Ten years of coverage of trophy hunting in UK newspapers

Abstract

Hunting is an increasingly contentious topic. Trophy hunting, whereby people hunt individual animals with desirable characteristics in order to keep body parts (e.g. horns, heads, hides, antlers) as mementos, is especially contested. Political pressure, often in the form of trophy import bans, is being applied in multiple nations, and campaigns to ban trophy hunting, or trophy imports, attract considerable media attention. However, trophy hunting often has conservation value, acting to protect habitat and provide income for local communities. Assuming that media coverage can influence public and political opinion, negative or simplistic media coverage of trophy hunting has the potential to cause adverse outcomes for conservation and local communities. Here, we analyse coverage of trophy hunting from July 2010 - June 2020 (five years before and five years after the death of Cecil the Lion) in the most popular UK media outlets (624 articles in total), assessing the overall sentiment of each article, and the species and countries covered. Ninety percent of all coverage occurred after the death of Cecil the lion, marking this event as a watershed moment in UK mainstream media depiction of trophy hunting. The overall sentiment of articles was largely against trophy hunting (63.1%), and this was more pronounced in tabloids (84.2%) than broadsheets (42.2%). Pro-trophy hunting articles were very uncommon overall (3.5%). Articles that described the complexity of trophy hunting decreased following Cecil and were most common in pre-Cecil broadsheets (35.7%, dropping to 30.6%) and rarest in post-Cecil tabloids (3.1%). Articles focussed mainly on charismatic but rarely hunted species including lion, elephant and rhino, with commonly hunted species (such as impala or Cape buffalo) only rarely being mentioned. When countries were mentioned, southern African nations predominated, with four nations (Zimbabwe, South Africa, Namibia and Botswana) being named in 68% of qualifying articles. We conclude that simplistic media depiction of trophy hunting has the potential to cause negative outcomes for conservation through its impact on public perception and political opinion.

Public perceptions of trophy hunting are pragmatic, not dogmatic

“…Members of multiple publics, including the USA, UK and SA, tend to consider elephants to be more charismatic than zebras [ 62 , 76 ]. UK newspaper coverage and non-governmental organization reports critical of trophy hunting also tend to feature images of charismatic animals such as large carnivores and herbivores [ 10 , 12 , 13 ], reinforcing the possibility that some people may perceive hunting more charismatic animals to be less acceptable than hunting less charismatic animals.…”

“…Acceptability was generally higher for hunts that would produce tangible benefits for local people and when revenues would help support public service provision via wildlife conservation or economic development rather than help support private hunting enterprises (figures 3 and 5 ). These findings suggest members of external urban publics adopt more pragmatic stances than are typically evident in media coverage and social media exchanges that leave little room for context and nuance [ 13 , 16 , 17 ]. Furthermore, generally higher acceptability when hunts provide tangible local benefits reveals similarities in perceptions among participants in our study and people living in rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa who consider hunting to be an economically valuable and acceptable component of well-regulated community-led wildlife management systems [ 24 , 29 , 37 – 39 ].…”

“…People living in many rural areas of the Global South have historically been marginalized by international conservation and tend to have been overlooked in decisions affecting wildlife where they live [ 40 ], even though they are most affected by those decisions [ 35 , 86 ]. Research that focuses only on external perspectives risks perpetuating inequalities in international conservation [ 13 , 35 ], but research that encompasses and integrates external and local perspectives could provide evidence to inform difficult and contentious decisions about the role of trophy hunting in wildlife conservation and economic development [ 14 ].…”

“…'Trophy hunting' refers to a category of legal hunting in which people pay to hunt animals and keep body parts as mementos of the experience [1,2]. Although a wide range of species are hunted for trophies, fierce international public debates rage over whether any form of trophy hunting is socially acceptable [3][4][5][6][7][8][9], and it appears especially controversial when people from the Global North hunt well-known animals such as elephants, giraffes, leopards, lions and zebras in sub-Saharan Africa and keep trophies [7,[10][11][12][13][14].…”

“…Traditional media coverage tends to present a simplistic narrative that trophy hunting is categorically immoral and detrimental to wildlife conservation [18]. For example, UK newspapers frequently assert that trophy hunters kill iconic animals and contribute to biodiversity decline, but seldom mention evidence that well-regulated, community-led trophy hunting can generate sustainable direct or indirect benefits for wildlife populations and for people who live in rural areas where livelihood options can be limited [13]. Documented benefits from well-regulated trophy hunting include employment in hunting and related industries, meat from hunted animals, and revenues that can defray substantial costs associated with wildlife conservation and support economic development, for example through investments in infrastructure, healthcare and education [14,[19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28].…”