In the aftermath of Cecil...

[Diamondhitch]

Anti-hunters have been using occurrences like this and the uneducated masses against us at every turn. Lets all use this very well written article by a notable member of the UICN, a hunting-neutral science based organization, that monitors and makes recommendations regarding both endangered and populous species.

Post this article on every social media site that has a discussion regarding Cecil/hunting and give the good intentioned but ill informed something to think about. Those operating purely on emotion are unlikely to be swayed but we need to get who we can back to at least a neutral attitude.

Social media works for the antis, lets all make it work for us!!!




https://www.oximity.com/user/Dr.-Rosie-Clooney-1

Dr. Rosie Clooney is Chair of the Sustainable Use and Livelihoods Specialist Group at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Zimbabwe: R.I.P Cecil the Lion. What Will Be His Legacy? and Who Decides?

OPINION

By Dr. Rosie Clooney

London — Cecil the lion, a magnificent senior male, much loved and part of a long-term research project, was lured out of a safe haven in Zimbabwe's Hwange National Park last week and apparently illegally shot, to endure a protracted death.

As the global outrage pours out, consider for a moment that trophy hunting has now been banned across Africa. Trophy hunting is the limited "high value" end of hunting, where people (often the wealthy and mainly Westerners) pay top dollar to kill an animal. In southern Africa it takes place across an area close on twice the sum total of National Parks in the region.

Hwange Park staff numbers have been radically cut, and there is little money for cars or equipment for protection. Bushmeat poaching is on the rise and the rangers are ill equipped to cope.

It arouses disgust and revulsion - animals are killed for sport - in some cases (such as lions) the meat not even eaten. Even the millions of weekend recreational hunters filling their freezers are uncertain about trophy hunting.

It seems to have little place in the modern world, where humanity is moving toward an ethical position that increasingly grants animals more of the moral rights that humanity grants (in principle at least) to each other.

So let us move now through the thought bubble where the EU and North America ban import of trophies, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe and others ban trophy hunting, the airlines and shipping lines refuse to carry trophies, and the industry dies a slow (or fast) death, ridding the world of this toxic stain on our collective conscience

We turn to survey southern Africa, proud of what we have achieved by our signing of online petitions, our lobbying of politicians, our Facebook shares and comments.

Did we save lions? Have we safeguarded wildlife areas? Have we dealt the death blow to trafficking of wildlife? Have we liberated local communities from imperialistic foreign hunters?

Let's go back to Hwange National Park, the scene of Cecil's demise. The Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, responsible for managing this and other National Parks, is now in trouble.

It derived most of its income for protection, conservation and management of wildlife across the country from trophy hunting, with minimal revenue from central government (not well known for its good governance and transparent resource allocation).

Hwange Park staff numbers have been radically cut, and there is little money for cars or equipment for protection. Bushmeat poaching is on the rise and the rangers are ill equipped to cope. The commonly used wire snares are indiscriminate, and capture many lions and other predators who die agonizing and pointless deaths.

In Namibia, more than half of the communal conservancies (covering 20 percent of the country) have collapsed, because the revenue from non-hunting sources (such as tourism) is not enough to keep them viable and they have not been able to find alternative sources of income.

Namibia's communal conservancies are an innovation of the 1990s, and have been responsible for dramatic increases in a wide range of wildlife species outside of national parks including elephant, lion, and black rhino. Income from trophy hunting and tourism has encouraged communities to turn their land over to conservation.

Communities retain 100 percent of benefits from sustainable use of wildlife, including hunting - almost 18 million Namibian dollars in 2013. This money was spent by communities on schools, healthcare, roads, training, and the employment of 530 game guards to protect their wildlife.

Almost two million high protein meals a year were a by-product of the hunting. Now this is all gone. A few conservancies managed to find wealthy philanthropic donors to prevent them going under - but they cross their fingers that the generosity will continue to flow for decades to come.

Game guards are unemployed, unable to feed their families, looking for any opportunity to obtain some income. Communities are angry - they were never asked by the world what they thought about this. Few journalists or social media activists ever reflected their side of the story. Conservation authorities and communities are again becoming enemies.

Where the conservancies have collapsed, the wildlife is largely wiped out. The bad old days pre-reform have returned, and wildlife is worth more dead than alive.

Hungry bellies are fed with poached bushmeat and the armed poaching gangs have moved in - communities are no longer interested in feeding information to police to help protect wildlife, game guard programmes have collapsed for lack of funds and have spare targeted to supply the criminal syndicates, and rhino horns, lion bone, and ivory are being shipped out illicitly to East Asia.

In South Africa, trophy hunting has stopped, including the small proportion that was "canned". On the private game ranches that covered some 20 million hectares of the country, though, revenues from wildlife have effectively collapsed.

