump. And I'm saying, if the first of your platform, or if the first of the thing you're doing is don't Junior Trump, you need to change the damp post. You need to find you just find someone more like Cable, like you know, get Dolly pattern a baby. You'll do something. After the break, I want to get into it with your water on the history of trophy hunting and how you got into this, because I'm always interested and how people find the thing that they think, you know, like for you, it's trophy hunting for me. It's winning askers for wonderful acts work in many, many American films. It's beyond the scenes. We will be right back. Yes, welcome back to beyond the scenes. I am Roy Wood Jr. We are discussing trophy hunting in Africa with us an anti trophy hunting activists at Water Consolves and Ugandan Daily Show writer Joseph Opio. Hello, Joseph, your accident is more fensively put. It's like you're putting on African face, but like in audio like forme it's it's offensive to me as an African. It's speak people in blacker face, not blacker face. Sword Water, how far back? Let's go back. Let's let's just dig into the origins of trophy hunting. How far back does the history of this terror go? I refrain from calling at a sport. That's the other thing they try to do to get people to get society on board, Oh my big game hunter and sports like, No, how back does this horrible ship go? And what got you embolked in? And they also call themselves outdoorsman that's the other kind of yeah. And they talked they don't talk about killing animals. They call about harvesting, harvesting game. There's all kind of ways that they used to know, it's sort of smoke and mirrors to try to deflect from the reality of anyway going back to the history of it. Yet there's little bits of it going back, you know, a few thousand years. But really it begins with the Brits in Africa and in Asia. So it's the beginning of the British Empire, the colonies, the colonization of Africa and of Asia, and they exported this sport. It was to give the officers something to do as a nice hobby. It was to sort of give them a bit of a break, something positive to do. And then it got quite interesting because they would write about it. And so then the Times in London would you know, carry these epic tales of these adventurers, etcetera. And that was the nineteenth century and then the and and you had guys who were taking i mean huge numbers. You know. There was one trophy hunter which involved the British royal family actually including the then Prince of Wales, and they engaged in this absolute blood bath of the hunts, during which they actually extinguished a species. So the last remaining member in the wild of the quagger, which is a species a bit like the zebra, is thought to being shot by the Prince of Wales and they literally had blood up to their elbows. There's these graphic accounts of their hunt. Come the twentieth century, then the Americans get involved, thanks largely to Theodore Roosevelt. So he with the help of the British colonies, he goes on this train trip and they laid on that the Brits lay on this luxury train for him and his son Kermit to go around Africa, and during that year they shoot over five hundred animals, including lions, lots of lines. He loved loved lions, theod Or Roosevelt loved lions, and they actually built this seat that would be stuck on the front of the train. So and he would sit there with his rifle training, will be chugging along this year animal, the line or whatever, he'd shoot it, they'd stop the train, that'd get the lion's body on board, skin it, et cetera. And he would harry on on this great festival. And it just grows into this industry. So some people like a jump seat, Yeah, at the front of the train. Yeah, like one of those side cars on a motorcycle. Yeah. I don't remember that scene in Night at the Museum, but wow, when you say the thing about the British Room for me actually leading to the extinction with species, and I'm right now thinking wow, so Prince Andrew is not the worst. He's got competent gets you thinking, yeah, so he's on the train, he's shooting lions, and walk us through more. The evolution of that, it just becomes this organized industry. It really takes off in the seventies when a guy called C. J. McRoy sets up Safari Club International. Now you've got this major industrial lobby group. And it's also you know, it creates an awards system. I mean, it's got about eighty different prizes that you can get for shooting lots of animals. So one of these prizes is called the Hunter Achievement Award. Now it's got all of these different levels. To get to the Copper prized Copper level, you've got to have shot animals from at least ten different species. Bronze, twenty different species, Silver fifty. Then you go up to get gold medal, you've got to shoot animals from at least a hundred different species, and that's not the end of it, because there's a diamond prize as well. To do that. Yeah, you've got to shoot animals from at least a hundred and twenty five different species around the world. And they've got to be big animals, not just a little ones. They've gotta be big enough to count. Yeah, And so it's this organized I mean mass slaughter. This is the thing that really gets me about trophy hunting. It is not meeting any human need of any kind whatsoever. You can't argue it in the same way as food or for skins or whatever. This is just to feed vanity, because that all is these