The more you read about Walter Palmer and the bowhunting world he inhabits, the more your stomach turns.
Pope-Young is a self-described fraternity dedicated to protecting the future of bowhunting and promoting conservation of habitat and wildlife. Among other things, they are a recognized authority for quantifying and keeping records of how one animal kill measures up against others for North American game. To do this, Pope-Young created a scoring system that awards points for various attributes of the killed animal. According to a 2009 NYT article, Palmer claims to have killed all but one of the 34 animals listed on Pope-Young's scoring forms. Head below the orange bear trap to see what animals Walter Palmer has likely taken.
The animals on the Pope-Young list include several bears, including polar bear (endangered), mountain lion, and a bunch of other animals which aren't particularly tasty. The Pope-Young list does not include the lion, leopard, white rhino and other animals Walter Palmer has killed on other hunting trips in Africa. So he apparently has no qualms about killing endangered animals merely to hang their heads on his wall.
But save some of your outrage to share with Pope-Young, which promotes this senseless killing. Here's their twisted logic about killing wildlife:
Honor the animal. The Records Program provides a poignant opportunity to honor each individual outstanding big game animal, for posterity and throughout all of time...When a bowhunter takes an exceptional animal, we would encourage them to honor that animal by listing it in the Pope and Young Club’s Records Program...
Now I don't know about you, but nothing says honor to me like killing the animal you're supposedly revering and removing it from nature so you can honor it further by mounting its head on your wall and getting your name published in a book. Seems more like the honor is yours and not the animal's. Whatever happened to getting up real close, taking its picture and mounting that on your wall?
Pope-Young publishes a book every six years listing the world records for each of the 34 animals on their list, as well as the top several runners-up. Making this list has nothing to do with sustainably managing a population or herd. It has everything to do with petty ego. And this list ironically encourages bad population management by rewarding those who kill the most robust animals. To properly sustain a population, be it deer, bears, fish, etc., you leave the largest and smallest, but kill only those in the middle. And you sure as hell don't kill endangered animals or animals with no consumption value.
I'm glad Walter Palmer is incurring global wrath for what he did and what he's done in the past. I only hope Pope-Young and those who support this kind of crap catch some hell too.