Those properties with scenic landscapes that are close to major tourist routes or attractions and have good tourism infrastructure are surviving on revenues from phototourism, but gone are the days of expanding their wildlife asset base by buying land and restocking this with additional wildlife. Most of the other landowners have returned to cattle, goats and crop farming in order to educate their children, run a car, pay their mortgages.

Wildlife on these lands has largely gone along with its habitat - back to the degraded agriculture landscapes that prevailed before the 1970s when wildlife use by landholders (including hunting) became legal here.

Lions that were on these farmlands are long gone, and the few that remain in national parks are shot as problem animals as soon as they leave the park. The great conservation success story of South Africa is rapidly unraveling.

Speculative? Yes, but a reasonable prediction, because this has happened before. Bans on trophy hunting in Tanzania 1973-1978, Kenya in 1977 and in Zambia from 2000-2003 accelerated a rapid loss of wildlife due to the removal of incentives for conservation. Early anecdotal reports suggest similar patterns are already happening in Botswana, which banned all hunting last year.

Let us mourn Cecil, but be careful what you wish for.

[Chrisworsley]

Great post Diamondhitch! The general public is so missinformed its not even funny. All we have to do is look at history and take the right steps in the right direction to be sure it doesn't repeat itself.

[heybert]

Great post

[mudbug]

Good post, maybe it should be forwarded to the news outlets but I doubt they would want to print something that sounds like the truth, I don't have a lot of faith in the news and media for some reason though

[Diamondhitch]

Originally Posted by mudbug

Good post, maybe it should be forwarded to the news outlets but I doubt they would want to print something that sounds like the truth, I don't have a lot of faith in the news and media for some reason though

Forget the newspapers, networks etc. their "news" has proven to have an agenda time and again. Social media - facebook, twitter, etc. anywhere people are posting negatively, or positively for that matter on the subject of hunting is where we can have the greatest affect.

[C & C]

Good post, shared the link on my FB hopefully if we all do it will circulate a bit more

[falconmade]

Educative!!! nice post

[Diamondhitch]

A few more facts for the self righteous masses to ponder.

Randy Wakeman, who is an editor on ChuckHawks.com and also has his own website, posted a good, concise article on putting Cecil and Zimbabwe's other problems into perspective

http://randywakeman.com/TimeNottoBeS...ciltheLion.htm

Time Not to Be Stupid: The Peculiar Case of Cecil the Lion

Zimbabwe has a recent history of ecomomic malaise, with an 80% unemployment rate after 2000 and hyperinflation in Zimbabwe was a major problem from about 2003 to April 2009, when the country suspended its own currency. Zimbabwe faced 231 million percent peak hyperinflation in 2008: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor....-per-cent.html .

The economic meltdown and repressive political measures in Zimbabwe have led to a flood of refugees into neighboring countries. An estimated 3.4 million Zimbabweans, a quarter of the population, had fled abroad by mid-2007. Some 3 million of these have gone to South Africa and Botswana.

World Health Organisation, the life expectancy for men was 56 years and the life expectancy for women was 60 years of age (2012). While the alleged poaching of Cecil the Lion is now a fanboy favorite topic, to no great surprise it is is of minor importance in Zimbabwe, for tourist attractions are considered to be a senseless contrivance of the foreign elite while the country itself has gone through great, multiple hardships.


Reporters Without Borders claims the media environment in Zimbabwe involves "surveillance, threats,imprisonment, censorship, blackmail, abuse of power and denial of justice are all brought to bear to keep firm control over the news." In its 2008 report, Reporters Without Borders ranked the Zimbabwean media as 151st out of 173.The government also bans many foreign broadcasting stations from Zimbabwe, including the CBC, Sky News, Channel 4, American Broadcasting Company,Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), and Fox News. News agencies and newspapers from other Western countries and South Africa have also been banned from the country.

There are more pressing issues in Zimbabwe than any tourist attraction: http://country-facts.findthedata.com...es-vs-Zimbabwe . The GDP of Zimbabwe is $953 per person, the homicide death rate is over double per capita of that in the U.S., and 68% of the population is below the poverty line. There is the history of Robert Mugabe that apparently few have knowledge of, or interest in: http://www.biography.com/people/robert-mugabe-9417391 . With the vast majority of residents of Zimbabwe living in poverty, low life expectancy, 18.5 % with internet access, and infant mortality of 88.5 / 1000 births vs. 6.9 / 1000 births in the U.S., small wonder few in Zimbabwe care about any self-righteous internet frenzy . . . about any animal. Who does not comprehend this?

The professional hunter, Mr. Bronkhorst, started his hunting business after being violently evicted from his 1,269-hectare game farm, Southcum, near Kwekwe, in central Zimbabwe, as part of the Mugabe government’s land grab. Poaching is of course not hunting and is a criminal act, no one should need to consult a clever third-grader to discover this. The bigger question is what sick, twisted form of humanity finds a tourist attraction that no one has heard of, much less seen in person, to be of far more value and of far more interest than the lives of the general human population of Zimbabwe itself? Self-anointed pundits enjoy death threats against a dentist, media loves the money they make from selling the story, yet when another human resident of Zimbabwe dies, the silence remains deafening.