people they take selfies and they take the souvenirs, and that for them is sport. That's what makes it fundamentally wrong. So then it's so fun the mentally wrong. Why do the government in African countries support it? You just can't be moving through Africa without the paperwork, so you did actually just keep me walking around with it, did tagger in your carry on bag and like, you didn't come to the country to murder animals. So why do they support it at well? Simply corruption, I'm afraid to say it, but you know, there is a lot you know, when there is are those trophy fees paid. Those fees do not go to conservation, They did not go to local communities. They either stay in the hands of officials or they just disappear. Look, let's take the example of Cecil the lion. He was a beloved lin had, this wonderful black man, and he was radio collared. He was being researched by Oxford University scientists. They were looking at what they were actually looking at the impact of trophy hunting on wildline populations. Actually, and they found that about a third of the lions they were studying, even though they had radio collars on, were being shot by trophy hunters. So even the fact that we're visibly part of an official government's research program didn't protect them from the hunters. But all its so Walter Palmer, this American dentist, he goes and shoots this line where he shouldn't. He didn't have a permit for it, and you know, and then they tried to conceal the radio collar. There's all sorts of shenanigans. And there's a guy called Johnny Rodrigues who was a zimbarbwean conservationist. He blows the whistle on it. It gets out into the wider world and it becomes one of the most talked about stories in the world, largely because, in my view, people didn't know trophy hunting was still going on. It was a shock. It was thinking people think, hey, surely this ended with the colonies, with imperialism, with all of that. You know, this ended in the days of empire. People shooting lines were fun, and you know, the trophy hunting industries were very hard to actually keep this quiet. You know, why isn't this talked about? They worked quite hard actually to keep it under under wraps. And yet the numbers of animals that are being shot enormous. You know, a trophy hunter shoots an animal every three minutes. Even during COVID when people can't fly around the world there's all these travel restrictions. Americans were flying to Africa. They were shooting black crino cheeter elephant, who are now endangered. By the way, there's only seven thousand cheaters left in the world. There's less there's about three thousand black rhinos. This is going on even when supposedly we're under lockdown people can't travel the world, and it's just so so nonsensible. But it's barbaric. It's barbaric, and I'll tell you why, because again, this is one of the things that doesn't often get talked about, the pain and the suffering that the animals undergo. Right, these people who shoot animals, they're not professionals, they're not snipers. These guys. These are guys who have you know, they shoot a gun every now and again. And what they do is they're shooting these animals from two hundred yards away because they don't want to get hurt by you know, a lion or whatever coming anywhere near it, So shooting through the scope. And they're not shooting them in their head, which would be a you know, an instant break exactly, a kill shot, because that would make the trophy ugly. All right, you come skin that and put that on your wall. It looks pretty rough. So what they do is they try to do this heart's lung shot through the shoulder. Now, if you're an amateur shot, you're trying to do that from two hundred yards and you've got to count on the animals staying still. You've got to count on there being no wind right there right now. There's been actually a number of state authorities in the US that have looked at trophy hunting in the States, and the numbers about the same. Over half of the animals that are shot by trophy hunters, they don't die instantaneously. They die these slow, painful death like Cecil, you know, because Cecil, right, what's his name, Walter Palmer. He was trying to win this prize from Safari Club International, which is for shooting big game with novelty weapons like crossbows and bow and longboat and handguns, because they actually want you. They give you a special prize if you shoot an elephant with a handgun, okay, And he was trying to get one of these prizes for shooting a lion with a long boat. And he shot Cecil, but Cecil didn't die instantaneously, and he managed to somehow crawl under the bush and he couldn't find and he wouldn't take a shot with a rifle to put him out of his misery because he wouldn't then be eligible for that prize. So he thinks, I'm gonna go home, have dinner, you know, have a sleep, kind of come out and see if the animals dead in the morning, he goes back out in the morning with the professional hunter, that's the guy who takes him out. They can't see Cecil because he's still kind of hidden under, but they can hear him. They can hear him because he is gasping, is gurgly. He is literally drowning on the blood in his lungs. That is the reality of what happens with most animals. And I know because when I spoke to a lot of trophy hunters when I was undercover, and they were telling me about the absolutely shocking injuries that they were inflicting on animals, and they were