Canned Shooting


you guys shouls all read this article. Canned shooting and for that matter put and take shooting is still quite common in SA. Luckily the government finally heeded the voices from the African Chapter and PHASA and starts to regulate the issue. Late, but not too late, and certainly not yet hard enough. It's up to us hunters to exert as much peer pressure as possible AND MOST IMPORTANTLY to eliminate the market. No takers ergo no suppliers!

Read this article in one of SA's most respected daily papers

Canned Hunting is Threat to Thriving Wildlife Industry

Business Day (Johannesburg)
NEWS
July 18, 2003
Posted to the web July 18, 2003

By Mcgregor
Johannesburg

A SET of national guidelines to govern management of large predators such as lion was recently published by the environmental affairs and tourism department. Previously, rules, especially regarding hunting, have been left to individual provinces to decide.

This is the first time there has been an attempt at a national policy and, once it has been properly debated, it should be included in the coming Biodiversity Bill.

The guidelines forbid night hunting; hunting from vehicles and hunting with dogs, which all seem eminently reasonable. But what is likely to cause some consternation among the 40 or so lion-breeders in SA is the definition of canned hunting, which is to be universally banned.

This "is considered to be any form of hunting where a large predator is tranquillised, artificially lured by sound, scent, visual stimuli, feeding, bait, other animals of its own species, or another species". It also forbids the hunting of " captive-bred large predators unless they have been certified as rehabilitated to wild status."

Most lion breeding is for the hunt. Lion are being bred like cattle in parts of the country and when they reach a certain size, they are sold to trophy hunters. Usually foreign ones.

Until now, provinces have had different policies on canned hunting. Those which allow it have made up their own rules to regulate it. After a year's grace, these will be superseded by the new guidelines. The size of the property on which a hunt can take place has, for example, been disregarded as a criterion in the interests of national uniformity.

This is on the grounds that a 500ha plot with high vegetation density in Limpopo, for example, could not be equated with a bare 500ha plot in the Karoo in terms of giving the animal a fair chance of hiding from the hunter.

In the worst-case scenario, canned hunting currently involves the release of an animal long habituated to humans into a small, unfamiliar fenced area in which it has no chance of escape, and allowing someone to shoot it and take it home as a trophy. In some cases, the animals are drugged.

Professional hunters hate canned hunting; in fact, many refuse to grace it with the term hunting, preferring to call it shooting. Safari Club International, one of the two biggest hunting organisations, refuses to accept entries for its trophy record books from SA and Namibia because of the prevalence of canned hunting in the region. They say the bigger skulls of captive- bred lion make it an unfair contest.

By contrast, a wild lion will have had many lean periods, especially during droughts, which is likely to have inhibited its growth. And, unlike his captive-bred cousin, his hide is likely to carry the scars of skirmishes with rivals. Some trophy hunters like smooth skin and big hair. Although, taxidermists can apparently assist with hair extensions when a lion's natural mane is less than magnificent.

Animal right activists and, in fact, mainstream opinion deplore canned hunting because of its cruelty.

But is this rational? After all, we breed cows, goats and sheep for slaughter, and few people object. Yet when lion are treated in the same way, there is an outcry.

One theory has it that our particular attachment to wild animals is rooted in atavistic memories of when we evolved with them in the fertile Rift Valley. Food and water were plentiful; it was a veritable Garden of Eden. After climate changes depleted resources, early versions of ourselves discovered tools and used them to kill and steal food from other scavengers. We became the dominant species.

In JM Coetzee's The Lives of Animals, the character Elisabeth Costello maintains that so barbaric are we as a species that, not content with defeating our former enemy, we have to ingest his or her flesh; reproducing them in industrial proportions to meet our insatiable needs.

As things stand, animals are here at our pleasure. And in a developing nation such as this, with so many human needs still unmet, animals must pay their way if they are to stay. And they are doing so, handsomely. Wouter van Hoven, wildlife management professor at Pretoria University, points out wild animals are big business. The hunting industry is worth R2bn a year, bringing in foreign currency and creating jobs. He estimates there are almost 9000 private game ranches, containing 75% of SA's wildlife.

Almost all are breeding game for sale. There is now more game in SA than there has been for 200 years. But hunting is vital, he says. It is far more lucrative than the alternative, photographic safaris: foreign hunters pay thousands of dollars for each shoot.

And if these farmers were not making this kind of money, they would switch to a different business. Perhaps sheep or cattle. And no one would make a fuss if they were bred to be killed for human consumption.

A fascinating doctoral thesis on hunting safaris in Africa by Karyl Whitman, a student at the University of Minnesota, makes the point that not only do they bring in huge revenues for governments, more of it reaches impoverished local communities and it generates more jobs than do photographic safaris.