In the United States, assertion and accusation is not conviction and justice is not retribution. Justice is, of course, the process or result of using laws to fairly judge and punish crimes and criminals, by being impartial, emotionless, and fair. Death threats and knee-jerk bile spewing is antithetical to the rule of law and the notion of justice. It is a pity that so many have so easily, conveniently, sadly forgotten what brave men and women have long fought died for. Justice serves the accused, not the accusers. The ignorance of this is on every “Justice for Cecil” post ever made. Regardless of the personally distasteful nature of the accusation, to side-step Due Process is nothing any American could ever tolerate. Vigilantism is not remotely justice.

Though the conditions in Zimbabwe were such that about one quarter of the population was forced to flee the country by 2007. When was the last time anyone bothered to make a crude cardboard sign or bumper sticker about that?

--Randy Wakeman

[Arnak]

Good read! It's refreshing for sure and I did share it on my FB to. Now I'd like to find more and find references about what is said in this last part...

"Bans on trophy hunting in Tanzania 1973-1978, Kenya in 1977 and in Zambia from 2000-2003 accelerated a rapid loss of wildlife due to the removal of incentives for conservation. Early anecdotal reports suggest similar patterns are already happening in Botswana, which banned all hunting last year."

I must say have mixed feelings about a few things in all that. I mean, yes, I do believe in the good hunting brings and the negative effect of banning trophy hunting can lead to. On the other hand, there are 30,000 of those lions. Let's face it, funding protection via hunting is a scary double edged sword when we play with numbers like this. This makes me wonder up to what point hunting can be considered an efficient way to help the cause. When is a population too low for this kind of strategy and when is it high enough to be viable?

[Talking moose]

[sakogreywolf]

Originally Posted by Talking moose

LOL!!! That's funny!! Awesome!!

[KegRiver]

Originally Posted by Talking moose

ROFL Awesome !!

[abhunter8]

Excellent Post... I have shared the article on my facebook page for all the ignorant non hunters to read! lol

[Diamondhitch]

Originally Posted by Arnak

Good read! It's refreshing for sure and I did share it on my FB to. Now I'd like to find more and find references about what is said in this last part...

"Bans on trophy hunting in Tanzania 1973-1978, Kenya in 1977 and in Zambia from 2000-2003 accelerated a rapid loss of wildlife due to the removal of incentives for conservation. Early anecdotal reports suggest similar patterns are already happening in Botswana, which banned all hunting last year."

I must say have mixed feelings about a few things in all that. I mean, yes, I do believe in the good hunting brings and the negative effect of banning trophy hunting can lead to. On the other hand, there are 30,000 of those lions. Let's face it, funding protection via hunting is a scary double edged sword when we play with numbers like this. This makes me wonder up to what point hunting can be considered an efficient way to help the cause. When is a population too low for this kind of strategy and when is it high enough to be viable?

A quick google search will leave you with far more to read than you bargained for.

The management of lions is tricky and here is why. When Lions are hunted the locals receive money from the hunts as well as support from the local outfitters in the form of PAC (problem animal control) when Lions start praying on livestock. Without Lion hunting the locals have no incentive to keep them around, they are simply a nuisance that occasionally eats their livestock and children, so they poison them all.
Conservation of species simply for the sake of allowing them to flourish is a 1st world notion, the reality of 3rd world life places no value whatsoever on it. Without Safari operators providing meat to the locals they are forced to get their own. They cannot afford guns or bullets so they simply snare whatever they can. There is no selection for abundant animals, they simply catch whatever they can since endangered species provide as much nourishment to their families as abundant species.
The (pardon the pun) Lions share of the money and resources utilized for anti-poaching comes from revenue generated from hunting and even more still comes in the form of Outfitters personally funded anti-poaching teams. This all goes away with the end of hunting. If we simply ban hunting of certain high profile animals such as Elephants, the incentive for outfitters to spend money on anti-poaching goes down and they would no longer employ these critical services, once again all game suffers as a result.
The selective death of a very small handful of adult male Lions does not negatively impact the population as a whole. In places there are laws regarding the selection of males that are at least 8 years old and not part of a pride with sub-adult cubs and in most areas the concession holders voluntarily hold themselves to this standard. Due to the tremendous effort that goes into these high price hunts the outfitters have a very good idea which animals can be hunted with little or no impact and which cannot, trail cameras certainly have made this far easier. Long story short most outfitters are either regulated or motivated by proper game management, to the tune of increased allocations, to select only Males that are no longer contributing to propagation of the species.

It is no coincidence that the areas with the highest concentrations of Lions are the ones where they are hunted, it is by design not default.