laughing. They were laughing as if this was a funny thing and you could actually just talk about this normally. When I was rending up on Ceci scars, I was shocked that initially he was in a protected earlier area where he called to be handed and then they knew him out. They actually used the bait to lure him out and then of course into an area where he could years why he could be shot, and then when he did that, he didn't die. So it took twelve hours for him to find it for them finally finding him and then kill him. Man. I was great, frankly like that that seems like endless, like twelve hours of when I was still get to conservations about it, they were saying, you know, the hunters, they treat these national parks as mines. They're mining the animals because they're protected and they're healthy and so on. So they lure them out. And literally these national parks, like the Harangue National Parks is where had his territory. All of these national parks they surround they surround them with these estates and so yeah, they lured them, and but well that's what they do with so many animals. They do that with leopards, they do that with you know, they set packs of dogs on on on these creatures as well. And the numbers that are being shot, you know, some of these big trophy hunters shooting hundreds of lions each right. This is this is where we're at with some of these species. We are in an extinction emergency. Lions experts are telling me that there's probably fewer than ten thousand lions left on planet Earth. In nineteen seventy, the number was around two hundred thousands. Okay, so in fifty years, the lion population has absolutely collapsed in Africa from two hundred thousand to ten thousand elephants. You look at that, what's happened to the elephants in Africa. There were twenty million when the British turned up in Africa and started shooting them. There's now four hundred thousands. And actually this is how I got into the issue, because this was the president of Botswana, the outgoing one, Seretsi Ian Karna, and he banned trophy hunting in Botswana because of what was happening to elephants throughout Africa. And because of that, Botswana now has a third of all the remaining African elephants on the planet. One third are in this one country, which is a side of size of France. So it's not you know, it's not a big country. It's got twice as many as any other country in Africa and deep protected them and the populations they're stabilized. The only other place where there's good news for elephants is Kenya. Why because Kenya band trophy hunting in nine seven. And we're saying this pattern rights across the board. Lion populations are collapsing. Excepting Kenya, elephant populations collapsing except in Kenya. Rhino populations are collapsing except in Kenya. One thing that would will raised Alia was the issue of corruption. Right. One of the things I noticed when we even did the segment, one of the reactions from trophy hunters was we would like top conservation, but we can't hope that Africans are corrupt. That should be up Africans to fix. Right. There was thing you can't hold hunting just don't. Yeah, it's the same reason people went like, oh, we want patronized companies which use sweachhops, because it could have said, oh, as well, just buy. It's up to Apple, it's up Nike to actually pay people. Well, but people want like, no, we can't actually modern supported company when we know the money we paid doesn't trickle down to the workers. In this case, the big game companies that take you out on the hunt. Yes, it's exactly and what has shown your satals the money doesn't trickle down. So EDWARDO to that point when you wrote this book, when you when you go into this journey of being an undercover trophy hunter, you know there's a lot of questions that I have a lot of it. You've already touched on, but I want to talk to you about you man, like getting firsthand accounts from trophy hunters and they're just talking about animals like they're nothing. Talk to me a little bit about the emotional told that that journey took on you and how are you able to kind of deal with that? Like, how did you how do you how do I say this nicely? Joe? How did you not kill some of these folks when you was on the hunt with them, pretending that you was cool with hunting? Well, you know what, I was saved from having to actually go out and hunt by COVID because there were these travel restrictions, so a lot of the British hunters they couldn't actually travel. So instead what they were they were telling me about the hunts that they had been on the previous year, and they were telling me in a lot of detail. But yeah, you know, it does drive you to the point of madness because you kind of think this is like a parallel universe, that that that you're inhabiting or invading. Even you just want to scream out and say, how can you say such a thing? How can you even use that language, use those words as if it's a normal thing to say, but you know it's really because I've been doing some more research. I'm writing another book at the moment, and I've been speaking to a lot of psychologists and criminologists, and and they're telling me, you know, these people isn't just you know, it isn't just sad. This is bad, This is dangerous. These people are potentially dangerous. I mean, there is this proven link. I mean, that's why the FBI in the US right has now class serious animal cruelty as a Grade A felony. Why because of