Lies about lion hunting; What are ethical hunters - and specifically PHASA doing?

I do not which this to be confused by posting as a question in an anti-hunting thread "EU import ban on allwild lion trophies from South Africa" posted by jolouburn.

In a previous similar thread the very same jolouburn accused the hunting farternity of "hiding it's head in the sand." I'm not doing that! There is something drastically wron, and we as hunters needs to do something about it!

How easy or difficult is it to get the full truth about the false information provided to result in totally ridiculous number of “wild” lions hunted in South Africa? Given the CITES figures quoted by jolouburn there is most definitely “something wrong”! Who is responsible for the falsely ticking the wrong block and so suggesting that the lion was “wild”? Who fills in the actual form quoted in the CITES data? I’m quite sure that besides the data on the status of lion as one of “wild”, “captive” or “ranched” the actual name of the hunting outfitting company, the actual name of the hunter, the area or province in which the lion was shot are also all easily available.

Does anyone know who exactly is responsible for ticking the selection box when filling in the CITES form? I’m of the opinion that CITES does not deal with individual hunting outfitters, but that may be wrong. I think CITES only deals with the Nature Conservation authorities. The first question remains: Who ticks the box? The lion shooter or client? The hunting outfitter offering the captive bred and released lion shoot? The Provincial Nature Conservation Official under whose scrutiny the hunt takes place? Someone at CITES? Somehow some person(s) are repeatedly and often giving totally false information that is eventually incorporated into the CITES database. Who?

Once we know who actually fills in the form and ticks the inappropriate box, we should then as the next question: Who is responsible overall for the accuracy of the information provided in the form? CITES keeps the figures on their database for anyone with a fast enough Internet to access. But do they actually believe these figures? I certainly do not believe the numbers? If CITES does not believe the numbers, what the F do they do about it? Who should do something about finding the actual party guilty of ticking the inappropriate box? The anti-hunting brigade is quoting those obviously wrong figures to gain the “successes” as claimed by jolouburn in this thread. What are we as hunters doing to correct the situation? I feel compelled to at least make this posting to say that we (generic) as hunters should do something to bring the actual guilty parties to the public attention.

The anti-lion hunter jolouburn has claimed that she has provided replies to all our questions and requests for research. Now I’d like to ask her or anyone else: Can the names of the hunting outfitters involved in all the “wild” lion export data for even a single year be given? [My own Internet connection is so slow that I have not yet, despite a few attempts, been able to get the “wild” lion statistics from the CITES database. I simply cannot do it myself due to a very slow Internet connection speed.] I would like to pass that list on to PHASA so that they can say which of their members have acted in contravention of the PHASA Code of Ethics, which specifically requires honesty and not misleading as essential. Naturally a few, [IMHO a very few at most] of the "wild lion" were really wild, and the list will therefore include both guilty and non guilty hunting outfitters. But let us cross that bridge once we have the list.

I for one most certainly make a “gut feel statement” that: There is absolutely no way that the numbers of “wild” lion hunted in the years as follow can be true: 2006 – 284; 2007 – 414; 2008 – 455; 2009 – 374. So I say that someone or a number of people are liars and spreaders of false information. Maybe it is something to investigate to see exactly who is responsible. Once the culprits are known – maybe not fully identified and proven guilty, but at least the list of hunting outfitters who claim by ticking the appropriate “wild” tick-box their clients have hunted wild lions – then such a list can be passed to PHASA.

The question here is: Who are all the hunting outfitters involved in the hunting of “wild” lion as listed in the CITES database in any one year?

In good hunting.

Andrew McLaren