[Diamondhitch]

I should also note that as with anything there are a few bad seeds that do as they please to everyones bane. These are the exception and we must not judge the system by the few who choose to ignore it to their own gain. This would be akin to castrating all men so that none of them could rape women, the notion is absurd.

[KegRiver]

I'm more concerned with the responses of hunters to this then with this one hunt.

It seems to me that we do far more harm to hunting as a whole by attacking other hunters before we know the facts then one dead lion will ever do.

As if that's not enough, now some turn on a Lady who is trying to bring some light to this situation. How does that serve the future of hunting?

I wonder if, to the outside world we look like a bunch of bullies fighting among ourselves.

Why are we so quick to turn on our own? Is this the way to build a future for hunting?

I don't think so.

I know that no one wants to appear to support illegal hunting practices, but don't you think it is better to say nothing if you suspect someone, until you get the facts ? Or at least keep your responses neutral.

[Cowtown guy]

Originally Posted by Diamondhitch

A quick google search will leave you with far more to read than you bargained for.

The management of lions is tricky and here is why. When Lions are hunted the locals receive money from the hunts as well as support from the local outfitters in the form of PAC (problem animal control) when Lions start praying on livestock. Without Lion hunting the locals have no incentive to keep them around, they are simply a nuisance that occasionally eats their livestock and children, so they poison them all.
Conservation of species simply for the sake of allowing them to flourish is a 1st world notion, the reality of 3rd world life places no value whatsoever on it. Without Safari operators providing meat to the locals they are forced to get their own. They cannot afford guns or bullets so they simply snare whatever they can. There is no selection for abundant animals, they simply catch whatever they can since endangered species provide as much nourishment to their families as abundant species.
The (pardon the pun) Lions share of the money and resources utilized for anti-poaching comes from revenue generated from hunting and even more still comes in the form of Outfitters personally funded anti-poaching teams. This all goes away with the end of hunting. If we simply ban hunting of certain high profile animals such as Elephants, the incentive for outfitters to spend money on anti-poaching goes down and they would no longer employ these critical services, once again all game suffers as a result.
The selective death of a very small handful of adult male Lions does not negatively impact the population as a whole. In places there are laws regarding the selection of males that are at least 8 years old and not part of a pride with sub-adult cubs and in most areas the concession holders voluntarily hold themselves to this standard. Due to the tremendous effort that goes into these high price hunts the outfitters have a very good idea which animals can be hunted with little or no impact and which cannot, trail cameras certainly have made this far easier. Long story short most outfitters are either regulated or motivated by proper game management, to the tune of increased allocations, to select only Males that are no longer contributing to propagation of the species.

It is no coincidence that the areas with the highest concentrations of Lions are the ones where they are hunted, it is by design not default.

Great post. For those that haven't been to Africa, they simply can't wrap their head around the way the countries over there work.

People everywhere, here on AO included, are looking at this as a first world person looks at things. People that aren't getting it need to think of how Africans would approach this scenario. They do not care one lick about conservation. They are uneducated. They are poor. They are hungry.
Lions eat cows. They need to die if hunter dollars are not protecting them.
Kudus eat grass that the cows can eat. Grass doesn't grow too well in a lot of those arid areas. If the cows don't have grass they starve. Therefore Kudus need to die. It is the same with all the other critters. They will kill them indiscriminately and that is the end of the problem for them.

By giving lions or elephants or rhinos a monetary value, they have a chance. It matters not that the numbers are low. If there is a way to have any hunt at all without hurting the population, we need that to occur in order to ensure that these lions still have some value to the people.

[Diamondhitch]

Good article - UC Berkley.

This is a well written piece on the problems with banning trophy hunting:

http://alumni.berkeley.edu/californ....nting-ban-will


Lionizing Cecil Makes Us Feel Good, But a Trophy Hunting Ban Will Accelerate Slaughter
By Glen Martin

If you fly over parts of Tsavo today—and I challenge anyone to do so, if you have the eyes for it – you can see lines of snares set out in funnel traps that extend four or five miles. Tens of thousands of animals are being killed annually for the meat business. Carnivores are being decimated in the same snares and discarded. I am not a propagandist on this issue, but when my friends say we are very concerned that hunting will be reintroduced in Kenya, let me put it to you: hunting has never been stopped in Kenya, and there is more hunting in Kenya today than at any time since independence. (Thousands) of animals are being killed annually with no control. Snaring, poisoning, and shooting are common things. So when you have a fear of debate about hunting, please don’t think there is no hunting. Think of a policy to regulate it, so that we can make it sustainable. That is surely the issue, because an illegal crop, an illegal market is unsustainable in the long term, whatever it is. And the market in wildlife meat is unsustainable as currently practiced, and something needs to be done.

-Richard Leaky, in an address to the Strathmore Business School, Nairobi

Richard Leaky, of course, is the renowned paleoanthropologist, conservationist, and the first director of the Kenya Wildlife Service, the man who was in large part responsible for scotching the ivory trade during the initial round of the Elephant Wars in the 1980s.