all the links that people who involved in that have got to drug running, gun crime, and so on. So you know, there's a lot of very serious crime involved here. And you looked at, for example, in the US, I mean, the guys who are behind that terrible tragedy, the Columbia and high school massacres. You know, they started out as animal abuses. The Boston strangler, he was a guy who sat out it out as an animal abuser. You're saying, the lack of empathy isn't just limited to it spreads all across. But then won't some trop your hunters say you're using like the few selective bad animal abuser tan you know cruel adults when they say you're using them to paint the whole hunting community. Yeah, I'm not a poacher. I hunt mind proper money, in a proper reserve. I go to a result. I'm not like those hoodlums out there. I'm not like because I know that I say, is that that's one of the indicators. That's like one of the behavioral indicators, like when the kid is growing up. If a kid is cruel towards animals, then you need to intervene immediate orders. But then won't trophy hands say you're actually you know, you're using like a very selective, rare and small sample size tourtain into the wall. Look, I'm sure there's some very nice people out there who go trophy hunting. Okay that in many ways I see respectable and so on. But this is the facts of the data. So when you look at the data, and this is the criminologists and the psychology who are telling me this, right, and they're showing me the data saying, look, you are seeing that people are involved in trophy hunting are more likely to be involved in domestic violence, They are more likely to be involved in child abuse. You know, there is even in the cycle of the year, so just before the hunting season begins and you get that kind of buck fever, I think that's when domestic violence also piques exactly. So it's it's the same kind of hard I don't know how to describe it, with these kind of emotional drives, these urges, and again you've got to read about some of the crazy stuff that trophy hunters actually right and say as if it was normal about how you know, there's one guy he's I mean, he's a respectable guy. He's a lawyer, he's involved in different international organizations, and he's saying that trophy hunting should be made to write of passage for all men. He's a guy who's actually talked about you know, the first time he killed an animal, it was like losing his virginity. Had the same feeling. How I am sometimes last for words, and I've often not as you can tell. But you know, sometimes when you just try to get into psychology and the minds of these people, you know they're dangerous. They are dangerous people. This is a dangerous mindset, let's put it that way. It was striking roy. I would have to say when we did this cache at the end with reach Africans coming over tour, when tanned the tables, it was striking tour not to people. Yes, had the audience reacted to that, because that really broke it home. Every dog we shoot, a portion of the profits will go to American communities up to and I know what you're thinking, what about my pick? I'm going to kill them too. Yes, pets said rich old age will also be hunted by rich Africans. No more watching flood or struggle to climb these stairs. Instead, truffles will be shut and not in the Ligerians pancake. It would be intriguing for me because most of the trophy hunters, Asward has said, you know, they have disposable income, they are pretty well off, their respected professionals, They're very successful in their chosen careers. It would be intriguing for me to ask them how they would react if Africans were coming over not to hunt big game but to hunt their pets. Yeah, I said, I love dogs, so yeah, so for me turning the tables because that would be very intriguing for me too. And then you went like as we said in the skate We're doing this for you because their benefits were paying you and we love dogs so much. You have too many dogs. We need to shoot one. Let's talk a little bit after the break about, you know, ways that we the in Republic, Eduardo can help to stop this, help to bring awareness to this, and I want to talk more specifically about the work that you're doing doing now to ban trophy hunting. This is beyond the scenes. So EDWARDO, you've done your work as an author to bring awareness to this issue, but you're also the founder of the campaign to Ban trophy hunting. What are some of your outreach strategies, you know, to get people to join the college. You've already done the work of studying the hunter, now the laban. How do you get people like us who think that trophy hunting was just poaching rhinos for ivory, but clearly it's layers and layers deeper than that. What are some of your outreach strategies to get people to join your cause. The main thing we want to do is just tell people the truth and tell people the whole story, the whole shocking story, because a lot of people don't know, you know, and I talked to government ministers as well as members of parliaments and members of the public, and they don't know. I mean, it was one government minister. So I spoke to you just the other day and she was saying trophy hunting. But I thought all of that was finished with years ago. And I'm saying, no, it's happening, and it's happening here in the sense that there are British trophy hunters. And that's the thing I mean at the moment, I'm trying to get people to understand that this isn't