Louis Theroux's African Hunting Holiday
Louis Theroux journeys to the centre of the controversial South African hunting industry. It's big business, attracting thousands of holiday hunters annually. Keeping wild animals fenced in on farms has made it cheaper and easier to hunt than ever before, but Louis discovers that this industry, instead of endangering species, has actually increased animal numbers. Staying at a safari hunting lodge, Louis hears that each kill has a price. The potential shopping list is endless, ranging from $250 for a porcupine to $100,000 for a rhino. It's a hunter's paradise.
This is a very popular tourist attraction - particularly among Americans. Louis meets such visitors and tries to understand their motivation to kill for pleasure, joining them as they go hunting. He meets novice hunter Ann-Marie, who originally only came to accompany her husband but gets caught up in the excitement and decides she wants to try to hunt an animal herself. She tells Louis that, apparently, your first kill is a total rush - although she would worry about killing a zebra as it's too much like a horse.
Two of the local landowners, Piet Venter and Piet Warren, breed animals for hunting and have a perhaps surprising sensitivity towards the animals they've raised. They take particular care to try to ensure any animal is killed swiftly so they suffer minimal trauma. Former vet Lolly Fourie, who allows hunting on his land, explains how he no longer hunts as he gets no pleasure from it nowadays. Hearing their arguments in favour of the industry, Louis arranges to go on a hunt of his own. Unsure if he really can pull the trigger, as he looks at a wart-hog down the arrow of a crossbow he faces his beliefs head on and must make the decision.
“You’ll eat the meat but you won’t kill it”, Louis is told. Was Louis planning to sit down to a warthog feast that evening? I think that argument is completely missing the point. These hunters aren’t satisfied by eating the fruits of their efforts, they are excited about the thrill of the kill. That’s what’s so distasteful about the practice. What would be an interesting & more valuable transgression would be to see Louis go to an abattoir, kill a pig and then sit down and eat that pork for dinner.
Easy to judge 3rd world countries trying to make money to put food on their plate when statically Americans are the largest food wasters in the world. 1st world perspective trying to solve a 3rd world problem. Also willing to bet all of you eat meat, wear leather shoes, have leather couches and chairs, leather purses and wallets, wear cologne made from the extracts of beaver glands, use products from walmart made overseas and tested on animals, or let alone have Apple iPhones made by children in Chinese factories who aren't allowed to get their id's back until they pay their living expenses debt.
Hope those scum yanks get cancer and die,least they deserve for killing those beautiful animals
F'ing lowlife human beings killing animals like this. This is one of the reasons the planet is in such dire shape. These people should be locked up and forced to survive by killing one another. Absolutely no respect for life.
Theroux's judgmental attitude disgusted me. (1) This kind of hunting trade has hugely increased the numbers of these animals, helping reverse their decline and keeping them off the endangered species list; (2) death by an arrow or bullet is far more humane than the way these animals die in the wild is horrific - most of them are literally eaten alive; and (3) we raise hundreds of millions of animals every year for the express purpose of killing them for some purpose (meat, leather), so it's ridiculous to wring your hands over this kind of hunting trade and ignore the farms you drive past to get to one of these game ranches.
I hunt and feed my family with it, going to Africa to hunt a game farm isn't for me. . That being said, if wildlife in Africa is going to survive, hunting will save it.
Blood thirsty savages!
Why can we not get this episode in Israel ? Please help !!!!
I saw it a while ago and now where ever i go to it says it's unavailable in my country :(
As usual Louis does an amazing job infiltrating the minds of people I hope are a very small minority, and that I would seriously avoid like the plague. BUT, As always I learned something very profound from Louis' work. That is, when we eat meat, we are directly supporting an industry, almost exactly the same as this, but perhaps billions of times per worse (in terms of the amount of real suffering). Louis said it well when he said he cant kill the animal but can eat the meat. Louis; should do a show on factory farming and abattoirs next so we can develop this idea further.
This is a disgusting, terrible practice. Can we start 'canned' human hunting based on this logic? Worst ever Louis
It's amazing how people are so quick to judge others lifestyles. If someone doesn't agree with the homosexual lifestyle they are a bigot and wrong but if someone doesn't like hunting they somehow are are a prince of justice. The reality is that different people enjoy different things and we should judge other people less.