I interviewed Leakey a few years ago for my book, Game Changer: Animal Rights and the Fate of Africa’s Wildlife (University of California Press, 2012). His words came back to me with the brouhaha over the shooting of Cecil, the most lionized lion on the planet. So did the words of many of the other people I interviewed for the book. That includes Ian Parker, a legendary Kenyan game ranger and warden; Michael Norton-Griffiths, who served as the senior ecologist for Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park and managed the Eastern Sahel Program for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature; Ole Kaparo, a former speaker of the Kenyan Parliament and a leader of the Laikipia Maasai people; and Laurence Frank, an emeritus associate of UC Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Biology and one of Africa’s most respected carnivore biologists.

Ultimately, wild animals are disappearing in Africa because they are worthless to the people who live with and near them.

All these men no doubt are upset to varying degrees by l’affaire Cecil—but not for reasons one may think. They’re probably more distressed by the response to the shooting than the shooting itself. That’s because the uproar over Cecil, the fervent calls for expanding the bans on trophy hunting in Africa, will work againstAfrican wildlife conservation in general and carnivore conservation in particular.

As Leaky points out, regulated hunting—even poorly regulated hunting, as seems the case with Cecil in Zimbabwe—isn’t the driving force in the decline of the African lion, which has fallen from a continental population of around 200,000 to fewer than 20,000 today. Unregulated hunting is the main culprit: Industrial-scale poaching and bushmeat hunting. Ancillary reasons include the inexorable expansion of agriculture and the increasing populations of pastoral peoples, who inhabit their ancestral rangelands in ever-increasing numbers, spearing or poisoning any predator that could pose a threat to their cattle and goats. And it’s also the booming illegal trade in wildlife parts. More than one field biologist I talked to told me how wild animals—particularly predators, rhinos, and elephants—are disappearing in proportion to the rapid expansion of Chinese-funded development projects. Ivory and rhino horn, of course, remain highly prized in China, and lion bone is considered an “acceptable” substitute for tiger bone in traditional Asian medicine; lion and leopard claws and teeth also are much sought after.

An African savannah devoid of lumbering pachyderms and lolling lions may make a New York animal rights activist weep, but to a Samburu pastoralist or Kikuyu subsistence farmer it constitutes a lovely prospect.

But ultimately, wild animals are disappearing in Africa because they are worthless to the people who live with and near them. Kenya’s hunting ban has been in effect since 1977. During that time, the country’s wildlife has declined by more than 70 percent. The country’s subsistence farmers and pastoralists can derive no legitimate utility from the animals. Indeed, wildlife makes their lives harder. Elephants raid their crops, destroy their water systems, stomp cattle and the occasional farmer. Lions, hyenas, and leopards kill their livestock. Better to shoot the elephant and poison the lion. An African savannah devoid of lumbering pachyderms and lolling lions may make a New York animal rights activist weep, but to a Samburu pastoralist or Kikuyu subsistence farmer it constitutes a lovely prospect, one promising peaceful nights uninterrupted by the trumpeting of elephants raiding the pumpkin patch or the squeals of goats enduring evisceration by hungry lions.

But what about eco-tourism? Why hasn’t that helped? Don’t the eco-lodges sprouting across Kenya like mushrooms after the Long Rains deliver cash, goods, and services to local communities? Aren’t they a very good thing? In a word, no. First, these lodges constitute permanent physical footprints on the wild landscape. They require roads and other infrastructure, and thus fragment wildlife habitat. Locals tend to congregate around them, driving game further afield.

Further, many of the lodges are owned by foreign entrepreneurs and corporations, and the profits tend to trickle up to their proprietors and Kenya’s deeply corrupt oligarchs, not down to the poor farmers and herdsmen on the land.

Michael Norton-Griffiths observes the situation is analogous to a man whose only asset is a goat. But this particular goat comes with many strings attached. The man owns the goat, but he can’t sell it or eat it. In fact, he can’t “exploit” the goat in anyway. The only thing he’s allowed to do is let tourists drive by and take pictures of it. Oh, one more thing: he doesn’t’ get any money from photo-snapping goat enthusiasts. All profits go to the guys driving the tourist buses. Kenya’s rural residents, in other words, are responsible for the country’s wildlife, but they aren’t allowed to benefit from it.

In any evaluation of Africa’s wildlife crisis, Namibia must be considered. That’s because there isn’t a wildlife crisis in Namibia. At the time of its independence from South Africa in 1990, Namibia’s game populations were at historic lows, decimated by years of combat between locals and the South African army. The new government wanted to encourage both a wildlife rebound and tourism, but it took a tack directly opposite from Kenya’s. Rural populations were organized into communities controlling vast areas of land. Where necessary, the wildlands were restocked with game. Each community was invested with the right to manage its own wildlife resources, subject to certain broad dictates from Namibian national wildlife agencies. In other words, game was commoditized. It could be cropped for commercial meat production; it could be eaten by community members; the rights to hunt trophy specimens of charismatic species could be sold. Suddenly, wildlife had great value for people living in the Namibian bush, and they reacted predictably: They protected their assets.