just you know, the guys like Walter Palmer, that American dentist who shot Seizes all the line. There are people from Britain, there are people from China. They're people from Russia. You know, there's a Russian Mountain Hunters Club, so it's their trophy hunting group. Some of its directors have got very close links to Putin. You've got a growing number of Chinese people going out to Africa now and they're using the laws because this is the weird thing about the law. Okay, so you cannot go and shoot a black rhino or any kind of rhino in order to take off its horn and take it away to grind it up, to sell it as afro dinsiac. To do all of that. That is a leegual. That's called poaching. However, you can turn up and say, hey, but I'm a trophy hunter and I'm going to import this as a hunting trophy. So you can shoot the same rhino, you can take its horn, you can take it back to China, and you can grind it up and take it into the black market. All right, And this is the crazy thing about So there's there's international regulations societies, the Convention on International Trade in Danger Species. Okay, this is the law that's supposed to stop poaching and protect endangered wildlife. But there's this loophole. And so at one point, you know, a huge proportion of the rhino legal hunting trophies that were then going back into China and Vietnam and into the black market there was through this loophole. And exactly the same as to be happening with And you've got bears, including polar bears. Right we're talking about climate change, polar bears being on the threat of being threatened with extinction. You can still go to Canada and shoot polar bears. You can go to Canada shoot pretty how much any bear They shoot about twelve thirteen thousand bears a year trophy hunters do from American from elsewhere. But you can shoot a polar bear if you're one of these wildlife traffickers and claim that your trophy hunter, and then you can take it's goal bladder because they like the goal. They use that for all of these traditional Chinese medicines, which of course have got not through. They even shoot bears for there and let me use the word their penises right for the baculum that the penis bone, because that again is supposed to have a frontisia values. This is all done legally because that's the law on trophy hunting says you can't shoot that animal to a traffic it and to sell them. But yeah, if you say that you're a trophy hunter, you can go and shoot the exact same animal, take it back home. So they're basically saying, you're claim with you and you can't wipe out bola bears. That's our job for me. The thing Roy that intrigued me about this whole thing, and I think Edward or like, the biggest chilling you have is to get the people on the ground, I think to care as deeply and as mad as you do, because as I said, a guns have more pressing issues and the government is obviously government are pro this. Once so the lion was killed, it wasn't big news in Zimbabwe until actually it hit like the big time in the UK. The babysic about the story and then they oh, we had this iconical line. They didn't know it had been killed. So they people on the ground. For them to care as much, I think they care a lot more about poaching these days, but trophy hunting maybe not so much. It's the same thing with I think climate, climate change. But the irony of this whole the thing as a stormy is so many people thought trophy hunting was normal. Tear trophy hunters started posting pictures all themselves with animals that social media. Yes, So for me, that's that's a very interesting Like the South African situzen sh let me tell you why. It's because it is perpetuating poverty, is perpetuating exploitation, It is perpetuating landownership by a wealthy minority at LAE and so on. There was a study done by economists in South Africa that showed that if there was a wholesale switch from trophy hunting to photographic safari's, that would create eleven times more jobs for people in poor rural areas in South Africa. And that's the case because you know, again the numbers don't add up. You shoot a line like Cecil, you know, maybe ten thousand dollars is going to end up supposedly in the conservation fund, although it never does. The cost of conserving a line like Cecil and its habitat is a million dollars a year. Ten thousand dollars doesn't it's a drop in the ocean. But what does work for conservation as well as for local people. It's photo safaris because they you know, an average line like Cecil, Okay, he's going to generate something like a hundred thousand dollars a year, so over an average life span of fifteen years, that's a million and a half dollars. He's paying for his conservation by staying alive. These photo safari industries, they employ so many more people, they pay them better, and they all year round because hunting is largely a seasonal activity. And then and they're working in management jobs, you know, instead of im menial skivvy jobs as a skin or a track or you know, a cook. Yeah, this is this is why it is good for the economy of Africa. You know when presidents come a band trophy hunting in Botswana, it wasn't just because of the conservation issues. It was because he was seeing that photo Safaris was doing so much better for local people in Botswana and some places were just switching before there was any law from trophy hunting to photo Safaris because it was better for local people full stop. The thing