http://www.bornfree.org.uk/big.cat/bcatnews011.shtml

Maybe this is why Saeed never got to bag one. The latest edition of New Scientist has an article on this subject (page 36) though I can't find a link.

Your comments please gentleman.?

(I'm not an 'anti' BTW.)

People vs. wildlife. In
Africa, AIDS is our only hope.

With increasing population comes reduced habitat, and the result is conflict between wildlife, and humans.
Wildlife looses in such situations.

s

It is sad, if we are the last generation that will be able to experience the trill of hunting the king of beast

If its true it is sad. However I have doubts about these game counts, as they are on a crusade for fund raising. If they said "There is plenty of lions, make a donation" The $$$ would stop. There has to be a crisis real or otherwise to raise $$$. AIDS & malaria will help more than anything else.

lions might be facing the muzzle of MY gun, but at 1000 dollars a day, there's no way they'll be HUNTED out....

just glad that the zim war veterens aren't eating them....

jeffe

Jeffe,
How do we know the Zim "war vets" are not eating the lions? The Born Free site says that "viable populations" (who to believe?) remain only in

RSA (Kruger and game farms only?)
Botswana
Tanzania
Kenya (What Park/Zoo?)

Cat is choice in China, after all, why not Zim?

Mark Sullivan is eating lion meat - but then, he's just on par with the war vets anyhow.

Could anybody find a link to the New Scientist article about lion? I'm really interested.

MUSKWA

Just forgot to mention in my previous post that an excellent source of the status of African Lion is the following publication:

Conservation of the African Lion - Contribution to a status survey
Chardonnet, Ph (ed), 2002
International Foundation for the Conservation of Wildlife (France) and Conservation Force (USA).

You can get this book either from John Jackson III at Conservation Force or from IGF (igf@fondation-igf.fr).

Another good source is the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein (RSA). There you can contact Sarel van der Merwe (Chair IUCN Cat Specialist Group - mwnatura@mweb.co.za) or HO de Waal(deWaalHO@sci.uovs.ac.za), who has developed some excellent system to built a data base for sport hunted lion.

Petri Viljoen (petriv@mweb.co.za)is also involved in developing certain parameters for sustainable lion hunting, inclusive of a computer model.

I have published some articles about these issues in previous issues of African Indaba - which you can get free of charge from gerhard@muskwa.co.za)

Any sport hunter, safari operator and/or professional hunter who is interested in the future of sustainable lion hunting and the conservation of the species should actually cooperate with these projects.

MUSKWA

Hi,
Just one tip here, NEVER trust game counts that cover entire continents...are you telling me there are no "viable populations" in CAR or Cameroun, I guess the lions hunted there must have wandered all the way from Kenya!?!
OK how do these people count lions in areas such huge areas such as Sudan where game counts haven't been undertaken for ages??
I know lions are sensitive to encroachment, but there are far more endangered species in Africa.
Have you guys ever heard a Nat Geo documentary that didn't bemoan the eminent dissapearance of at least 2 species?? I was reading the last Nat Geo mag on Zebras which claimed that 2 of 3 subspecies were endangered?!?!?!?
OK, the situation in Africa is not good at all, but we will have a lot of work ridding the massive continent of it's lions...Thank God

Its not so much what we think/know as what
some beaurocrat in D.C. decides is the "truth"
before declaring them endangered!!

/

ALF

So does this mean that hunting lion is eventually going to end?

Bears will kill and eat other males cubs often, but there seems no shortage of them..

Is this because of habitat loss or???

I'm interested in your opinions.

Gathouse, seems bears tend to be somewhat canablistic by nature concerning cubs. Male cougars have a bad habit of eating young kittens if they find them with mama not around. I have heard that the Alaskan brown bear population increased somewhat after alot of the biggest boars were shot off by hunters which alleviated predation pressure by them on the cubs.

leo-too

The killing of cubs by the new dominant male is a factor of natural selection, the survival of the fittest, passing on dominant genes.

By killing the previous breeding lion's offspring, the lionesses come into heat soon after meaning the new master can breed more quickly and pass on his genes. I believe the average time span at the top of the pride is only often only 12 to 18 months (??) so breeding offspring is an important necessity for the new dominant pride male(s).

