When thinking of poaching, we often imagine a far-off place with exotic animals, not something that could be occurring right outside our door. But in reality, poaching is a worldwide tragedy that has devastating consequences for animals, people, and our communities. Sarah and Josh Bowmar, avid bowhunters and co-owners of Bowmar Archery and the wildly popular Bowmar Bowhunting YouTube Channel, have seen the results firsthand. That’s why they are on a mission to increase conservation awareness and, specifically, educate on how ethical hunting practices can help. Here’s what they want you to know.
What Is Poaching?
By definition, poaching is the illegal trafficking and killing of wildlife. The practice has a long history, which may have started with impoverished people trying to feed their families, but today, it’s primarily about money, regardless of the toll it takes on our ecosystem. Poachers often capture animals to sell them as exotic pets or kill them to sell parts of the animal as food, jewelry, or décor, like the ivory tusks of African elephants. As such, the facts on poaching are staggering:
- Every week, rangers die while protecting wildlife
- Trafficking wild species is a lucrative $7-23 billion dollar business
- 100 million sharks are killed every year throughout the world for their fins
- In Africa, thousands of endangered animals are killed every day
- Rhinos are poached at a rate of one per 12 hours
- 35,000 elephants die in Botswana yearly from poaching
- 30,000 green sea turtles are poached every year in Baja California
Efforts to Combat Poaching
There are anti-poaching laws in countries across Europe and Africa, as well as the United Kingdom and the United States. Specifically, poaching violations in the United States include hunting, killing, and collecting animals that are listed as endangered in addition to the following:
- Hunting or fishing without proper licenses
- Hunting during off-season
- Using prohibited weapons
- Hunting from a vehicle or aircraft
- Scouting game from the air
- Killing an animal while trespassing and exceeding one’s bag limit
- Shooting an animal in a confined space
Conservation groups continue to combat poaching as well, but it continues to be an uphill battle.
The Bowmars Join the Battle for Conservation
The Bowmars have now joined the fight against poaching and are using their platform of over two million social media followers to increase awareness of conservation. But they’re not stopping there. Sarah and Josh have gone on hunting expeditions all around the world together. It’s through these trips that they’ve seen the effects of poaching firsthand and have put their bowhunting skills to work to balance the scales and help local communities.
In fact, that’s one of the first misconceptions about poaching that they want to clear up. It’s not hunting in and of itself that’s the problem. They want to break the stigma people have that everyone is a trophy hunter and is there to collect species when ethical hunting truly benefits conservation efforts.
Sarah discusses their most recent trip, “This trip to Uganda was eye-opening. In Uganda, you find 30- 100 snares per day from poachers that trap and sell meat. Conservation there is just getting started and is partially funded by the government, which gives quotas annually on what animals can be hunted and where. Hunters pay outfitters who lead the expeditions, and the outfitter pays the government and gets permission to hunt on designated land. A game scout joins the hunter and outfitter to ensure efforts are being taken to follow the rules. The outfitters also work closely with the villages, providing jobs, meat, and hide for the villagers.”
They’ve also spent time in South Africa, Mozambique, and Tanzania, learning about conservation efforts. Josh states, “Mozambique has a strict no-poaching policy, and if villagers are caught poaching, the leaders cut the village off from receiving meat for a set duration as a way to deter the practice.”
Ethical hunting is a group effort in the areas where the Bowmars have traveled. There are the outfitters who own guided hunting camps, professional hunters who lead the excursions, plus the 30-plus employees who staff the camps, which are typically comprised of local villagers. They all work with the government, local community, and anti-poaching teams. The Bowmars themselves have participated in every step of the process, from hunting games to bringing the meat to the villages.
As an example of the local impact of ethical hunting, one pound of meat equals four meals for the community. Sarah notes, “On this recent trip, we donated meat to two schools in Tanzania and three different villages in Uganda. We estimated the total meat donated at 15,000 pounds.”
The Conservation Conversation
However, beyond helping to fund multiple anti-poaching efforts and providing 75k-100k meals over time to various villages, schools, and hospitals across these local communities, the Bowmars are bringing awareness on social media as well. They are educating on ethical hunting and conservation topics that include the following.
- How hunting/harvesting adult males aids in conservation by allowing new and younger males to prosper.
- The balancing act of predators sustaining the “plains game” (ex: herbivore animals)
- The importance of having professional hunters and outfitters in the area to spot “lone actors” (ex, coalitions of male lions that don’t belong to a tribe)
- How to determine what species are appropriate to hunt and when
- Where dollars go and how funds are used across global conservation efforts
- Various organizations to which people can donate
The Bowmars also actively promote the Dallas Safari Club’s anti-poaching efforts.
For more information on Sarah and Josh Bowmar’s conservation efforts, visit the Bowmar Bowhunting YouTube Channel.