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Ian Michler • 10 May 2018
Like the fossil fuel industry, trophy hunting is unsustainable

Trophy hunting is like the fossil fuel industry. They’re both messy, unsustainable, in need of an alternative approach and, ultimately, fail to deliver on their promises.

Trophy hunting is a colonial construct with an anachronistic view on the environment. While it has served certain interests, its failures to effectively deliver on wider conservation promises and its negative impacts outweigh any benefits it accrues. It’s time to search for more effective and sustainable alternatives.

Despite being entrenched in conservation programmes, doubts around trophy hunting started a long time back. Some argue that distaste for sport killing began when Theodore Roosevelt returned from East Africa in 1909 with his hunting bag of over 500 trophies, including 17 lions, 11 elephants and 20 rhino.



Back then, indiscriminate hunting had already placed many of the continent’s charismatic species under threat. Today, and with many of these same species still facing the same plight, the question now is whether trophy hunting has any role to play in securing their future in protected areas across the continent.

And the challenge comes against the backdrop of an industry that is increasingly defined by poor regulation, perverse practices, corruption and a lack of transparency, and has its participants, the wealthy collectors of animal heads and horns, going after a dwindling gene pool that everyone else is trying to secure. And this is not to mention what may in the end be one of the most telling factors; data in the USA and other countries showing a decrease in the number of young hunters, along with increasing opposition to hunting from the general populace.

Few have been as forthright in their questioning as Dan Ashe, a former Director of the US Fish & Wildlife Service. “The argument that we need to hunt endangered animals, to conserve them, is old and tired,” he said earlier this year. Ashe went on to highlight a fundamental issue of concern: if hunting of endangered species is not permitted as a conservation option in the USA, why should it be promoted as such across Africa? “If elephants were native to the US they would not be hunted. And neither would lions, rhinos, or leopards,” he pointed out.

His sentiments are shared by a growing number involved in conservation. Among them is Dereck Joubert, a renowned wildlife film-maker and CEO of the Big Cat Initiative who says that “the case for hunting gets thinner every time it’s tested”.

Typically, the wildlife research community have tended to avoid the arguments that swirl around trophy hunting, sticking instead to their specific scientific endeavours. However, whatever support they give, mostly comes with strongly worded caveats that hunting must be ‘well-regulated’, ‘transparent’ and make definitive ‘contributions’ to protection.

These are hardly ringing endorsements, but they defer to the thinking that in a vacuum of alternative solutions to replace trophy hunting as a land-use option for conservation, they have little choice but to accept or tolerate it.

Some however are beginning to speak out. Dr Andrew Loveridge is well-known for his long-standing research of lions in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe, which included Cecil who was killed by the infamous Minnesotan dentist, Walter Palmer. In his recently released book, Lion Hearted, Dr Loveridge, while not dissing hunting entirely, puts it rather bluntly. “In reality, hunting greatly undervalues African wildlife. That is not to say that people do not become rich through hunting. They do. But little of the financial gain filters down to covering costs of conserving wildlife.”

And research in Zambia, Zimbabwe and Tanzania by leading carnivore experts have fingered unsustainable trophy hunting as a primary reason for declining predator populations.

There are also questions being asked of researchers funded by the likes of organizations such as Safari Club International (SCI) who more than any other outcome, want the hunting arenas kept open. In a report published in the USA by the US Congress Committee on Natural Resources (June 13th, 2016), the authors warn about the pitfalls of soliciting information and data from hunting organizations. “Indeed, a recent assessment of lion population status across Africa found no scientific merit in any of the SCI-funded “surveys” that had been conducted in various range states.” In the Summary, the report concludes that while in some areas hunting is managed well, “Even in countries with better execution of wildlife conservation plans, significant questions remain about whether or not trophy hunting is sustainable.”

And the position of governments is also beginning to shift. We still see institutional backing in certain quarters, the European Union and some African countries for example, but the fact that countries such as the USA, France, Netherlands and Australia have begun to scrutinize the efficacy of legislation and procedures for specific African countries, and the impacts of hunting on certain species is a significant change.

There has also been a shift in Africa. Botswana stopped all trophy hunting in 2013, and more recently the Tanzanian government has begun to question the role and impacts of its trophy hunting industry. And in South Africa, tourism coalition groups from around the world have mobilised against trophy hunting in some of the private reserves bordering the Kruger National Park.

In essence, the nub of the debate boils down to hunters needing to justify their sport. And they do this by proffering that the best way to protect species in Africa is to kill them. In the process, they claim hunting deals with poaching in protected areas, and that money trickles down to protect species and habitat as well as uplifting rural communities.

