https://www.dailymaverick.co.z...-xanda/#.WfhsLmhSzIV



Op-Ed: Did Oxford University researchers sanction hunting of Cecil the lion and his son, Xanda?


DON PINNOCK AFRICA 31 OCT 2017 12:54 (SOUTH AFRICA)

When thousands of people donated nearly R20-million to the Oxford University Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU) after the killing of Cecil the Lion in Zimbabwe, their assumption was that they were helping to protect Hwange lions. They were mistaken and this is why, writes DON PINNOCK.

When the much-loved Zimbabwean lion named Cecil was killed by a crossbow hunter, it was a crisis for a pride of lions in Hwange National Park and a public relations bonanza for lion conservation.

News of the hunt by American dentist Walter Palmer was released by the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU), an Oxford University team monitoring him by satellite collar. It ignited a massive global outcry against trophy hunting and Palmer was forced into hiding. Facebook pictures of him bare chested and hugging a dead leopard stoked the fire.



The US talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel issued a tearful appeal to support WildCRU’s conservation and the organisation could barely cope with the resulting flood of requests for interviews and information which followed.

The money flowed in. Within 24 hours of the broadcast, 2 600 people had donated more than $150 000. A month later it was $360 000 and it soon climbed above a million dollars in donations to Cecil’s memory and lion protection.

A Texas artist printed a sketch of Cecil on tote bags and donated the proceedings of their sale. A Chicago toy maker created a cute Cecil ‘beanie baby’ and sent the profits to WildCRU. American philanthropist Thomas Kaplan matched donations up to $100 000.

The expectation was that WildCRU would use the money to protect lions in the park and prevent any future such killings. With the equivalent of nearly R20-million in the bank, it found no fault with this. But were they in a position to comply?

The answer came two years later when Cecil’s son, Xanda, a pride leader with a WildCRU collar, was shot by a professional hunter named Richard Cooke just outside the borders of Hwange near where Cecil died. Cooke, it turned out, had also killed Xanda’s four-year-old brother in 2015.

Xanda was six years old and a father with several young cubs, most of whom would probably have been killed without him to defend them. There was understandable media outrage following the hunt. An international lobby coalition, Tourists Against Trophy Hunting, called for an immediate end to trophy killing in Zimbabwe.

WildCRU’s response was puzzling and, for the thousands of people who donated to the Cecil fund, disappointing. The unit’s research fellow, Dr Andrew Loveridge, said Xanda was “a very, very lovely animal” and it was “sad that anyone wanted to shoot a lion”, but offered no condemnation of the killing.

Richard Cooke, Loveridge said, was one of the “good” guys. “He is very ethical, he doesn’t cut corners. He has always communicated with us when he has hunted an animal and given us the collar back. He’s not one of the fly-by-night guys. His hunt was legal and Xanda was over six years old so it is all within the stipulated regulations.”

Loveridge added that Cooke “has killed several collared lions in the past,” is a responsible operator and had a legal quota for the hunt. In response to a question about the hunt, Loveridge SMSed: “I believe Richard Cooke was aware of this lion being collared. He is always good about liaising with us. We don’t have any special protection in place for collared animals. So no issue on this from our side. We just need the collar back undamaged as has happened in this case.”

In reply to my query, Loveridge said that, given that hunting is the way African countries choose to legitimately manage their wildlife resources, “we should acknowledge those professionals who obey the rules and regulations set out by wildlife management authorities to safeguard wildlife''.

According to a report in The Times, Cooke said he checked with WildCRU before pulling the trigger. If true, that’s as close as it gets to sanctioning the hunt. Given the massive worldwide blow back from the death of Cecil, this response seems extraordinary. But is it?

With around 20 000 wild lions left in Africa, you’d imagine considerable antipathy between hunters and researchers with conservation in their unit’s title. Those donating in Cecil’s name certainly thought so. But on the ground, the distinction is blurred. The signals may seem confusing, but only if you think WildCRU’s role is to protect lions.

Within the field of biological sciences, an outfit like WildCRU is important to Oxford, not for the protection of lions so much as the attraction of postgraduate students and funding. University research units are, among other things, degree factories cautious about research permits.

In that sense, WildCRU’s survival is more important than the life of a trophy lion. Its job is to understand lions, not protect them. You definitely don’t want to fall foul of a foreign government and lose your licence to be there. And when hunters are a powerful lobby, you need their support.

This is one of the reasons why so many research units in Africa “do science” – often very valuable science – but do nothing to to change the situation on the ground. They remain “neutral”.

WildCRU is no exception. For the past 20 years it has been collaring and studying lions in the park. Its research is highly respected and the unit is the source of many scientific papers. Peace Parks Foundation programme manager Paul Bewsher described Dr Andrew Loveridge, as a great researcher whose work in Hwange is “really exciting and extremely insightful”.

