Rightly or wrongly man controls his environment by removing animals which are interfering with his lifestyle worldwide as well as harvesting them for food. Animals that might prey on domestic livestock or even humans have been culled since the beginning of mankind.
Nowadays the conservation programs in Africa have become so successful that human intervention in controlling the numbers of some species is necessary, especially with those species that know no natural predators, as in this country with badgers and buzzards. So professional hunters would have been issued licences to take a number of animals so that the population density didn't become greater than the available natural food supply. Animals chosen would have been the ones past their prime, ill or injured. There is ample evidence of big cats starting to prey on cattle or humans as their hunting abilities decline as they are 'easy meat'.
In order to maximise the economic benefit of the exercise the shooting is sold off to those who wish to shoot a lion (or whatever) under the supervision of the pro hunter thus benefitting the local economy tremendously as well as potentially safeguarding the locals from predation.