was asking about the African like the people underground, like you know how they claim a change even then they're still having a problem because you know, people still band chacohol and the steel do all these things. And I'm thinking like how would you because the thing has to be so praising that people were like we need to stop this. Like I wish Africans were as passionate about this issue, like the way you're passionate about it, Like I wish, I wish. He's what I wanted to say. I wish it was a voting issue, if that makes sense. Look for some Africans it is, but no, but I'm going to because you need a critical for so so like when it comes to politicians, for you to move the needle politically, you need like a critical mass. People have to feel like their jobs are in danger, like the local yes, yes, personal issue yes otherwise is otherwise You're going to need every African government reader to be like Comma, which can't happen because he was. He's a visionary like his dad, like he comes from I know, like I know about him, like even I want to vot to one of people admire him a lord because it comes from a line of like almost statesmen, but not every like African leader, especially the local leaders. You know, they struggled. It is the same thing like in America they're getting. If I'm an African politician and the trophy hunt is paying part of campaign money or they're sponsoring my campaign, it's very hard for me too. So I need to go almost choose between do I take the money from the trophy hunting lobbyist or why risk losing my sort of like how can your most environmentalism? In America? It's like you take the oil money, yes, do you can? Like a voting issue, it's you know what it's about the dollar in your pocket because trophy hunting is holding Africa back, It is perpetuating the old economic structures, which deliberately, you know, we're set up to keep a certain class of people, certain people obviously and ny exactly, you know, so a part that might have ended in South Africa. But actually, you know, you look at the if you look at the industry of trophy hunting, so who are the people who own the land where the trophy hunters go? Who own the companies that least the lands the same people? Yeah, it's all those people, but you know there are some and you know, partly our responsibility here in the West is to give a platform to those powerful African voices who have a view to I once went to Downing Street, which is where the Prime Minister of England lives, with a seven football senior elder from the Massi tribe. It was januine, so cold, and he was in traditional but you know that you know, he was able to address them and he told the Prime Minister how in olden days, actually part of the Massi warrior um ritual was to kill a lion to show that you were a warrior. They had they had now abandoned that and in fact they were now they had taken pride in becoming custodians of their natural heritage, and that actually part of the whole warrior ritual is much more about that now. And also, of course in Kenya, every single Massi high school kid or high school aged child gets a high school education thanks entirely to the photo Safari. Yes where yeah, you know. And we've got to give people like Karma, like you know, the massive elders, etcetera. We've got to give them a platform. I mean, at the moment that you know. Then then for reasons we all understand, they're excluded from society. They're not given you the same access to the media and so on. So we've got to give these people. And because I tell you, I've spoken to a lot of village headman and community leaders and they're all scathing about trophy hunting, largely for the economic reasons rather than necessarily conservation ones. They say, where's this money? We're not, yeah, we're not. There's money. Yeah. Whenever I go to the you know, to ask look, you know, we need a new roof for our health center or a school or whatever, they say, Oh, there's no money. They've been telling me that for twenty years, and yet they've been conning us to say that. You know, but in terms of I don't know, changing mindset globally here in the West, the US government has Actually I feel like I feel like the waste. It's the thing you said about nine out of ten people the worst. It feels like a voting issue. It feels like if you if there was a congressman and you went like, this congressman is a trophy hand. There's no way they are winning re election. That's that feels like that feels like an issue you could hit them with, especially in liberals. Yeah, at the moment, you see, SCI is one of the biggest packs on Capitol Hill. So, I mean they're pack is bigger than General Motors, is bigger than Delta Airlines. I mean it all goes to Republicans obviously, but They're pack is one of the biggest on Capitol Hills. And they've set up this thing called the Congressional Sportsman's Foundation, and it's basically to hoover up members of the House of Reps, the Senators, also state governors, and they've all brought them into this club space. It says, you keep towing our line, we'll keep giving you money at election time. So one half of all governors, reps and senators are members of the Congressional Sportsman's Foundation, which is the congressional presence of the trophy hunting industry. So they've got their claws into the into the system. But yeah, it does change politicians when you tell them the numbers. About three weeks ago here in the UK, the government