Posted on 11/20/2017 3:59:15 AM PST by marktwain
Originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal on August 7, 2015.
An American hunter’s killing of a beloved lion named Cecil in Zimbabwe last month was enough to fuel widespread outrage. But the details of the hunt are even more damning: The lion was allegedly lured out of a national park and then killed illegally.
Unfortunately, this one sorry episode is tarnishing the role that well-managed, legal hunting can play in promoting wildlife conservation. Cecil’s death has inspired passionate calls to ban trophy hunting throughout Africa. Three U.S. airlines have announced that they will no longer transport lions and other big-game African animals killed by trophy hunters.
Not surprisingly, politicians have jumped on the bandwagon. Sen. Robert Menendez (D., N.J.) introduced legislation last week that would ban the import or export of animals being proposed for inclusion under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.
Last October the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed listing the African lion as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, but the agency has yet to complete the listing. Mr. Menendez’s bill would effectively end the trophy hunting of lions by Americans.
But would restricting trophy hunts really save the king of beasts? Not according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “Lions are not in trouble because of responsible sport hunting,” wrote director Dan Ashe after the agency concluded its listing review of the species. “In fact, evidence shows that scientifically sound conservation programs that include limited, well-managed sport hunting can and do contribute to the long-term survival of the species.” The agency determined that the major threats to lions are habitat destruction, declines in the species they prey on, and increased conflicts between humans and lions.
Banning trophy hunting or restricting trophy imports wouldn’t address these challenges. In fact, it could do more to endanger wildlife than save it. Consider what happened in Kenya after it banned all hunting in 1977. Since then, Kenya’s populations of large wild animals have declined 60%-70%, according to wildlife economist Mike Norton-Griffiths. Kenya’s lion populations have fallen to 2,000 from 20,000 a half century ago. Hunting bans in Tanzania and Zambia have produced similar results.
Trophy hunting is one of the main ways local people reap benefits from living in regions with large wildlife. Across Africa, hunting generates more than $200 million in revenue each year, mostly in southern Africa, according to a study in Biological Conservation. A 2012 study in PLOS One, an open-source, peer-reviewed science journal, noted that eliminating revenues from lion hunting could “reduce tolerance for the species among communities where local people benefit from trophy hunting, and may reduce funds available for anti-poaching.”
For Africans who lose crops, livestock and even human lives to dangerous species such as lions, wildlife is often seen as a liability to be avoided or killed rather than an asset to be protected. “Why are the Americans more concerned than us?” one Zimbabwean told Reuters, commenting on the furor over Cecil’s death. “We never hear them speak out when villagers are killed by lions and elephants.”
Citing research by the University of Chicago’s Field Museum and the Kenya Wildlife Service, the New Scientist reported that, on average, in Kenya each lion eats $270 worth of livestock annually. Such losses are catastrophic in a country where per capita income is $1,200. Herders would rather kill lions than conserve them.
Andrew Loveridge, the Oxford researcher who collared and studied Cecil, acknowledges the benefits of big-game hunting. “Hunting, as much as people might detest it, does have a role in conservation,” he told the BBC last week, noting that more land is protected as hunting reserves in Africa than as national parks. “If there was no hunting, what would happen with that land?”
Hunting also provides much-needed funding for Africa’s protected areas. Consider the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, responsible for managing the Hwange National Park, where Cecil lived. Panthera, the conservation group, notes that this wildlife agency derives the majority of its funding from trophy hunting. If this revenue goes away, so does the agency’s ability to adequately safeguard wildlife populations from poachers and other illegal hunters.
Lion conservation succeeds when it provides incentives for local people to protect lions and their habitat. In other words, if it pays, it stays. When done responsibly and legally, trophy hunting is a way to ensure African lions are here to stay.
Trophy Hunting is the only thing that can save these animals... the belief in bans will save them is naive and stupid...
Hate to break this to you, but stop being ruled by emotion and go research what has happened with these big game populations over in africa and which states over there, especailly in the states that allow legalized hunting vs those that have banned it....
You will soon learn those that have continued to allow legalized hunting are the only states where the populations are not in massive decline.