Photographic tourism is a far more effective and sustainable way of achieving all these objectives, and it happens without the collateral damage that comes with killing the gene pool. This stance by no means suggests that every component of the so-called non-consumptive tourism sector is in good order. Far from it, as we only need to look at the madness during the Great Migration crossings in the Masai Mara, the over-crowding at predator sightings in other parks and reserves, and the cruelty of the cub-petting sectors as examples to see that.

However, in the longer term, trophy hunting may well be inconsistent with what conservationists are trying to achieve. Driven by the passionate demands of those involved in the killing, the activity is defined through the constant search for the best trophies. Because of this, the hunting lobby will always promote their own interests over and above the long-term interests of the species and its habitat.

Part of the problem is that conservation of protected areas gets defined through a two-option lens promoting the notion that if certain regions don’t have trophy hunting, they are then doomed to be lost forever. We should no longer be obstructed by this narrow logic; as sure as wind and solar have proved to be viable and sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels, there are other options to protecting habitat and species. We have just not put our minds to it yet.

In the end, using trophy hunting as an indicator of conservation success is a mismeasurement of what we are trying to achieve. It’s much like using growth domestic product (GDP) as an indicator of human well-being across the planet. Both are crude and short-sighted tools that tell a fraction of the story while concealing the damage.

We all agree that Africa is in urgent need of greater funding at various levels, and in the face of declining populations and biodiversity, better ways of caring for the environment. As was eventually the case with fossil fuels, if undertaken as a collaborative process by the wider conservation, scientific, ecotourism, governmental and donor communities, alternatives to trophy hunting can be found.

And we should not expect immediate changes or results. Transitions are a process requiring significant adaptive challenges by all stakeholders and at various levels. DM

Bullshit!

Someone forgot about Kenya.

The only game left is in the few National Parks where poaching is rife as the game that once populated the open areas are long gone!

Someone also forgot about the North American model of sustainable utilization. This is a clear example of seeing Africa as a whole and not its individual, complicated parts.

As soon as the article mentioned Joubert's name I stopped reading. That jackass as done more harm to Botswana's wildlife than all the poaching combined.

Mark

...this guy must be a blood relative of Nancy Pelosi

quote:

Originally posted by Todd Williams:
Bullshit!

Need we say more?

Things that have much value in their presence and potential sale to hunters on the land--will be protected by the inhabitants of the land. If there is simply as much or more value in the inhabitants killing and selling the beasts themselves, then the quick dollar will win out.

Mark: I stopped reading the bullshit when former USFWS director Dan Ashe"hole"'s name came up! Now, can you all see what we were up against during his years as head of the USFWS? He was a true enemy to all hunters, but especially African hunters. The lion and elephant bans were his doing. True colors shown again.

quote:

Originally posted by Todd Williams:
Bullshit!

Exactly!

But, what do we expect from the antis?

Where to start?

1. What"wider conservation promises"? Hunting pays for most of the boots-on-the-ground and practical anti-poaching throughout Africa.
2. It's really convenient to "forget" to mention that the Roosevelt safari was a collecting expedition for the Smithsonian when that wouldn't fit one's agenda.
3. Any "poor regulation" has far less to do with the industry than it does with corrupt African governments, many of whom are hand in hand with the big trafficking cartels.
4. Dan Ashe is (a) a political beast, and (b) has a disturbing desire to be the world's moral compass and world's policeman.
5. Andrew Loveridge guided Oxford to raking in over $1m in donations using Cecil, and he's now angling for book sales and royalties. It's about cash flow.
6. The part about the cool kids "scrutinising legislation" is a little unclear; if it's their own legislation, so be it, but if its the legislation of a number of other sovereign states in Africa, that is cause for real concern.
7. Kenya, Botswana, Tazania. One thing they all have in common is being on the payroll of the big ARAs. In Kenya poaching is out of control and in Botswana it's escalating.
8. Not all game areas are suitable for photographic tourism, photo safaris leave a much larger carbon footprint than hunting safaris, and I don't know of any photo operations that do the kind of anti-poaching work the hunting fraternity does.
9. And Ian, never, ever say "we all agree", because we don't. Africa is one of the richest continents on the planet, so why is it "in need of greater funding"? It isn't. But he who has the money makes the rules. Funding, perhaps, from ARAs and like-minded governments? Is that where the "need" comes in?

Mister Ashe, what endangered animals in USA?
Polar bears? Shit load of them
Whales? Shit load of them
Grizzlies? Shit load of them
Walrus? Shit load of them

And without hunters dollars, who would manage?

These people need to be endangered

The problem is, as I see it, is that for every one of us that knows this is BS there are 10,000 who accept it as fact. No matter where the truth lies, we are fighting a battle we can't win.
Cal

Photographic tourism is a threat to wildlife.

