This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, July 29th, 2019. I'm Caleb Brown.

African nations do not exist to be open-air zoos for Westerners to enjoy and as African nations develop

Western preferences and the needs of Africans will increasingly come into tension.

Catherine Semser is a research fellow at the Property and Environment Research Center in

Bozeman, Montana.

We spoke earlier this month in Bozeman.

Trophy hunting to Americans is often viewed as just abhorrent, it is at the very least controversial,

but I guess what is the, how should we be thinking about it generally with respect to the

African countries that where individuals there in some ways depend on that kind of tourism.

Well you're absolutely right that trophy hunting has become a controversial

political topic here in the United States.

This despite the fact that the United States is home to 70% of the world's

trophy hunting market.

And I think it's important to look at trophy hunting in an African context.

Africa is not a country, it is a continent with 54 countries,

and 26 of them are ranked as the poorest on earth by the World Bank.

It's home to 1.2 billion people, 50% of those are children,

and 27% of the total population roughly 330 million are considered food and secure by the United Nations.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, 589 million people live without electricity.

And of the 738 million people who lack access to clean water in the world,

37% of them live in sub-Saharan Africa. Now sub-Saharan Africa holds most of the

trophy hunting destinations that Americans seek out each year, countries like

...