started briefing political editors that they were going to drop the better the bill banning trophies and and so obviously they've got in touch with me, the political editors, and said, hey, listen, we're being told this. I said, okay, very good timing. I've actually just had an opinion poll done tells me two things. Firstly, of Conservative Party voters, the government's own supporters, want this bill implemented as soon as possible. Only one percent disagree. Second, thirty of Conservative voters say they're going to ditch the party if they don't follow through on this manifesto. I publicized one of those big articles at the Times and the guiding blah blah, and I briefed ministers privately on the second because it could have been a bit anyway. But it's in century. If I put that in the newspapers anyway, big coverage. And then I get a call from the Government Ministry from one of my contacts. They're saying, wow, that story about the poll it's like a nuclear bomb. The MINNISTERA is about to declare in an hour's time that they're going to do a U turn on the U turn. They're going ahead with the ban after all, And sure enough, an hour later a statement given to the BBC the government of course, we're always going to do. All of these rumors about us not doing it, what were they do exactly? And the figures are really really strong, you know, and getting stronger because we've been polling consistently for about two three years. I mean, they sound like election results in North Korea. They're so good for us, you know. That's that's the only thing I feel like Poiticians responded for re election, you know, they don't want to lose their jobs. So one of the things we're actually doing at the moment, we're actually doing a road show around marginal conservative constituency, so where the Conservative MP has got a majority of less than five percent. Yes, yes, yes, and we're going to them and we're saying, now you support the government policy, don't you come on out and come and do this photo up with us. And we've got a great quote from Dame Judy Dench and Joanna Lumley because they're amongst our supporters, say what a great campaign this local MP is doing. They get great fame. You knows right up and you see that's that's what I was saying. Now, if you have done junior endorsing your it's not good if you if you if you have Damn Judy Dench, then it's good for if you have. That's what I was saying. The optics just doesn't work. Yeah, let's let's end here. What are some campaigns that we could donate to and where are some companies organizations that you are a part of Edwater that people need to be aware of on this issue. So the campaigns band Trophy Hunting, it's an international organization. You can find us a band trophy Hunting dot org and you can find all the information about us that and all of the issues. And we you know, we've we've actually named and got photos of trophy Hunter so we can give them, you know, a name in the face because these people they want to remain faceless. Well, we're actually putting some names out there so people can actually understand what is really happening. And we're at the moment we're you know, we're coordinating campaigns in a number of places. We've got an international foundation, we've been helping our colleagues and Belgium, who the Belgian Parliament in the last few days past the resolution unanimously to ban trophies. Right, so this is this is hot news. We've just done an opinion poll here in the UK and shows nine out of ten voters want trophies banned as soon as possible. And in fact, there's been polls in the US that have shown similar figures around elephant trophies. You know, nearly nine out of ten voters in the US think it's wrong for people to go to wherever Africa and shoot elephants and bring those trophies back. We are on a journey here. We're wanting countries like Britain, in the US, etcetera, to stop imports of these trophies. But ultimately as our goal is the abolition of trophy hunting. Because look, right, you know, we've banned bear baiting, we've banned cock fighting, We've banned dog fighting, We've all of these different things. They've been kicked into the dustbin of history, which is the only play they deserve to be. How come trophy hunting has fallen through the gap. Well, we're trying to make sure it doesn't and that it's next. And in the same way that we have tackled as an excume society, great social moral evils like Apartheide, like slavery, all the things we catabolish, trophy hunting. We can change that mindset that says that it is somehow okay to abuse, torture, maintenance, kill animals, defenseless living creatures, sentient animals as if they're just a pile of rubble. Well, I cannot thank you enough for being excuse me taking it again. Well, I cannot thank you enough at Wardle for being a part of the show. The book is Undercover Trophy Hunter. No one is going to buy the book because it feels like it's being sold by a Nigerian prince. The problem right, the book is Undercover trophy Also, thank you to Daily Show writer Joseph Opio. Joe Opio, I will I will see you around the building and we can take some dialect classes. I'll see you around HR because this is now a right. That's all the time we have for today. Hopefully we've taken you beyond the scenes. See you next week. I can't believe it in my accent. Listen to The Daily Show Beyond the Scenes on Apple podcast, the I Heart Radio app, or wherever you get your podcasts. H