The greenies would just love that BUT it would spell disaster for a huge portion of Africa's wild life habitat. Even with just a ban on Lion hunting, one does not need to be a genius to figure out what will happen to all those lion Prides withinh the massive private Conservancys. Who in their right mind would want all those cats eating their income generating stock buffalo and Plains Game if they were on no selling value?

I am far more often disgusted than surprised by international politics these days. But allowing the extradition of a U.S. citizen to Zimbabwe under these dubious circumstances would be a new low.

Not that I am defending the actions of the citizen, mind you. But Zimbabwe? Under Mugabe? Give me a break.

quote:

Originally posted by ozhunter:
The greenies would just love that BUT it would spell disaster for a huge portion of Africa's wild life habitat. Even with just a ban on Lion hunting, one does not need to be a genius to figure out what will happen to all those lion Prides withinh the massive private Conservancys. Who in their right mind would want all those cats eating their income generating stock buffalo and Plains Game if they were on no selling value?

+1

Lions in the good private conservancies will be all shot and culled within a month if lion hunting is banned.

Mike

quote:

Originally posted by ozhunter:
The greenies would just love that BUT it would spell disaster for a huge portion of Africa's wild life habitat. Even with just a ban on Lion hunting, one does not need to be a genius to figure out what will happen to all those lion Prides withinh the massive private Conservancys. Who in their right mind would want all those cats eating their income generating stock buffalo and Plains Game if they were on no selling value?

But there's a flaw to your logic:
The problem is that it makes complete sense to people who have sense, and no sense at all to people who live by emotion.
It is futile to argue with an idiot.

The Bunny Humpers actually want to make Africa, well the world, into a pretty, ecotourist park. The problem is that they haven't and refuse to think things out before jumping up and down and stamping their little green footses. It's interesting to note:

Kenya was supposed to be the flagship of ecotourist, wildlife management. Since all hunting was stopped in 1977, elephant populations have gone from 160,000 to 35,000 animals and total wildlife populations have dropped by 70%. If the studies are accurate and are to be believed. It is speculated that Kenya no longer has a sustainable herd of elephant and its own herds are being replaced by animals moving in from other provinces for untouched grazing from other drought stricken areas as poachers wipe out the resident animals. This is of course all due to global warming and poaching according to government officials and couch potato environmentalists.
None of it has anything to do with a game management system that no longer has any funding or the fact that Kenya no longer has one professional hunter for every 50 square miles with high powered rifles guarding his right to harvest a couple animals every year and ready to turn in or shoot (if he thinks he can get away with it) any person he finds poaching or suspicious. It is also speculated that most of the poachers in fact are not real ivory hunters, just starving people trying to get by or farmers protecting their crops.
I guess we will just have to wait and see if the trend continues when other countries decide to close their doors to hunting.

One has to keep in mind that, as we breed and educate the hunter out of man, we may never be able to begin reproducing that particular animal ever again in the event that he's still needed. I hope they know what they're doing, because outwardly, it doesn't sound like it to me.

http://www.csmonitor.com/.../K...ephants-may-vanish...

http://www.georgewright.org/291omon

quote:

Originally posted by Peter:
Well Lane:

"In 2012, the last year before open enrollment through the ACA began, 45.6 million people nationwide, or 14.8% of Americans did not have health insurance. 24/7 Wall St. estimated that 28.6 million people, or 9.1% of Americans did not have health insurance as of March this year -- a decrease of roughly 17 million people or a drop of 5.7 percentage points. Based on the change in the rate of the uninsured population from 2012 through the first part of this year, the percentage of Kentucky’s population without health insurance declined by 10.4 percentage points, the largest improvement nationwide. Iowa, on the other end of the spectrum, had the most modest improvement, with its uninsured population shrinking by 1.7 percentage points"

"The number of unpaid medical bills is shrinking across the United States thanks to the Obama administration's Affordable Care Act. As more people sign up for private health insurance, and as more states expand Medicaid programs for low-income Americans, hospital companies are reporting lower expenses for charity and uncompensated expenses, a Forbes columnist noted Sunday."

I would call this an improvement, but I'm sure you would not. Could these numbers be better? Yes, I am sure they could if the Republicans had engaged in the debate instead of voting 54 times in the House to repeal it.
You are presumably an intelligent person, so, you know that despite the rhetoric from the right, ACA is here to stay. DONE!
But, I don't think this is a topic for the African Hunting Forum.
Peter

I agree that this is kind of off topic but if you are better off now then you were in 2008 then sadly you were not very well off in 2008.