I saw this dynamic in action at Salambala Conservancy in Caprivi, a lush northern Namibian province watered by the Okavango and Zambezi Rivers. A holding of the Subia people, Salambala is “small” by Namibian conservancy standards, but still vast by any objective accounting: 230,000 acres. The community and the central government have established sustainable annual quotas for almost every species inhabiting the land, right down to game birds: 50 impala, seven African buffalo, fifty zebras, four kudus, four waterbucks, four hippos, three crocodiles, three baboons, two black-backed jackals, 100 white-faced ducks, 150 turtle doves, 50 guinea fowl, and 70 red-billed francolins. The quota for elephants is eight, with six going to trophy hunters, one dedicated to the community’s chief and elders, and one reserved for distribution among conservancy members. (Lions are still relatively rare in Namibia, though their reintroduction proceeds in certain areas. One reason Namibia remains Africa’s cheetah stronghold is the dearth of lions, which reflexively kill the smaller cats; where lions are prevalent, cheetahs, axiomatically, are scarce. Cheetahs, by the way, are also included in the trophy quota of some community conservancies.)

It’s easier to scream in outrage over the killing of a highly charismatic lion with a cute name, sign a Change.org petition, and move on to posting selfies, than it is to actually investigate the deep forces behind the African wildlife holocaust.

The community keeps all income generated from trophy hunters and meat sales. Prior to independence and the establishment of Salambala, any Subia community member who poached an animal likely would have met with praise; his act would’ve meant meat for family, friends and neighbors. Now, the illegal taking of game is considered a major offense, theft from the community as a whole. Shortly before my arrival, the remains of a blue wildebeest had been found, and local administrators quickly determined that a community member was responsible for the killing. They cheerfully predicted he would soon be apprehended, beaten severely, and handed over to government authorities for additional punishment.

Ultimately, then, the African wildlife crisis is a crisis of misperception. Conservation has been subsumed by animal rights. These are not, however, the same things. Individual animals—most recently Cecil and Jericho—have become more important in the Age of Social Media than species stability, habitat preservation, and pragmatic if uncomfortable policies that would actually encourage the preservation of wildlife. This is understandable: It’s easier to scream in outrage over the killing of a highly charismatic lion with a cute name, sign a Change.org petition, and move on to posting selfies, than it is to actually investigate the deep forces behind the African wildlife holocaust. But emoting over Cecil isn’t going to save the African lion. The African lion is not the Lion King, just as Daffy Duck is not representative of a typical mallard in a North American marsh. We don’t live in a cartoon, and our problems are not solved by anthropomorphizing wildlife. Blanket trophy hunting bans may make us feel better, but they will only accelerate the slaughter.

[Diamondhitch]

Originally Posted by Cowtown guy

Great post. For those that haven't been to Africa, they simply can't wrap their head around the way the countries over there work.

People everywhere, here on AO included, are looking at this as a first world person looks at things. People that aren't getting it need to think of how Africans would approach this scenario. They do not care one lick about conservation. They are uneducated. They are poor. They are hungry.
Lions eat cows. They need to die if hunter dollars are not protecting them.
Kudus eat grass that the cows can eat. Grass doesn't grow too well in a lot of those arid areas. If the cows don't have grass they starve. Therefore Kudus need to die. It is the same with all the other critters. They will kill them indiscriminately and that is the end of the problem for them.

By giving lions or elephants or rhinos a monetary value, they have a chance. It matters not that the numbers are low. If there is a way to have any hunt at all without hurting the population, we need that to occur in order to ensure that these lions still have some value to the people.

I couldn't agree more, without perspective it is hard to imagine what they see through their eyes. We are very fortunate that the killing of Cecil can even for one moment be our biggest concern.

[Diamondhitch]

Share these veiwpoints from people who are objectively trying to conserve wildlife every day, many with PHDs and a lifetime of experience to back their words, on as many social media sites as you can people. We can spread truth through this avenue as well as those with an agenda can spread their lies. If you have never believed your right to hunt was in jeopardy, that anti-hunters could jeopardize conservation on a word wide scale, believe it now because it is happening this very moment. Bills are being passed, airlines refusing to carry hunted trophies, don't think it affects you think again. Your right to hunt is on the brink as is a very powerful conservation tool.

[winger7mm]

Iv been posting up where I can, also have been informing those where I can too. The stupidity of some people is mind-numbing!

Thanks for the posts Hitch

[Talking moose]

[trigger7mm]

I am not fully versed in the Cecil controversy, but I have a few questions. Is it legal to hunt lions in Tansania? We're they hunting outside of a protected area? Is it legal to bait lions in Tansania? If the answer to these questions is yes, then what is the issue?