I would like to share with all concerned hunters this article, which was published earlier this year in African Indaba:

Safari Hunting of Lion

Lion hunting has come under increasing pressure from animal rights activists, conservationists and even hunters. The real or perceived decline in lion populations in sub-Saharan Africa (former rather inaccurate figures spoke of between 30,000 and 100,000 lions and more recent research puts the population at a probable figure of about 40,000 with a minimum of 29,000 and a maximum of 47,000) is in our opinion not the issue in this instance. Of concern are, however, the obvious deterioration in trophy quality and a noticeable trend to over-hunting male lions in individual populations within the range states.
The future of the enigmatic African lion safaris lies not only in the hands of the professional hunters and outfitters, but also in the responsibility of the visiting tourist hunter and the organizations who represent them. Only closest cooperation with recognized researchers, unbiased evaluation of the facts, and the development of universally binding conservation and utilization strategies will bring about a tolerance of future lion hunting. The economic future of many a safari operator and professional hunter, and indeed the future of complete conservation schemes in Africa will depend on a sensible no-nonsense approach to evaluating existing lion populations for sustainable take-off of trophy specimens as well as on the strict adherence to set quotas.
A number of researchers have dealt with the �lion question�. African Indaba has selected Karyl Whitman and Petri Viljoen�s studies (see source indication at the end of this article), because we believe that both researchers have shown a deep understanding of the issues involved and have started to show the way forward.
African Indaba would like to challenge all safari outfitters and professional hunters, who regularly deal with lion hunting, to evaluate their own situation and to use African Indaba as a conduit to eventually create together with the research community feasible and ecologically sound lion management schemes within the hunting grounds of Africa (Editor).

