Spain is in the news a lot these days. And the news got worse this week, as their beloved 74 year-old King Juan Carlos is laid up with a broken hip, suffered while on a safari in Botswana.
Many Spaniards are outraged that in the midst of their country’s severe economic crisis, where the unemployment rate for those under 25 exceeds 50 percent, the king took a pleasure trip that costs as much as $65,000. That’s $65 k! That’s a lot of money, king of not. In fact, it is twice the amount of the average Spaniard’s yearly salary.
The outrageous expenditure is only one part of Carlos’ public relations problem. The king, who is the honorary president of Spain’s World Wildlife Fund, was in the Okavango region hunting elephants.
I’ve never met a monarch but I have been around elephants. Watching a herd of females surround a baby or nudge a newborn up an incline or wait for a group to amble softly across a road or simply graze their way across the grassland has been a highlight of many safaris. I have read that elephants have mourning rituals and cover their dead. It is easy to love elephants
I would be honored to be in the presence of a king but not more so than having been amongst elephants. These animals are smart, they are intelligent and they are social. Once on the verge of extinction (see my article, originally published in the NY Times http://www.deseretnews.com/article/21749/ELEPHANTS-RHINOS-FACING-..., the elephant population in Kenya has rebounded since the ban on the sale of ivory was instituted.
The ivory trade ban, though, doesn’t mean that it is illegal to hunt elephants. That depends upon the laws of individual countries and Botswana makes money by charging huge fees for those who get pleasure out of shooting big, slow-moving targets, who enjoy watching an animal crash to the ground dead. I’m not a hunter but I do remember the fun of picking up a toy rifle as a kid and the excitement of target practice in the army. So I do get some why people like hunting.
But there is hunting for food, hunting to cull herds and protect people from marauding animals, and there is hunting of small, numerous animals. But shooting elephants is another matter completely. This isn’t hunting but murder.
How King Carlos can be both honorary president of his country’s World Wildlife Fund and shoot elephants is beyond my comprehension. But murdering an elephant and not having a clue about what $65 thousand represents to the anxious unemployed do create something about his character: they are indicators of a cramped and hardened heart.
His behavior is shameful and he is to be pitied for his insensitivity and hypocrisy. Still, I don’t feel a bit sorry that he has broken his hip.