[Cowtown guy]

Originally Posted by trigger7mm

I am not fully versed in the Cecil controversy, but I have a few questions. Is it legal to hunt lions in Tansania? We're they hunting outside of a protected area? Is it legal to bait lions in Tansania? If the answer to these questions is yes, then what is the issue?

It was Zimbabwe. And yes it is legal to hunt lion there over bait.

The issue is with the moron anti hunters that have absolutely nothing to do but further their agenda. They jump on any little rumor and absolutely blow it up. They know that the mob doesn't need to have facts behind them to be a threat and they abuse the snot out of that little tidbit. Meanwhile, back here on AO, we are usually too busy kicking the crap out of each other to get our heads out of our collective arses long enough to see the writing on the wall.

Instead of backing each other on some of these issues we nit pick about silly little things that really doesn't matter in the long run. Here's the big truth of it.......If it is a legal hunting practice, we need to stick together and back each other up. It doesn't matter what you feel personally. Don't like running cats with dogs? Doesn't matter. You back it because next week the anti's may be after pheasant hunting, that you just love, and the guy with the dogs chasing cats will back you because you had his back last week.

GET IT TOGETHER!

[Fowl91]

Originally Posted by Cowtown guy

Great post. For those that haven't been to Africa, they simply can't wrap their head around the way the countries over there work.

People everywhere, here on AO included, are looking at this as a first world person looks at things. People that aren't getting it need to think of how Africans would approach this scenario. They do not care one lick about conservation. They are uneducated. They are poor. They are hungry.
Lions eat cows. They need to die if hunter dollars are not protecting them.
Kudus eat grass that the cows can eat. Grass doesn't grow too well in a lot of those arid areas. If the cows don't have grass they starve. Therefore Kudus need to die. It is the same with all the other critters. They will kill them indiscriminately and that is the end of the problem for them.

By giving lions or elephants or rhinos a monetary value, they have a chance. It matters not that the numbers are low. If there is a way to have any hunt at all without hurting the population, we need that to occur in order to ensure that these lions still have some value to the people.

Well said.

Ive been to Africa, not just for hunting, but I've stayed with the locals and have heard their views and traditions. If you haven't been brought up in that kind of environment, you just don't get it. Im very glad I was able to experience that.
Here at home i shoot gophers because they tear up our hay crop, i shoot coyotes because they eat our sheep, I hunt deer to put food on our table, and when i have more than i can use, i give it to my neighbours to put food on their table.
In Africa, I shot Jackals that terrorized the ranch, I hunted Kudu and ate the meat the same night, the rest i took back to the family that let me stay with them as a thank you. The PH i hunted with shot Lions and Buffalo to put meat on his and many others tables.
All across the world people hunt the animals around them for sustenance, not only because they want to, but in most cases because they have to.
If Bears were found in the desert, then those that live there would hunt them.
If Bighorn sheep flourished in South America, then those people would hunt them there.
And if Lions roamed the prairies, then you're damn straight that I would hunt them here.
And still you would see North Americans rant about whats happening in Africa. Their hunting culture is ahead of ours in that regard, because I've never met an African who once worried about the way we hunt over here.

[Diamondhitch]

The big problem is evident right here on AH. look at the mileage the Cecil gossip an whine threads are getting while the one with actual info we can use to further our cause falls behind all of them. Whining will get us exactly what it always does, nothing. This is the exact reason the antis had enough traction to blow this so far out of proportion, they are always on their game and pushing their view while we sit back an wait to whine about what they have done and the lies hey have told. Spreading knowledge makes us strong, whining amongst ourselves reveals us to be spineless cowards unable to mount any real defence against our adversary.

[SD1797]

Originally Posted by mudbug

Good post, maybe it should be forwarded to the news outlets but I doubt they would want to print something that sounds like the truth, I don't have a lot of faith in the news and media for some reason though

X2 the media does nothing to contribute value to our society majority of the time imo.

[DLo270]

This is my first post on the AO forum. I hope I’m not breaking any etiquette rules here or anything. I came across this article and thought some people here might find it interesting. It is from Edna Molewa, the Minister of Environmental Affairs of South Africa. Seems like a rational statement from a local perspective.

http://ewn.co.za/2015/08/05/OPINION-...erving-species

The controversy over the shooting of well-known lion Cecil on a trophy hunt in Zimbabwe highlights the need for a more balanced, reasoned discussion on the substantive issues around lion management, and the role of legal, well-regulated hunting in species conservation in general.

Regretfully, much of the recently resurrected debate and discussion has been polarising and, in many instances, misinformed.

Every year, hundreds of legally acquired wildlife specimens, among them trophies acquired in legal hunts, pass through South Africa’s main ports of entry and exit without incident.