Banning doesnt work.. Africa is not the US... There is no ability at any national or even regional level to stop poaching, nor is there funding to pay for it.. the ONLY way you can impact it, is by making the animals valuable to the land or animal owner, and the only way you do that is by legalized hunting....
The fees fund anti poaching enforcement and make the animals valuable to their owners/land holders, so they themselves protect them as well....
This bleeding heart stupidity is why Rhinos are virtually extinct in most of Africa today, because of the idiotic BAN on their hunting in most nations, made their value NOTHING except to those willing to kill them for no reason but to sell their horn.
Stop being an emotional basket case and get informed.
Killing for food is pretty thrilling. Hunting deer, elk, moose, hog, is not boring. You must not hunt.
If the wolf population was at pre-columbian levels, people would not be everywhere.
That is one of the problems with keeping apex predators. They need enormous amounts of habitat. They are very expensive luxuries.
It simply isn’t a long term solution. When part of the population is removed, especially males, new animals migrate in, or the remaining numbers rebound due to food abundance.
Reality is a horror show without the trophy hunters.
Trophy hunters kill game in a much more humane fashion than all the other options available.
You are not considering reality. What do you think happens to those elephants without trophy hunting?
Like I said we are hypocrites in this regard.
One is killed every fifteen minutes. That is reality and the manner it is done is reality. Trump knows this know
No one is banning hunting. Trump is banning the importation of elephant trophies into the USA. Learn to understand facts and not imply this is a total ban on all hunting in Africa
Where are you getting your “facts”?
One is killed every fifteen minutes. That is reality and the manner it is done is reality. Trump knows this know
All elephants die. Those killed trophy hunting tend to suffer the least.
But at least you admit you don’t understand!
Most of them are concrete conservationists, and just know that they don’t like it, so nobody else should be allowed to do it.
It is hunting, not killing, two different things. Think of it this way, when you watch animals in their natural surroundings, you are a watcher. When I hunt I’m part of nature, I’ve done fly in camps 100 miles north of the Arctic circle where they just dump your gear out, fly off and leave you for a week or 10 days, horseback trips into the wilderness in Idaho, etc. It isn’t about killing!!!
So, you’re an expert on Africa? Ever been there?
The PH polices his area himself, and trust me on that, they will hammer poachers, they are to a fault in love with the animals they hunt.
Of course, the politicians skim some, they do here as well. See: Clinton Foundation
Every pol has a “non profit” associated with them for tax free income potential.
if you’ve ever been to the hunting areas of Africa, it is so vast, the only way it gets patrolled is by the professional hunters. They are the ones that control the poachers.
Look up a show called “Ivan Carters WAR”
He is a premier elephant PH and has his own anti poaching unit.
Look at this as well, my friends at Charlton McCollum Safaris http://www.dapuzim.com/, this is their anti poaching report.
So, then the quotas get used by Europeans!!!!
No elephants are protected by it at all!!!
But the Libs FEEL GOOD ABOUT THEMSELVES
I hunt for good prices on the meat mark down bin at the local Kroger. Let me repeat...hunting for food, I don’t have a problem. Killing an animal so you can brag to your friends that you did. I don’t get.
I hunt for good prices on the meat mark down bin at the local Kroger. Let me repeat...hunting for food, I don’t have a problem. Killing an animal so you can brag to your friends that you did. I don’t get.
LOL. When I go to Kroger my first stop is the meat clearance. I evaluate quality vs. markdown price. Make a friend with the meat dpt manager. When you see a good deal look at the label. I forget the alpa character (think it is L) there is a 2 letter code. A 3 at the end means they will not go any lower. Take it to him/her and ask for price 3. My meat dpt manager always gives me 3 and his shrinkage/loss is a lot lower for it.
As far as hunters go, it is evolution. Some people get a rush out of killing. If it wasn’t for them we would not be the well fed large brained dominant species on the planet. Many other species kill each other indiscriminately. We don’t (usually.)
It is genetic. Some people are hunters, some are not. I am not a hunter.
This kid on the other hand is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1rQpqIbBsU
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