Safari hunting often occurs in areas considered of marginal value since they are not suitable for other livelihoods, such as farming or photographic tourism (Whitman, 2002). The African lion is highly sought-after by the tourist hunting industry, with trophy sales and daily rates generating significant revenue for the hunting safari industry in several African countries. Lions are therefore usually considered to be a key trophy species in selling hunting safari. Exclusion of lion hunting, like the recent ban in Botswana, usually leads to an unproportionally greater loss of income for conservation authorities as well as hunting operators.
Although environmental conditions typically establish the safari hunting seasons, lions are non-seasonal breeders and highly infanticidal, thereby complicating management strategies (Whitman & Packer, 1997). The effect of selective removal of specific individuals therefore presents a challenge to the management of lion populations. The annual removal of adult male lions may in some situations be advantageous, but in others detrimental to a given population (Whitman & Packer, 1997). For example, the removal of non-resident adult males may reduce male-male competition and therefore result in increased territorial male tenure and cub survival. However, removal of resident (territorial) males may potentially disrupt the social system, leading to increased rates of infanticide, and occupation of territories by immature males with resultant reduced reproduction (Schaller, 1972; Caro & Durant, 1995; Whitman & Packer, 1997). A further risk factor is introduced by a combination of high demand for trophy lion, unsustainable quotas, and an industry plagued by mismanagement (Whitman, 2002), making local lion populations particularly vulnerable to over exploitation.
Given that lion hunting generates considerable revenue for the safari hunting industry, it is important to ensure that quotas are sustainable and that unethical behaviour (at all levels) is curbed. Thus it is important that safari outfitters and professional hunters, as well as client hunters reevaluate their ecological footprint with respect to lion hunting and improve their ability to monitor and evaluate the status of hunted lion populations (Whitman, 2002). Karyl Whitman proposes the following policies to be adopted:
� Lion populations should be surveyed to estimate abundance and demographic composition wherever possible.
� Long-term records of quotas, number of licenses issued, and offtake should be maintained by each country and reported to an international registrar.
� Measurements of lion skull size as well as body size should be recorded for all lion shot.
� A qualitative assessment of mane quality should be applied to trophies shot.
� Trophy age should be assessed by a combination of tooth development and wear, nose pigmentation, mane development, etc.
� Hunters should record locations as accurately as possible of all lion shot using a GPS�with records going to a central database to monitor intensity of use of certain areas.
� Splitting hunting blocks and then arbitrarily doubling or tripling the quota should cease immediately.
� Professional hunters should adhere to higher ethical standards in terms of what is fair chase and in trophy selection.
� Safaris should not be marketed to clients as �sure things,� to relieve professional guides somewhat from pressure at having to deliver a lion, regardless of quality.
� Above all, hunting companies and governments should pursue policies that favor long-term use over short-term gains.
Petri Viljoen (in cooperation with Anthony M Starfield and Karyl Whitman) presented a simulation model for managing free ranging lion populations to the African Lion Working Group in 2002. SimSimba has been designed to explore the effect of various harvesting scenarios on lion populations and their complex structure.
The social structure and behaviour of lions is a crucial part of their population dynamics. The survival rates of an individual depend on the individual�s age, sex and possibly even on its location; in the case of lions, social status, particularly that of males, means everything to their survival and opportunity to reproduce. Therefore, when trying to model the effects of safari hunting, one also needs o know the social status of the individual being removed from the population. It makes a difference whether a hunter shoots a nomadic lion or a partner in a pride coalition. If it is a nomadic lion, the strength of the nomadic coalition will be weakened, the coalition might be less successful in an attempt to dislodge a pride coalition, and so cubs in the pride might have a better chance of survival. If it is a pride lion, the partnership will be weakened, his colleague or colleagues will be more easily displaced, resulting in infanticide.
SimSimba has been designed so that the user can customize the model to any lion population, real or virtual. In three user-friendly pages, users have the capability of adjusting all the input parameters. So for example, users can profile a lion population by adjusting cub mortality directly or indirectly (by altering probabilities of infanticide or cub abandonment). Users can also determine how many prides a population will have, and what the maximum size for each pride may be. Users may also influence male competition in several ways, for example, by adjusting the probability that a pride coalition will occupy two territories, how often nomads can move in a time step, or the probability of a nomadic or pride lion dying in a territorial fight. Overall, SimSimba should accommodate an array of variations in lion behaviour and population dynamics as the user sees fit.
However, this flexibility comes at a price. The model needs to be tested (�tuned-in�, as it were) thoroughly with each set of parameters to ensure that they are plausible. It follows that SimSimba is not a model merely to be picked up and used. Training is required for it to be used sensibly and effectively. Because SimSimba�s design allows for flexibility and incorporates essential aspects of lion social behaviour, it is ideally suited to address a range of questions posed by the user. For example, the potential impact of various scenarios such as the following can be tested on a simulated population:
� Removal of one male every year vs. two males every two years;
� Removal of as many adult males as possible in a given year and then only again after a couple of years;
� Removal of a certain percentage of males across a population every year. This can be varied by including only residents, or only nomads, or at random;
� Removal of all adult males in one territory every year while ignoring other territories;
� A catastrophic event (i.e. 30% mortality), given a certain probability;
� Disease with different effects by using, for example, 10%, 20% and 30% mortality across all age classes, or only cubs.

The text of this article has been taken largely verbatim from the below mentioned research papers of Karyl Whitman and Petri Viljoen. We express our gratitude to both for having reviewed the article and given permission to publish it in African Indaba.
Safari Hunting of Lion: A review of policies, practices and industry concerns, Karyl L. Whitman (2002)
A Simulation Model for Managing Free-ranging Lion Populations, Petri Viljoen, Anthony Starfield, Karyl Whitman (2002)

For details on SimSimba and research details on lion conservation and hunting, please contact Petri Viljoen, petriv@mweb.co.za, phone +27 (0)82 3380896, fax: +27 (0)15 7810205 and Karyl Whitman, phone 1-907-646-7874, whit0371@tc.umn.edu

I am slightly confused by the reference to mane quality when researching harvest figures...does this not depend largely on the geographic area of the hunt?
I believe the maneaters of Tsavo were maneless but extremely large in body size. On the other hand, Ethiopia is supposed to have extremely well-maned lions.
Although the lion populations can be estimated in Southern African countries, I still believe it would be difficult to know how many lions there are in the thick scrub of Central Africa or the Sudan...