The latter require more skills such as driving licences, proficiency in English and hospitality training while jobs in hunting are more suited to rural skills: skinning, tracking, antipoaching and gunbearing.

Community hunting schemes such as Campfire, in Zimbabwe (if they are still operating), Tanzania, Namibia and Zambia require by law that a percentage of hunting revenue goes to the local community.

The more money communities get from a particular land use, the more likely they are to support it. Wildlife reserves where there is hunting are thus more likely to be safe from human encroachment which erodes animals' habitats and thereby threatens their survival.

It is quite possible that Elisabeth Costello was right, and more sophisticated generations than ours will be appalled at our treatment of animals. In the meantime, we can only do the best we can.

Whitman commented on the rapid rise in demand for lion hunts and fears that, in some countries, official monitoring may be inadequate to offset the demand for profit against longterm sustainability of wild lion populations. She points out lion are a socially complex species and the consequences need to be taken into account when setting hunting quotas.

For example, infanticide often follows the hunting of a dominant lion because his successor will kill offspring that are not his.

Guidelines such as those set out by the department are an excellent starting point but few African countries, including ours, have the resources to police them adequately. Canned lion hunting might take some of the hunting pressure off wild populations and, unpalatable as it might be, it still brings in revenue and creates jobs.

The hunting industry has the most to lose from canned hunting because of the damage done to the image of hunting, and because it makes a travesty of the elaborate rules which elevate the killing of animals beyond mere slaughter for the sake of it.

Ethical hunting demands that the animal has a fair chance of escape; that there is a semblance of equality of opportunity between hunter and the hunted (but one must ask: when last did a lion kill a hunter?) So it is up to the hunting industry to help ensure that the new guidelines are enforced.

Life is getting so complicated..

Does that mean no leapord baiting? No hunting Wild cat's like carcals servel's also no huntng jackel's at night?

Trying to legislate such things always leads to unintended consequences; however, the legislators do not let that deter them.

jim dodd

I don't have a problem with efforts to stop canned hunting.

The best way to stop it is to post the names and photos of those who do it.

It seems many of these "hunters" are fairly well known by the PH community in RSA, as they are repeat offenders in their quest to win SCI awards and public adulation.

I hate canned hunting, however stopping it is not easy. When the BBC Cook Report did a programme exposing it there was a real hullabaloo, but afterwards the culprits found themselves with more business than ever........... sadly there are a section of killers (not hunters) out there who saw the publicity and were queueing up to shoot a canned lion. The only way to stop it is to expose not only the guys offering the packages but also the guys who are buying the packages..... and it really needs to be done in their town and country of residence so that EVERYBODY knows what bastards they are!

Even this would not wipe out the instances of gullible guys being sold a canned lion hunt when they didn't know it. I met a guy at the Dallas show last year who told me that he'd spent $40K on a lion hunt and only realised that it was a canned hunt when he got home!

The other thing that might help would be for every responsible hunter to refuse to hunt Lions anywhere that is not a true wilderness area.

Lion hunting must be a badge of courage to those would-be hunters who would take a canned lion. However, they are missing out in the hunt of their lives, a real hunt on the same ground as this magnificant beast. It is an experience that I will never forget.
Granted my lion does not measure up with some the large coiffured beauties at the SCI. But these lions are not even representative in my estimation. Beautiful black manes on the head,chest, and running almost to the rear legs. No way even an inexperienced hunter can believe this animal was ever wild or had to fend for itself.
The motivation for shooting the canned lion must be for the bragging rights to ones friends and this is where I really part company with these guys. If you don't have the gumption to hunt them fairly, don't do it. Simple as that! The companies that sell those weaklings these canned shoots are just preying on the weak. IMHO

Hunting lion the real way will have its rewards.

pmm

This is a rather interesting post. I just returned from SA yesterday and had an experience that was what I would consider unusual. Upon our arrival in JoBurg on our way to our final destination in Port Elizabeth, our group of 5 had finally rounded up all of our luggage and rifle cases. A black African woman, who was very nicely dressed BTW, came up to us and asked if we were musicians....we all looked at her kinda strangely and she pointed to our long gun cases and asked if they were keyboards. GregR, who was our RamRod of this trip (Thank GOD!!!....but that's another story!), politely told her that we were on safari and those were our rifles.....she raised an eyebrow at us all and in a stern, questioning, tone asked "canned lion hunting???". We all kinda chuckled and told her 'of course not'. and left it at that.

Apparently the issue of canned lion hunting is rather hot there right now.

Just an interesting observance