The CITES report on the Periodic Review of the listing of the African lion has just been released. Anyone with a couple of spare hours on their hands can read the whole report here:

http://cites.org/sites/default.../E-AC27-24-03-03.pdf


This is basically good news as it recommends that the lion remains on CITES Appendix II where no import permits are required. At the end of the month the report will be presented to the CITES Animals Committee where no doubt the anti-hunters will be fuming and out in full force. An interesting point to note is that Namibia and Kenya were tasked with putting this report together.

The USFWS will be releasing their findings on whether the lion should be listed as endangered on the US endangered species list on April 11 (hopefully the date is not moved forward again). I have a feeling that they were waiting for this CITES document to come out before presenting their own. Let's hold thumbs!!

Below is a basic summary of the CITES document:

The species meets criterion B of Annex 2a of Resolution Conf. 9.24 (Rev. CoP15) for inclusion in Appendix II. That is, it is known, or can be inferred or projected, that regulation of trade in the species is required to ensure that the harvest of specimens from the wild is not reducing the wild population to a level at which its survival might be threatened by continued harvesting or other influences.
* The species has not experienced a marked recent rate of decline of 50% or more in the last 10 years or three generations. There exists adequate science-based information to make this conclusion.
* There is not adequate science-based information to conclude a historical extent of decline in the continental population.
* The habitat and populations of the species located in East and Southern Africa are generally stable or increasing. It is estimated that 24,000 lions, or approximately 70% of the continental population, live in strongholds in East and Southern Africa with 40-50% of the total population living in Tanzania. Strongholds are areas where the habitat of the species is well protected by national laws and lion populations are secure.
* There have been significant declines in the lion populations in Central and West Africa in recent years due primarily to habitat loss and human-lion conflict.
* The leading major threats across lion range are recognized by each lion range state to be habitat loss and retaliatory killing, and not international trade.

Thx for sharing

Thanks for the update.

Good stuff.

Good news so far , lets see what USFWS have to say.

Let's all try to think positive. US,F&W will surely do the right thing.

Mark

Let's all try to think positive. US,F&W will surely do the right thing.

As they always do !

After all, they are cats and breed like cats so what's to debate?

quote:

Originally posted by MARK H. YOUNG:
Let's all try to think positive. US,F&W will surely do the right thing.

Mark

It should be noted Mark posted this BEFORE the stated ban on Ele imports from Zim and Tanzania.

After the elephant debacle, wonder what they have up their sleeve
Nothing surprises me any more under this administration.

Dems/commies

Repubs/kapitalists

Take your pick, because there is no grey areas anymore. After all it is a mid term election year.

HI ZIG

Thanks that some pleasent news to start the week after the ele saga! Cheers Buzz

Hi Buzz,

Thanks, I actually posted this before the elephant saga exploded, now I am not so sure that the USFWS will rule favorably and if they do they may still place a "temporary" ban on the importation of lion trophies.

The problem is that both issues are purely political and beyond the control of the people that will be effected the most.

quote:

Let's all try to think positive. US,F&W will surely do the right thing.

Mark, not accusing you or anything, but anyone who believes that really has to stop smoking that stuff.

Folks,

I would have thought after as many years as I've been on AR that more folks would have recognized my post as dripping with sarcasm. I have nothing good to say about USFWS nor do I expect them to do anything that is good for wildlife, EVER!!!!!!!!!

Mark

Just heard that FWS have pushed the date out to the week of April 27th.

Any news?

Good hunting
CF

I have just heard that it has been pushed back yet again to the week of May 18th.

The 27th meeting of the Animals Committee is presently taking place in Veracruz Mexico. On the agenda is issue of lion being correctly placed on CITES Appendix II. Namibia has submitted further evidence as to why it is correctly placed and the document can be found here:

http://www.cites.org/sites/def...27/E-AC27-Inf-15.pdf

A basic summary: Namibia has produced this Information Document to provide the CITES Parties with additional rationale relevant to the conclusions reached in the completion of the Periodic Review of Panthera leo. This document presents a detailed analysis of the application of the CITES Listing Criteria (Resolution Conf. 9.24) to the data presented in AC27 Doc. 24.3.3. Both that document and this paper reach the same conclusion – Panthera leo is appropriately listed in Appendix II

Namibia notes that lion are doing best in areas where they are hunted!!

