On May 15, 2015, the British publication The Economist featured an article titled “You kill it, you carry it” dealing with the issue of trophy hunting in Africa and, sidelining on the logistical aspects of this business, how to get that freshly hunted trophy back home.
      In a time when preservation of nature and protection of endangered species is on most people’s conscience, who could disagree with opposing this trade? A simple look at comedian Ricky Gervais’ facebook photo stream will show you he has made it his business to call out each and every trophy hunter who dares post a photo with his or her prize.
      Illustrating The Economist article with a smiling man giving the thumbs up, his scoped gun propped against the belly of his “prize”—a dead giraffe—can elicit only one response from the reader: disgust, and utter disbelief that people like this are still around.
      The Economist points out that “examples of multinational companies forgoing business on purely ethical grounds are rare.
      “Despite fine words, corporations are by nature profit-maximisers,’ The Economist wrote.
      “Their remit is to make money without stepping over the law; separating right from wrong, they often argue, is the job of governments and regulators.”
      The Economist also stated: “there are occasions when a perfectly legal practice is so unpalatable to the public, and any association with it so damaging to the brand, that morality is difficult to ignore.”
      The Economist notes that British Airways stopped carrying animals for scientific experiments in 2005 despite jeopardizing lucrative pharma business, and South African Airways (SA) has just embargoed transporting hunting trophies altogether after alleging some customers had misdeclared items such as illegally obtained elephant tusks.
      The Economist explains that SA’s rationale behind this decision is “to nullify a potential storm of bad publicity before it arrives.”
      A brief check of the facts reveals that the transport of animals—both dead and alive—is one of the most tightly regulated items in the air cargo industry today.
      The IATA “Live Animals Regulations”—which in part have been incorporated into local legislation with the demand for strict adherence to the well-being of the animals by means of so-called “container requirements” and mandated proper classification of animals, and scrupulous checks of CITES documentation for any species flagged as endangered or subject to trade bans—ensure that the well- being of individual live animals during transport and the preservation of nature is a number one priority.
      Of course, one could argue that at least in some cases these regulations don’t work all too well, given the volume of various Customs seizures of illegally transported (thus undeclared or misdeclared) animals or animal products.
      As for hunting trophies, the legal side of the safari and hunting business is a major—sometimes the only—source of income for economies, especially in Africa, and the monies required for the upkeep of wilderness preserves, protection of endangered species, and public education come from exactly this business.
      Whether or not it is moral to shoot a lion, bear, antelope, or giraffe bred in captivity, and then ship home the trophy, is another matter.
      While IATA together with the IAEA are campaigning to remove trade barriers, which are ultimately detrimental to the public health interest, they may have failed to overlook one important point which was recognized by The Economist:
      “Corporations are by nature profit-maximisers.”
      Since the transport of certain special cargoes—such as temperature-controlled pharmaceuticals, certain dangerous goods, live animals, and for this example hunting trophies—require specific (and expensive) training to employees and dedicated facilities for the storage or handling of these commodities, isn’t the real question whether or not the volume of animal trophy transport is a viable commodity worth the costs for the sizable regulatory burdens on such business?
      Moving animal trophies in 2015 is a non-starter to almost everybody.
      That kind of business is off the table and, based on volume, probably not worth the furor.
      But since the image here is also the point, we think the image of transporting laboratory animals and legal hunting trophies may get confused, at least in public opinion, with the dastardly trade of rhino horns and various other illegally slaughtered wildlife.
      I remember once sitting with the late Freddie Laker, much later in the low-cost airline pioneer’s life, when he was “flying gamblers around in the Caribbean,” as he described it.
      I asked Freddie if he ever carried air cargo for a living and he recalled:
      “Post WWII, when they were doing polio experiments, we used to operate flights into the UK from India via converted bombers that were filled with Rhesus monkeys.”
      “The flights were long and arduous and required attendants aboard the aircraft in wet suits as the animals pissed almost non-stop all the way from India to the UK.”
      “The upshot was a cure for polio,” Freddie said, adding, ”you must never tell that story while I am alive.”
      We continue to attempt to separate the wheat from the chaff in what we read or are told, but remain convinced that almost anything that needs to move from one place to another will find a way to do it, legal or otherwise.
Geoffrey