WildCRU says all the right things. A study by the Unit’s head, Professor David Macdonald, Loveridge and others found that sport hunters in the safari areas surrounding Hwange killed 72% of tagged adult males from the study area. Over 30% of all males shot were sub-adult.

A later study by Loveridge and others flags concern that if wide ranging wildlife species cannot be protected even by large national parks, then the long-term future of these charismatic species may be bleak.

“The rule of thumb that a six-year-old male lion is post-reproductive and can therefore be hunted,” he told me. “This is in my experience incorrect and I believe this should be acknowledged in hunting policy and recommendations. We’re also recommending that a no-hunting buffer should be implemented around national parks to prevent hunters baiting and shooting park lions that are regularly viewed by tourists.”

But – so puzzling for activists – the objective counterpoint. Twelve months after the controversial killing of Cecil, WildCRU issued a report to the UK government saying lion trophy hunting was “good for conservation”. Hunting, it said, “can contribute to lion conservation … which constitutes a good reason to tolerate it at least on land that might otherwise be lost to the lion estate”.

In support of its position, WildCRU argued that its role was merely “to provide evidence based on research to policy makers and conservationists. For the Hwange project, they engage with anyone who has a lawful interest in big cat numbers, which includes groups and organisations on both sides of the hunting debate. For that reason, WildCRU itself does not take a position, but simply continues to gather data, analyse it and disseminate the information”. This neutrality is costly. According to reports in the Zimbabwean press, 131 lions collared by WildCRU were shot dead between 2006 and 2015 after they had strayed out of Hwange – about 15 a year. Most of these would be large males.

In just 21 years Africa has lost 42% of its wild lions. Following a study in 2012, the National Geographic’s Big Cats Initiative found lions in Zimbabwe to be “in trouble”. Almost 700 lion trophies were legally exported during the decade under review (2001-2012) but the wild population was estimated at 850 (WildCRU estimates it at 1,500).

“This suggests that, at the current rate and if lion numbers don’t increase, which is unlikely, in another decade trophy hunters alone will have wiped out nearly all remaining lions in Zimbabwe.”

According to Earthtouch News, it also seems that Xanda's killing contravened the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority policy. This states that male lions of any age known to be leading prides, or known to be part of a coalition heading prides with dependent cubs of 18 months old or younger, should not be hunted.

Given a continent-wide lion population decline and the expectations of thousands of people who donated money for their protection, is WildCRU’s “even-handed” approach reasonable? I asked Dr Pieter Kat of Lion Aid, who has worked with lions in Botswana and Kenya and met with Loveridge. He didn’t think so.

“If WildCRU are scientists, they should be saying there are far too many male lions being shot in Zimbabwe to be sustainable. But hunters have power – they’re a force WildCRU needs to recognise in terms of their long-term viability in Zim. If hunters turn against them, their tenure on Zim won’t last very long.

“However, though it’s not against the law to shoot a collared lion in Zim, has WildCRU ever gone to the government to ask that collared lions not be shot? I doubt whether they have. Why not?

When I met with WildCRU I asked them: “Is your view of sustainable lion hunting based on the fact that the national park will supply lions to hunters who lure them out onto the hunting areas? If lion hunting is sustainable then the hunting areas should be stuffed with lions.”

But they couldn’t answer because they’d never counted the lions in the hunting concessions. And the hunters wouldn’t allow them to for obvious reasons. The concessions are relying on Hwange lions and they know it.

“WildCRU may claim that lion hunting serves to preserve a biome, but it cannot show that it actually benefits the conservation of the species. No hunting operator collecting income or a government collecting trophy fees ever returns any of that money to lion conservation.”

Hunting companies, he pointed out, are also not under any pressure from their clients to be more conservation oriented and are similarly under no pressure from rent seeking governments to take care of wildlife on their concessions.

“We want to know where that $1.3-million from Cecil went. We don’t see any investment in Hwange lions. These guys are getting huge amounts of money but allowing lions to be shot. Of course they’re protecting their research permit.” 3

So does WildCRU think trophy hunting is good or bad for lions? Its preferred position, it seems, is on the fence. With lions in Africa under terrible threat, history may not judge them well on that. DM

While Don Pinnock is obviously quite skewed against hunting, Oxford University Wildlife Conservation Research Unit is doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing - lion research. They are also intelligent enough to recognize the importance of sustainable hunting practices and the benefits it provides for research and conservation. While they received a windfall from the Cecil debacle, they did not bow to the pressure of the anti-hunters and for that they should be commended.

quote:

Loveridge said that, given that hunting is the way African countries choose to legitimately manage their wildlife resources, “we should acknowledge those professionals who obey the rules and regulations set out by wildlife management authorities to safeguard wildlife''.

Nuff said.

Lions need space and suitable habitat, so do cattle , people and agriculture. In Africa habitat and range protection is the greatest challenge, not the protection of individual species. Secure the range and protect the habitat and the wildlife will flourish.

