When Spain's King Juan Carlos was revealed to have made a secret elephant-hunting trip in Botswana last month, his people roared with anger, slamming him for squandering Euro44,000 (HK$435,000) on a lavish tour while his country grapples with an economic crisis.
Some politicians called for his abdication. Eventually, the 74-year-old king, also the honorary president of the World Wildlife Fund in Spain, made a public apology and vowed not to repeat the 'mistake'. It wasn't clear, however, whether he was sorry for the extravagant spending or for killing elephants.
Things might have been easier if King Carlos were a mainland Chinese, where cultural attitudes towards safari hunting are more accepting, and where the sport is fast becoming a favoured pastime of the nouveau riche.
In recent years, a growing number of mainlanders with deep pockets - many of them businessmen - have acquired a taste for trophy hunting. The inexperienced hunters like to travel on package tours offered by a small number of mainland-based or overseas tour operators.
Connected to hunting sectors in different places, the tour operators fly Chinese travellers on foreign safaris, equipping them with the hunting permits and guns to shoot anything from rabbit to antelope to lion within a designated hunting zone.
Take 52safari International Hunting Club, a Beijing company founded by an American hunter. Since 2009, it has been organising overseas hunting tours to South Africa, Canada and Argentina, among other destinations.
A 10-day black bear-hunting trip to Canada costs about 80,000 yuan (HK$98,000) per person, which includes flights, accommodation, hunting permits, a coach and a DVD featuring the traveller's adventure. A Chinese chef will also tag along to cook the game. Those who pay another 35,000 yuan can go home with a carpet made out of bearskin. A tip of 'several hundred US dollars' is recommended.