Lets hope that USFWS is taking note of the proceedings there and that this is the reason for their delay in releasing their finding on the listing of lion on the US endangered species list.

Is it too much to hope for commonsense to prevail?

quote:

Is it too much to hope for commonsense to prevail?

probably

Thanks for sharing this important (and good) news!

http://www.iol.co.za/scitech/s...1681774#.U2EDnvldU1J


Huge decline in big cat numbers

April 30 2014 at 09:10am
By Tony Carnie



Durban - There are about 30 000 lions left in Africa, confined to ever-smaller living spaces as the human populations and expanding farmlands erode the territory once occupied by the king of the beasts.

Across the continent, lion numbers are thought to have crashed by at least 30 percent in the past two decades, leaving Tanzania with the largest remaining population of wild lions.

These are some of the conclusions of the latest status review report on African lions, which is to be presented in Mexico at a meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

The report says lions are extinct in north Africa. They are disappearing fast from west and central Africa, and east and southern Africa are the last strongholds. Throughout Africa, there are only 15 game reserves or national park areas that have more than 500 lions and only nine countries which each have populations of at least 1 000 lions.

Prepared by Dr Samuel Kasiki, deputy director of the Kenya Wildlife Service, and Elly Hamunyela, the deputy director of Namibia’s Natural Resources Department, the report said it was difficult to estimate accurately the number of free-ranging lions. But based on the best available data, the population of wild African lions was thought to be somewhere between 23 000 and 39 000.

The most recent surveys suggest there could be as few as 400 lions left in west Africa, of which only 250 were breeding age adults.

In central Africa, the number was thought be somewhere between 1 000 and 2 850.

East Africa was thought to have between 11 000 and 16 000 lions, while the southern African population was between 10 000 and 20 000.

South Africa was thought to have about 2 800 free-ranging lions – most of them in the Kruger National Park – and up to 3 500 captive lions.

Kasiki and Hamunyela report that between 680 and 1 000 lions, most of them captive-bred, were killed in South Africa by trophy-hunters in 2008 alone. Up to 2 000 wild lions had been shot by trophy hunters in Tanzania in the 10 years ending in 2008.

About 870 lions were shot for trophies in Zimbabwe and at least 168 in Namibia over the same period.

Nevertheless, the writers conclude that the loss of habitat and retaliatory killing from human-lion conflict are the major threats to Africa’s lions – not legal trophy-hunting or trade in lion parts.

For example, hunting has been banned in Kenya since 1977, but the report estimates 95 percent of all adult lion deaths are due to retaliation killing by livestock keepers and the increase in the bush meat trade, which has reduced the number of prey available to lions.

It is noted that between 1970 and 2000, there was a 25 percent increase in the amount of land allocated to agriculture.

“The growing human (population) also resulted in an increase in the consumption of bush meat and subsequent decline in prey availability.”

Kasiki and Hamunyela caution, however, that trophy hunting remained a potential threat to wild lions and “the high demand for lion trophies has caused offtakes to be too high in most countries”.

Trophy-hunting also had indirect effects as hunters deliberately targeted adult males. When adult males were shot, other males would take over the pride, killing up to 27 percent of the cubs sired by the pride’s previous males.

l A Cites report on cheetahs by Kristin Nowell suggests there are now only 6 200 wild cheetahs in southern Africa, 2 500 in East Africa and 450 in north, west and central Africa.

There are about 1 600 captive cheetahs in zoos and breeding centres globally, most descended from Namibian wild cheetahs. In the last decade, South Africa had become the world’s biggest exporter of “captive-bred” cheetahs.

The Mercury

quote:

Originally posted by Zig Mackintosh:
I have just heard that it has been pushed back yet again to the week of May 18th.

Any news Zig?

Good Hunting
CF

they have pushed back to June 14 now...