Ethical and responsible hunting is a great tool in this regard. Unfortunately the anti-hunters dont get it. Would they prefer to see Matetsi going back to cattle ranches?

The monetary donations made post the Cecil saga are a drop in the ocean compared to what sustainable hunting has contributed to range and habitat preservation in Zimbabwe over the past few years

Activists aren't scientists, QED. Scientists collect data, activists collect donations, so with guys like IFAW's Downes paying himself a grand a day maybe activists shouldn't cry too much about Oxford.

I encountered the following post on Zimbabwe National Parks & Game Reserve's Facebook site. The post was authored by Bryan Orford, one of the site administrators and a licensed guide in Zimbabwe.

When it comes to wildlife conservation in Southern Africa, Bryan's posts are very informative, well written, and "fair and balanced".

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Zimbabwe National Parks & Game Reserves Facebook (10/31/2017):

JIMMY KIMMEL & LION RESEARCH

When Cecil the Lion was killed anything Cecil started to go viral on social media. Yu tube, Facebook etc and this took everyone by surprise. The Cecil story became a world media sensation for a variety of reasons and will still continue to be the subject of discussion and emotion for years to come. As the story was starting to get big, American comedian Jimmy Kimmel took advantage and made it even bigger. He made a statement using one of my video clips and ended up raising US$150,000 which it was claimed was going to Lion conservation. I presume it went to Lion Research. He however never asked me to use my yu tube clip and I was in a battle at the time to get people to stop using my clips for various anti hunting causes, or just for weird media stories. In many cases they took credits themselves for the clips, or were trying to make money from them. As Kimmel was using the clip in a mocking way and was using the wrong credits I blocked it via yu tube. He was forced to then use the same story but he had to remove my Cecil footage and replace it with someone else’s. I got threatened for this. However much as I disagree with the dentist’s activities I also disagreed with the ‘human trophy hunting’. The trophies or victims are hunted, and stuck on the wall of mockery, derision and public disgrace.

Now the question comes of where did the money go, did it all go to lion research? Of the money that did get to lion research how much is used for conservation? I think one of the biggest problems with the Cecil the Lion story is the media myths, the public ignorance, the deceptions used by certain persons, and these actually just helped feed the story. One of these myths was that Lion Research were lion conservationists and that was their main cause in life. This was never the case. Lion Researchers in Hwange and elsewhere are researchers who observe lions and study everything they can about them in the environments they live. They do get emotionally attached to what they research, but rarely get involved in the human politics as they need to be observers. If they start trying to change things too much it can mess up the research and even cause them to fall foul of the authorities. Like other scientists around the world researchers in Africa can be swayed by money. A good example is scientists who do not agree with human caused global climate change, but go along with it anyway otherwise they get no funding. In the case of wildlife research there may be cases where sport hunting organisations like SCI could try and influence wildlife researchers to support sport hunting by making financial donations. In this cases it might be a case of job or no job. The Hwange lion researchers though were always pretty much observers, swayed little by others and cared about lions. Their research provided valuable information and it showed that there was too much lion hunting near Hwange NP. So Zimparks reduced the hunting and the permits, and so the Cecil hunt was then illegal as there was no permit. The Lion researchers however were never part of any anti-hunting group, and were not a lion conservation group. When the Cecil story caused an outflow of emotion, people looked for a place to donate money and the researchers seemed to be the people to support and turn into heroes. So the public were deceived partly through their own ignorance, and the Lion researchers surfed the wave as best they could while it was there. I believe though that the money they got will be spent on Lion research and this will ultimately benefit lions. If the money had been sent to an American lion charity I am sure very little would have gone to lions and the beneficiaries would be living the high life now. Some of the areas where Lion researchers work are in sport hunting areas, so it does not make sense to antagonize the sport hunters. There are areas like Bubye in Zimbabwe that have lions and lion research takes place. This is a sport hunting area and certainly the lions do better there under hunting than if the area was a cattle ranch. However as it is a photogenic and prime wildlife area, it could easily still run as a photographic area much like Malilangwe, or be the next Sabi Sands, and likely make even more money. And we also know that Zimparks has run less attractive National park areas with less wildlife for generations and there was no need for sport hunting. In the short term the Lion researchers are likely to mention that this area is better under hunting than cattle for obvious reasons.

So give the Lion research people the support they need, but remember they are not a cause or a charity and their research has long term value for lions and other animals.
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The confusion seems to be between the concepts of "research" and "conservation". They are two mutually exclusive things. True researchers are not there to protect wildlife, they are there to study wildlife. Wildlife protection/conservation generally does not engage in heavy lifting when it comes to research. Their mission is to protect and maintain a healthy habitat, protect species diversity, and control population densities through culling and sustainable hunting practices.

So it is pretty silly to give WildCRU a fist full of bucks and expect them to engage in wildlife conservation when they're a wildlife research organization - says so right on their website.