I love animals (I live with 3 cats & 1dog) but I also enjoy hunting. It is important for me to stay in touch with the origin of the meat we all so readily consume. I manage, hunt , and eat the deer on my land so that the meat in the grocery has meaning and I appreciate where it comes from. If you aren't willing to understand and kill the meat you consume then you are selfish and have no business eating meat. You want the benefits of meat without having to take any responsibility for it
Sick .. Everything beautiful is being flushed by these 2 legged monsters . I've noticed the US is now showing tabloid wildlife documentaries full of lies and half truths. You can't watch real wildlife , just sad , bored lonely penned animals .. and wildlife being killed by humans over and over. They are no longer teaching how these living creatures live and how they fit into the world.. so sad ! The new America , if it doesn't make you money .. kill it . If killing it makes you money kill it .. Welcome to the United States of ALEC .. America is dead
In nature animals tend to kill and eat, or are killed and eaten. It has been that way since the dawn of life it self, this is why we can roughly divide up the animal kingdom into preditors and prey. As a species, humans have developed agriculture to such a degree that we have radically altered the planet, destroying habitat after habitat and species after species and causing the extinctions of many hundreds of species even in modern times with what most who are opposed to hunting would consider acceptible farming practices. This is understandable since for virtually everyone who has ever complained about hunting, meat is something that comes from a plastic packet on a supermarket shelf. The disconnect between our food and where it comes from, what it once was, is not willful disregard for life, rather it is a result of moving away from the agrarian life style of our ancestors. The hunter tries to close that gap between what food is, and what it was. I see what is being done on these reserves in Africa as being just a different form of farming, a form which ensures the survival of native species, a form which connects people with the life and death struggle to survive that is nature. It is true to say that it is an artificial situation, a genuinly natural situation would be, for example more difficult to hunt however, the real complaint here is the desanitization of killing animals. Hunting connects people with the killing of animals, where as conventional farming keeps the killing out of sight, and therefore out of mind. Not sure I know of what I speak, ask yourself this question, if there was a rat in my house would I set a rat trap or put out baited poison. Now ask yourself if you found the killing of an impalla disturbing. If the answer to both questions is yes then perhaps you are judging the morality of hunting by how cute you find the animals being killed. Unregulated hunting can damage animal populations and conventional agriculture wipes out natural habitats and whole species, what I find astonishing is how a new form of agriculture can protect habitats and species, and all that is required for this new form of agriculture to survive is for those who wish it to be allowed to connect with the animals at the moment of death. The squemish need not involve themselves in this process, but just as hunters do not impose their views, perhaps it is not unreasonable to ask them to accept that their squemishness should not be imposed upon others? Just a thought.
The DC Sniper hunted free-range animals, too. Should he be considered a sportsman?
Hunting for sport is gods work.
Disgusting. The animals are not potatoes. Why are they being treated with such disregard for their lives?
Louie has a great talent for withholding his judgements on events and people whom the rest of us immediately judge. This allows him to get closer to his subjects and portray them in their habitat undisturbed. Although I still think his documentary on the Westboro Baptists is his magnum opus, this is also an insightful film.
After watching the doc and seeing these people acting normally, not under the duress of argumentative questioning, I feel far more assured in my initial judgement that their activities derive not from a spirit of conservation but a perverse and arguably evil impulse that derives pleasure and shallow ego gratification from killing. As per usual evil cites its ends to justify its means, but conservation is an accidental outcome and you can not cite an accidental outcome as proof of your ethical intentions. That is like calling yourself a hero when a bullet you fired haphazardly into the air happened to kill a wanted terrorist on it's downward trajectory.
These people see themselves as noble savages carrying on an ancient sport, but there is more sport and honor in your average videogame.
be worth paying t hunt that bloke who owns the farm
Hunting out of necessity is the only reasonable hunting; Not for sport, not for fun, not for pleasure, not for a thrill, not for a high, and not for a rush.
I do disagree with many of the comments I have read about these people, the hunters in question, are being considered evil--they are not evil, they are simply shallow and in need of something to fill a void within them that will allow them to brag later to others so they can come off as interesting.
The breeders who are maintaining the live stock for hunting are correct when they make the claim they are preserving the species, as humans tend to dominate everything in nature.
We would all be wise to reserve our judgments on these people before getting a first hand experience on who these people really are. A silly documentary with a timid host isn't going to be enough to provide us with the information necessary to properly evaluate and assess the situation.
These guys are visionaries and coming from a family with a 50 year history in East Africa and eastern Congo I REALLY enjoy outdoor sports people who haven't seen the levels of illegal poaching and the reality of living in Africa really have no logical argument for why this is wrong. It is a bigger crime to mass produce chickens, batter,fry them and then advertise it on children's television, it really makes me laugh at how UN educated most of the general public from a western society is. Peace ;) and always stand up for what you believe in no matter how many think your wrong
I am completely appalled by the mere concept of this movie. The level of evil and inhumanity of these people is beyond belief. To put a lion in a fence so you can shoot it and then call it hunting is absolutely ludicrous. These people do not deserve to be called human. I would challenge anyone who tries to justify this as a means to increase animal populations. It sickens me to my core. These poor animals have no way to protect themselves and absolutely no chance of survival. That is not hunting, it's pure evil. I would like to put these people in the fenced areas with the lions with no weapons and see how brave they are then.
Nothing but devils. Sickening
To think that grown adults would kill a defenseless lion trapped in an enclosed area and call it hunting. The people who provide these farms for canned hunting are obviously only out to make a profit. How dare you raise a lion for 5 years and then take money so someone can shoot it. A real hunter does not have to hunt in an enclosed area and call it hunting. To hunt just for trophies to show off is rediculous, but then again man is always looking for a way to boast his ego!!!!!!!! So, what's next. Will man come to the point where they can confine a human and receive money so someone can hunt them. So, those of you with trophy rooms that are supplied by canned hunting, how proud can you really be!!!!!!!!!
I'm from Australia and feel that it is a product of Western Society to demonise hunters. It is irresponsible to make an negative impact on nature and then disclaim responsibility by not taking the required steps to fix the problems that we as a society are responsible. American, Chinese, Australian or wherever we are from.
For example, wild pigs were released in Australia as game but the population has now exploded and the native flaura and fauna is being destroyed as a result.
Are hunters who hunt pigs in Australia "sick twisted sociopath's" for taking responsibility for societies past mistakes and making a contribution to rectify the problem? Or are the people who stand by and point the finger at people who doing something to help the real sickos?
As Albert Einstein said "The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."
How can a FATHER teach his children to do that???????
so sick, why don you stay there and we shoot you???
Don´t buy or promote products derived by these animals or others like whales, seals etc.
I don´t see the excitment to shoot a defendless animal staying there eating or just resting.
American people so greedy and take advantage in Africa.