Who are we fooling, really?

So, for a little background, I'm in Tanzania for a few months studying various subjects. In the first week, I went on a couple game drives, and read a couple papers on ecology. One of the papers (Honey, 1999) mentioned an interesting comment on the subject of ecotourism. The author quotes an official as saying that overall, hunting safaris have less of a negative impact on the environment and the animals in a park or reserve than photography-oriented safaris. Just to belabor that, let's look into each type of safari. Hunting safaris are typically in private game ranches, and the goal of the tourist, in this case is to kill and record the biggest, most impressive animal he or she can. More often than not, the animal focused on will be a lion or a buffalo, and sometimes, several animals will be killed. If we think back a few decades, Europeans (and Americans) who had a lot of money would often go to Africa and kill large numbers of animals, and then go home, sit in exclusive clubs, and brag to each other over expensive drinks and distinguished looking tobacco products. This behavior resulted in a sharp decline in the numbers of the animals in question. Nowadays, hunting safaris are less readily available due to more stringent laws, and high fees, however, they still exist, usually aiming at smaller numbers of animals (for more information).
Photographic safaris are supposed to be animal friendly and educational, allowing us to see animals and show them to our friends and family without harming them. On most of these safaris, the tourists are not even allowed out of the vehicle. In some ways, the goal is the same as hunting safaris (bagging impressive animals), but without intent to kill. Overall, for most of us who consider ourselves environmentally minded, photo safaris are better for the environment and all the animals in it, and hunting safaris are considered "unenlightened" and barbaric, without consideration for the world we live in (photo safari info).
All that being said, lets look at what else this official said - "The 500 tourist hunters coming to Tanzania each year cause a lot less damage than the 300,000-odd camera tourists." He explained his statement listing off several factors including pollution (less from hunters), garbage (less from hunters), and disturbance caused by game lodges, roads, camera flashes, vans driving all over the national parks and getting very close to the wildlife in an effort to get good pictures. It seems that those of us with cameras make the animals' overall quality of life worse than those of us with guns.
In my own experience, I have never hunted. I have, however been on several photo-oriented game drives, and I have seen dust from the road coating leaves for yards on either side, and have had elephants be bothered by the vehicle I was in, and seen trash left along the roads and around camps.
I'm not defending trophy hunting in this post by any means, but I am saying that maybe us camera nuts should think a little more deeply about the actual impacts of out "animal friendly" activities, at least as they relate to the animals the the environment. Maybe we should take our cameras and work on things closer to home that won't mind as much.

One Citation:
Honey, M. 1999. Tanzania: whose eden is it? Pp. 211-261 in Ecotourism and sustainable development: who owns paradise? (M.Honey, Ed.) Island Press, Washington D.C.

Plus 2 links in the body of the text