GREAT article and summation of my thoughts on trophy hunting/conservationism in Africa, but the easily-offended, sand-in-the-v(m)angina crowd out there doesn't want to hear logic and reason:



On L'Affaire Cecil and Why Internet Outrage May Doom the Lions of Zimbabwe


I've been trying to avoid getting sucked into this topic but there's been so much insanity on the subject and even otherwise reasonable people have spouted such nonsense on it that I feel compelled to say something. So let me make the case here for why (lion) trophy hunting in Africa is not only not harmful but is in fact necessary for the continued survival of lions and other big game there.


Now I'm a bit of an odd duck when it comes to this subject since I'm someone very interested in hunting who has not actually ever gone hunting - mostly due to time and logistics than anything else. But I have read most of the classic hunting literature from Hunter to Ruark to Capstick as well as various modern reference guides to safaris so I believe I know more than the average person in this area.

I am also indebted to a friend of mine from South Africa who has put me a lot of knowledge on the subject. He's a professor here in the US who goes back to South Africa during summers to work as an assistant to a PH (professional hunter), and is very familiar with the on-the-ground realities when it comes to managing and hunting big game. One thing that becomes clear from the hunting writers and my friend is that they all have a respect (even love) for the animals they hunt as well as a deep knowledge of how they live, breed - and eventually die, which means they are also decidedly unsentimental about individual animals.


So let me lay out some facts for you...


- Without hunting lions have no economic value for the local people or ranchers. In fact they're a giant menacing pain in the ass since they tend to eat the locals' cattle as well as occasionally the locals themselves. There's really no upside at all to having an apex predator like a lion prowling around your village or ranch; only bad things can happen. Yes, there are photo-safaris but unless you're near tourist areas and are set up for it, there's not much money in this. So the reality is that without any economic incentive to keep the lions around, the locals end up driving them out or just poisoning them.

And here to paraphrase Jack Dunphy the alternative to allowing hunting is not perfection - it's the alternative. With no hunting at all you won't get a Lion King-Simba happy existence on the savannah, instead you'll see a slow gradual extinction of lions as a species due to loss of habitat and eradication by humans. Lions will not die out from hunting - rather it will be because none of the locals want them around or care enough about their continued existence to protect them. Ultimately the lions will live or die by whether the local people allow lions to coexist with them.


But with controlled trophy hunting, the lions suddenly do have economic value. Because the hunting is so strictly limited hunters will pay a lot to be allowed to take a trophy - $30,000 and up. And $30,000 goes a long way in Africa. This money is split between the land owner, the local villagers, and the government. For the land owner and villagers this makes up on any losses they might have suffered from the lions, and it also means that they have a strong incentive to protect and maintain the local lions e.g. maintaining water pools, not putting up fences, watching for poachers, etc. The money from hunting is a major source of revenue for some remote villages. The revenue to the government helps pay for full-time rangers, park wardens and equipment to protect the lion populations.


- Africa is a huge place. Bigger than most people can really imagine. So to say that lions are endangered is both correct and false. Depending on where you are in Africa lions may be endangered or they may be actually over-populated. Due to their territorial nature both may be true - too many lions in one area but very few in another nearby region. Logistically it's not possible to move lions hundreds of miles away to open areas so you have to manage the population locally. And that means allowing controlled hunting.


- Adult male lions do not die peacefully of old age. They tend to die from injuries sustained in battles with younger males or from starvation from being driven out of their territory. Both of which tend to be unpleasant, lingering deaths. This is the reality of male lion life. Also only a few breeding males are needed in an area to maintain and grow a lion population. So a mature adult male like Cecil who was close to the average life span of a male lion in the wild (10-14 years) is the most expendable member of any lion population.


Zimbabwe has a population of lions estimated around 1,680 and on average 10-40 lions a year are taken through hunting which is approximately 1-2% of the population - less than the natural death rate of adult lions. But the permit fees from each hunted lion make a huge difference to the overall lion population. This isn't just theory - there are empirical results backing this up with elephant populations:


Anti-hunting groups succeeded in getting Kenya to ban all hunting in 1977. Since then, its population of large wild animals has declined between 60 and 70 percent. The country's elephant population declined from 167,000 in 1973 to just 16,000 in 1989. Poaching took its toll on elephants because of their damage to both cropland and people. Today Kenya wildlife officials boast a doubling of the country's elephant population to 32,000, but nearly all are in protected national parks where poaching can be controlled. With only 8 percent of its land set aside as protected areas, it is no wonder that wildlife in general and elephants in particular have trouble finding hospitable habitat.

But in Zimbabwe controlled hunting was allowed and hunting revenues shared through the CAMPFIRE program:

The numbers attest to the program's success. Ten years after the program began, wildlife populations had increased by 50 percent. By 2003, elephant numbers had doubled from 4,000 to 8,000. The gains have not just been for wildlife, however. Between 1989 and 2001, CAMPFIRE generated more than $20 million in direct income, the vast majority of which came from hunting. During that period, the program benefitted an estimated 90,000 households and had a total economic impact of $100 million.

The results go beyond the CAMPFIRE areas. Between 1989 and 2005, Zimbabwe's total elephant population more than doubled from 37,000 to 85,000, with half living outside of national parks. Today, some put the number as high as 100,000, even with trophy hunters such as Parsons around. All of this has occurred with an economy in shambles, regime uncertainty, and mounting socio-political challenges.

- Note that only hunters with proper permits and PH guides are allowed to hunt lions. The PH is responsible for obtaining all the permits and knowing all the local restrictions on hunting and knowing which animals can and can't be legally taken. So Dr. Walter Palmer was completely dependent on the PH and local guide when it came to shooting a lion. So if Cecil was shot illegally, the fault is all on the PH and crew. It's ironic that the person facing the most hate from all this (Palmer) is in fact the one most innocent of any charges of poaching.


So the bottom line is that if you actually care about the survival of lions as a species, you should support controlled trophy hunting. Hunters like Walter Palmer who paid $55,000 for the hunting permit have done far, far more to actually preserve real world lions in Africa than all of the hand-wringing celebrities and any of you reading this post. Ironically the weeping over Cecil and calls to ban all hunting of lions in Africa out of First World emotionalism may end up actually dooming them as a species. But everyone would still get to feel awesomely smug about their love of lions and general moral superiority from the comfort of their armchair .

Good article, do you know who the author is?

Funny thing when you hear about how $ 30,000.00 plus goes long way in Africa.
It goes long way here in US as well
Just my 2 cents

If a game animal ceases to have an economic value, it tends to disappear.
I consider this to be true pretty much worldwide.

If 10-40 lions are killed in Zim each year , how many people are killed by lions ??

Well written. Thanks for posting.

May I draw some attention to just ONE success in "converting" an anti-hugging type to recognize the value of trophy hunting? Here: Amy Roberts Converted to Recognize Value of Trophy Hunting.

This posting may be a lesson to us hunters: Do not treat all "anti-hunting or bunny hugging" individuals as being beyond hope. If there was one success to convert one to sanity, then there can be more! Wink Hang in there and keep up the efforts to spread the truth about the value of trophy hunting in conservation.

In good hunting.

In 2003, I toured the Moholoholo wildlife rehabilitation center. It was on the day after I had killed my Cape buffalo, and much of the meat that was taken from the carcass of my buffalo went there to feed the animals. Brian Jones was then running the place, and I remember his comment when he came to see my buffalo kill. "Oh, thank you. I can now feed my animals."
Following is a photo of Brian and his lion, Big Boy.