Having seen these rare and magnificent creatures up close in the wild, the very fact that there are those out there who see them as simply targets to be killed for 'fun' is utterly shameful and morally repugnant. Trying to ascribe atruistic motivations for it in an attempt to whitewash that reality is even more so because it tacitly suggests that you know that too
I agree with a lot of that. Just for fun I looked around at hunting safaris last night. One outfit reported that the average shot to kill an elephant is 20-30 yards. That's just not "hunting" - that's a slaughter. No surprise, they advertise success rates approaching 100%. I'd think so if hunters can stroll to within 20 yards of the animal.
But as counter intuitive as it is, the motivations don't matter all that much. The tag or license for killing one elephant is something like $30,000 and that hunter will spend quite a bit more for guides, cooks, drivers, taxidermy, food, lodging to and fro hunting grounds, etc. And the economic value of the animals for hunting provides an economic incentive for the impoverished locals to protect the habitat and crack down on poachers who would otherwise gladly kill the elephant, saw off the tusks, and let the carcass rot in the field.
From what I've read lots of these places are doing a good job of promoting photography safaris and that's replacing some of the need for hunting, but there's no reason as far as the health of the animal population that both can't coexist, and there is no doubt that controlled, regulated hunting doesn't pose any threat to long term outlook for the species. The more and diverse the interests who have an interest in the health of the wildlife, the better the odds the locals will make the efforts to preserve the habitat and protect the animals from poaching. Hunters
and photographers looking after the populations and paying big money to see them/kill them is better (at least as we speak) than just photographers.
Even here in N.America, I don't hunt much anymore, but I've been a member of Ducks Unlimited at various times. The members are roughly 100% duck hunters, but a lot of money from DU goes into buying up leases in nesting grounds in Canada, restoring wetlands, etc. It's basically to ensure a healthy duck population so hunters can kill more of them, but that doesn't detract from the fact that they're spending a lot of money and have a lot of people invested here across their range in healthy nesting areas and healthy wetlands. In my state the TWRA funded by hunting and fishing licenses manages (with the Feds) several waterfowl refuges for migrating ducks that are protected from development in part to provide migrating waterfowl with a place to rest along the way to their wintering grounds. Heck, I never saw a turkey in Tennessee till I was 20 or so, but TWRA with fees from hunting licenses and prodded by turkey hunters tired of having to go to Alabama or Virginia has reintroduced them and now they're common throughout their former range. I see them biking nearly every trip.