Bullshit is right! Joubert...sacks money from selling BS stories. Meanwhile in the real world: Trophy photo of a hunter posing with a Lion: 100,000 mental midgets go insane, TV interviews, magazine/newspaper articles smear the hunter. Double the number go on the Internet to attack the hunter, his family, the gun maker and any company that makes his hunting boots and clothes.

Then the photo safari crowds gasps in horror as a fool leaves his vehicle to get those "great close ups of the Lion pride" and is attacked and eaten alive in front of their eyes. Their reaction: continue to video tape the event in hopes to sell to the rag magazines and TV shows.

Anybody THAT STUPID has got to be a DEMOCRAT

I love the title, I make a living on fossil fueled power plants.

Here in California where we are gradually shifting over to renewable power we can't live without fossil fueled power. During the solar eclipse last summer they had to light off almost every gas powered plant in the state to make up for the solar loss. Last month we had cool weather and overcast over much of the State and most of the gas plants were dispatched.

We operate a naptha powered 80 megawatt plant on the big island of Hawaii, which was 40% of the power grid on the island. Three years ago the State told us that they were going to install 80 MWs of renewable power plants and stop running our plant. They installed just under 100 MWs of solar and wind renewable plants and still dispatch our plant at about 60% because they cannot control the grid because of the voltage fluctuations inherent to renewable power.

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Peter Flack • 15 May 2018

Hunting facts versus animal rights fiction

Africa needs more legal, fair chase hunting of wildlife in its natural environments on a sustainable basis, not less, if the conservation of wildlife habitat and wildlife is to have any chance of success. The proven, long-term South African and Namibian conservation successes show beyond a shadow of doubt that this is the case.

I carefully read Ian Michler’s Opinionista piece entitled Like the fossil fuel industry, trophy hunting is unsustainable. Like almost all his writings on this important topic, it is all but devoid of relevant facts and, more importantly, a practical, tried and tested, successful alternative to fair chase hunting as a key conservation tool.

It is full of his usual half-truths, emotion, snide innuendo and plain nastiness. These tired views of his have been debunked by Dr John Hanks, a previous CEO of WWF-Southern Africa and the Peace Parks Foundation as well as Dr John Ledger, a previous CEO of the Endangered Wildlife Trust but it does not prevent him repeating them ad nauseam.

Let me nail my colours to the mast. I am passionate about wildlife and wildlife habitats. I support whatever conserves them and oppose whatever does not. I have spent the better part of my 70 year old life and not insignificant amounts of my own money, trying to do just that. While I used to be a hunter and, for 20 years, was a commercial game ranch owner, I no longer hunt for a variety of reasons, which need not detain us now.

Allow me to provide a few empirically determined, scientifically established facts, which give the lie to Mr Michler’s piece:

1 In 1964 a game survey was conducted in South Africa, as referred to in the book, Wilding the Farm or Farming the Wild by Professor Jane Carruthers. The survey found that a mere 557,000 head of game was left in the country. When the survey was repeated in 2005, this number had grown to 18,7 million. How? Why? The answer is hunting as I will explain.

2 By the 1960s, the blue buck and quagga were already extinct and four other species were following hot on their heels, namely, black wildebeest, bontebok, Cape mountain zebra and white rhinoceros. None of these species amounted to more than 50 in number. Today, all have recovered and those that have been hunted most assiduously have recovered best. How have these species recovered and why? The answer again is hunting.

3 In the 1960s there were three game ranches in South Africa. Today, there are over 9,000 providing some 21-million hectares of wildlife habitat for wildlife – whether these are huntable species or not, including birds, insects, rodents, reptiles and small predators – amounting to more than three times all the land covered by national parks and provincial reserves put together and it has not cost the government a single cent to establish, manage or maintain. How did this happen and why? Again, the answer is hunting.

4 When hunting was banned in Kenya in 1977 and temporarily closed in Uganda and Tanzania a little later, the demand moved south and, suddenly, the game which farmers had previously eradicated because it competed with their domestic livestock for food and water and was thought to spread disease, became more valuable than their sheep, goats and cattle given the money paid by hunters to hunt them. These selfsame farmers began to set aside land for wildlife because it generated a better income than their traditional farming and so began the quiet South African conservation revolution, which spread across the country to the benefit of all – people, wildlife habitat, wildlife and food security.