If everything he did was so wrong and illegal, how did he ever make it out of the country in the first place? I would think he would have never made it to the airport, let alone be allowed on a plane.

They wait over 2 weeks until the media has whipped this whole thing into a frenzy, then decide he's broken the law, and want to extradite him? That's nonsense.

The authorities didn't know until he was gone.

There is more to this than meets the eye. Why do I say this? Well , how about:

1- people well connected to ZANU-PF were arrested.
2- some of the ranches with continuing bans are now occupied by well connected ZANU-PF people.
3- National Parks is not looking to arrest the American nor are the police.

None of this is what one would expect.

I disagree Larry it is what I would expect. See below:

quote:

Originally posted by larryshores:
The authorities didn't know until he was gone.

There is more to this than meets the eye.

Agree with this statement.

Why do I say this? Well , how about:

1- people well connected to ZANU-PF were arrested.

Because...they were not towing the line. Pocketed the money without giving Bob his share. Bob is getting weak...but he ain't gonna stand for that when he finds out.

2- some of the ranches with continuing bans are now occupied by well connected ZANU-PF people.

Hence above explanation.

3- National Parks is not looking to arrest the American nor are the police.

Of course not...these guys are smart enough to know that would cut off the hunting dollars quicker than Mia Farrow can Tweet about Cecil.

None of this is what one would expect.

Uncle Bob is getting old and his disciples are splintering and starting their own enterprises...he does not like that very much...gotta rein them in!

http://abcnews.go.com/Internat...cils-hunter-33587814



Zimbabwe Seems to Cool off on Extraditing Cecil's Hunter

HARARE, Zimbabwe — Sep 7, 2015, 1:31 PM ET
By FARAI MUTSAKA Associated Press
Associated Press


Amid fears that extraditing an American bow hunter for killing Ceil the lion could hurt Zimbabwe's hunting business, authorities seem to have cooled off on pursuing the case against Walter Palmer.

It has been a month since Environment, Water and Climate Minister Oppah Muchinguri announced that the police would process paperwork to extradite Palmer for participating in a hunt that authorities here said was illegal. On Monday there were no new developments in the matters, police spokeswoman Charity Charamba told The Associated Press.

"I still have nothing on that case," she said.

The National Prosecuting Authority, which is responsible for processing extradition requests, said Palmer was not on its files because the police had yet to process a docket for Palmer, a dentist from suburban Minneapolis.

In an interview with AP on Sunday in Minneapolis, Palmer said he believes he acted legally and that he was stunned to find out his hunting party had killed a treasured animal in July. Cecil was a fixture in Zimbabwe's Hwange National Park and had been fitted with a GPS collar as part of Oxford University lion research.

Pursuing Palmer without a concrete case could rattle potential big-paying customers from the United States, said a Zimbabwean government official and safari operators.

Theo Bronkhorst, a Zimbabwean professional hunter who helped Palmer, has been charged with "failure to prevent an illegal hunt." Honest Ndlovu, whose property is near Hwange park, faces a charge of allowing the lion hunt to occur on his farm without proper authority. The hunters allegedly lured Cecil out of Hwange with an animal carcass.

Palmer's hosts should have ensured the hunt was legal, said Emmanuel Fundira, chairman of the Safari Operators Association of Zimbabwe.

"These are the people expected to know the rules and advise clients accordingly," he said. "Clients may end up thinking twice before coming to Zimbabwe if such cases are not handled carefully. Authorities have to be sure there is a case before pushing for the extradition of these hunters."

Hunting supports about 800,000 rural Zimbabwean families, said Fundira.

Extraditing Palmer would "be bad for business," a senior official in the ministry of environment, water and climate told AP.

"American hunters spend big. They are a huge market for us," he said, refusing to be named because the killing of Cecil is before the courts. "We still want them here. Zimbabwe sends delegations every year to lure those hunters to bring their money here. They will stop coming if the risk of arrest is high."

Rural communities surrounding national parks also cash in from the hunting business. In 1989, the Zimbabwean government, with the aid of the U.S government, set up the Communal Areas Management for Indigenous Resources, known as Campfire, to plow some of the money from hunting into surrounding rural communities.

Campfire says most hunting clients are from the U.S, Germany and Spain.

"Foreign sport hunters will pay large sums to hunt Africa's trophy animals, far more than other tourists will pay to view them. A single hunter can spend more than $40,000 on a trophy hunting trip," says Campfire, on its website. "At least half of that revenue goes to the local communities for rural development and environmental conservation."

———

AP reporter Brian Bakst in Minneapolis contributed to this report.