Because of a strictly regulated permit system governed by a raft of national laws and policies, as well as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites), the department of environmental affairs has been able to ensure that the trade in listed species, among them lion, elephant and rhino, is in the main sustainable, legal and traceable.

As one of the first signatories to Cites, South Africa’s species preservation track record is well known on the global stage; so much so that in recognition of our efforts we will host the 17th Conference of Parties (CoP) to Cites next year.

Legally managed, sustainable hunting is an integral part of this country’s constitutionally-enshrined principle of sustainable utilisation.

The sector is valued at around R6.2 billion a year and is a major source of South Africa’s socio-economic activity, contributing towards job creation, community development and social upliftment.

Historically, sustainable utilisation of species through legal hunting has played a role in the growth of populations, including of lion, elephant and rhino.

Further studies support the position that banning hunting could have potentially broader negative effects, such as increased human-animal conflict, and wildlife-based land use being abandoned in favour of ecologically unfavorable alternatives.

Undeniably, the threat posed by the illegal trade in wildlife and wildlife specimens threatens to undermine any country’s conservation successes. We must in the same vein admit that penalising an entire industry for the illegal actions of the few is not in the country’s best interests.

It is within this context that one should view the announcement by the cargo division of our national carrier, South African Airways (SAA), that it is lifting its embargo on the transportation of hunting trophies.

As the department of environmental affairs has repeatedly affirmed since the embargo was first announced in April, illegality should not be confused with legality.

Over the past six years, the department has put in place a raft of measures to control and reduce the illegal exploitation and trade in endangered species and their products.

The department’s environmental management inspectors, commonly known as the Green Scorpions, have been stationed at OR Tambo International Airport since 1 April 2015.

The Green Scorpions are deployed at the airport to ensure compliance with the National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act, Cites and the threatened or protected species regulations.

Our teams have been working closely with other law enforcement agencies and have conducted joint proactive compliance and enforcement operations at the airport, and have facilitated training sessions with SAA Cargo officers.

As part of new measures to prevent the circumstances that gave rise to the embargo (caused by an illegal consignment that did not even originate from South Africa), our teams will now be working 24 hours a day, together with other law enforcement agencies at ports of entry and exit.

Part of their work is ensuring that physical inspections are conducted on a daily basis to monitor compliance, and that Cites export and re-export permits are endorsed only after physical inspection of consignments, and are cancelled after use.

Further training will be conducted for airline officers and cargo handlers, Airports Company South Africa employees and other operators in the handling of wildlife consignments and the detection of suspicious cargo.

As a country we will continue to crack down on illegal operators.

The decision by other international airlines such as Delta Airlines to enforce a blanket ban on the transportation of hunting trophies from Africa once again incorrectly fails to distinguish between the trade in and transportation of legally acquired wildlife specimens, and the illegal trade in wildlife specimens.

The SAA decision, which we welcome, and hope other airlines like Delta (and cargo handlers) will follow, is the outcome of an extensive consultation process between the airline and the department.

It is because SAA has satisfied itself that sufficient measures are in place to effectively monitor and detect the illegal transportation of wildlife specimens that the embargo has been lifted.

It has not been lifted because we have “bowed to pressure” from the hunting industry.

Hunting is a highly-regulated activity in South Africa, as is the transportation of hunting trophies.

South Africa’s management of all our ‘Big Five’ has been exemplary and our track record speaks for itself: we are home to most of the world’s African black and white rhino, and have one of the world’s largest and most stable lion populations.

This is the result of measures we have put in place not just to promote sustainability, but also to provide incentives for the conservation of our wildlife and their habitat.

The hunting, possession and trade in our natural flora and fauna is regulated and monitored, with all information in this regard collated by the department of environmental affairs.

We should therefore not be swayed by emotive arguments claiming our country’s natural resources are being secretly decimated because of hunting.

Glad to see SAA lifting the embargo on hunting trophies. Seems like I've seen a lot of petitions going around trying to convince airlines to stop transporting them.

I agree with Cowtown guy, have to stick together to have a voice, otherwise it's just the loudest voice that's heard.

[SD1797]

Excellent first post. Everyone should post that link to their social media sites to inform the antis.

[gitrdun]

My friend and I were met up for lunch in High River yesterday. He's an AO member as well, so 3 guesses as to what we talk about....lol. This Cecil the lion conundrum came up in our conversation. He informed me that just a few days after the lion was legally harvested by a hunter, a herd of elephant trampled though a village of natives only a few miles away, killing IIRC 3 natives. Somehow, somewhere, this loss of human life slipped through the media filter unnoticed. A named lion's death by legal hunter is far bigger story than 3 unnamed African natives. How detached has the human race become?

I'm thinking why not capitalize on this event? I'm thinking of getting some Chinese factory to crank out a bunch of stuffed lions with a collar that says "Cecil" on it and marketing it though Walmart.