5 Conversely, in Kenya the reverse took place. In a report published in late 2016 by seven Kenyan scientists, they stated that since hunting was abolished there in 1977:

“Here, we report extreme declines in wildlife and contemporaneous increase in livestock numbers in Kenya rangelands between 1977 and 2016. Our analysis uses systematic aerial monitoring survey data collected in rangelands that collectively cover 88% of Kenya’s land surface. Our results show that wildlife numbers declined on average by 68% between 1977 and 2016. The magnitude of decline varied among species but was most extreme (72±88%) and now severely threatens the population viability and persistence of warthog, lesser kudu, Thomson’s gazelle, eland, oryx, topi, hartebeest, impala, Grevy’s zebra and waterbuck in Kenya’s rangelands. The declines were widespread and occurred in most of the 21 rangeland counties. Likewise to wildlife, cattle numbers decreased (25.2%) but numbers of sheep and goats (76.3%), camels (13.1%) and donkeys (6.7%) evidently increased in the same period. As a result, livestock biomass was 8.1 times greater than that of wildlife in 2011±2013 compared to 3.5 times in 1977±1980.”

6 According to these scientists, the solution was: “We suggest… restoring rangeland health, most notably through strengthening and investing in community and private wildlife conservancies (in other words, game ranches and hunting)* in the rangelands.

* The writer’s parentheses.

7 The latest statistics published by the Department of the Environment late last year showed that 6,539 overseas hunters visited the country in 2016 and spent R1.27-billion on daily rates and trophy fees or an average of R215,000 per hunter. This amounts to over R140,000 per game ranch and this does not include additional amounts spent on things such as air fares, car hire, hotels, gratuities, taxidermy, gifts and sightseeing before and after the hunts, which would probably double the total spend.

8 Free State University calculates that there are some 300,000 domestic hunters, most of whom are meat hunters. They spend, on average, R34,000 each per annum on hunting and hunting related items or another R10.02-billion.

9 According to Wildlife Ranching of South Africa, game ranches provide over 100 000 jobs, which are more plentiful, better paid and more skilled than the domestic livestock jobs they, for the most part, replaced.

10 It is hunters who have, directly and indirectly, funded these conservation and economic gains from which our country has and is benefiting.

11 It is a conservation model that has manifestly worked and is still working. It is tried and tested and the benefits are there for all to see, including the main beneficiaries, the wildlife habitat and wildlife we all care so much about.

12 Despite all the hundreds of millions of dollars raised each year by Mr. Michler and his fellow travellers, the HUSUSes, Petas, IFAWS and the hundreds of other anti-hunting/animal rights organisations who do little or nothing other than divert funds from genuine conservation organisations, why is it that they have not bought one hectare of wildlife habitat, not one animal about to be hunted in Africa, to practice what they preach, to show how this utopia, this fossil free environment will work in practice? Is it because there is no money left after their overseas seagull trips – you know the ones where they swoop in, crap on the heads of the workers and swoop out again immediately afterwards – their worldwide PR and advertising campaigns to raise yet more money, their extended conferences in glamorous destinations and their self-congratulatory, strident, emotional propaganda efforts for their untried and untested programmes?

13 In fact, Mr Michler by his own admission states that he and his fellow travellers have no idea what to do. He writes: “It’s time to search for more effective and sustainable alternatives.” He has been beating this same drum for years and years and years. How much longer does he need to search before he realises the answer is right before him? And while he is fossicking around raising ever more money for his search while effectively doing nothing more than grand standing and spreading his politically correct propaganda, what are the hands-on conservationists amongst us meant to do? Ban hunting, the foundation on which the only proven, long term conservation successes on this continent have been built? Wait for him to come up with some untried and untested experiment? Really?

14 Admittedly, wildlife habitats and wildlife are under huge threat in Africa as a whole because of, as the Kenyan scientists themselves have identified, population increases, habitat destruction, commercial bushmeat poaching – which the Michlers of this world deliberately and inaccurately conflate with and refer to as hunting – poor government policies, planning and management, as well as climate change. It is only in countries like South Africa and Namibia with their well-developed hunting communities that wildlife and wildlife habitats are flourishing.

15.1 Two final points to bear in mind; the interior of South Africa consists of the third largest plateau region outside Asia. It is mainly semi-arid and largely unsuited to crops or domestic livestock. It is also neither suited nor attractive to photographic safaris and yet it is where most of South Africa’s game ranches and, ipso fact, hunting is conducted.

15.2 The fastest growing segment of hunters in North America, which has some 13,4-million hunters growing at 3,4% per annum, are young women and urban men in their late 20s and early 30s like Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook CEO, who want to take responsibility for the protein their families eat.

16 In conclusion, Africa needs more legal, fair chase hunting of wildlife in its natural environments on a sustainable basis, not less, if the conservation of wildlife habitat and wildlife is to have any chance of success. The proven, long-term South African and Namibian conservation successes show beyond a shadow of doubt that this is the case. DM

Thank s Kathy
What a well written piece Peter wrote as a rebuttal. Very fact based and full of great information