As the USFWS deliberates on the fate of the African lion the anti-hunting propaganda machine is churning out more and more crap. No doubt that this is going to flush out our favorite troll, Joluburn!!


New Report: Economics of Trophy Hunting in Africa Are Overrated and
Overstated

By PR Newswire

June 18, 2013 10:25 AM EDT


WASHINGTON, June 18, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A new report
released today analyzes literature on the economics of trophy hunting
and reveals that African countries and rural communities derive very
little benefit from trophy hunting revenue. The study, authored by
Economists at Large—commissioned by the International Fund for Animal
Welfare (IFAW), The Humane Society of the United States, Humane Society
International and Born Free USA/Born Free Foundation—comes amid
consideration to grant the African lion protection under the U.S.
Endangered Species Act (ESA).

"The suggestion that trophy hunting plays a significant role in African
economic development is misguided," said economist Rod Campbell, lead
author of the study. "Revenues constitute only a fraction of a percent
of GDP and almost none of that ever reaches rural communities."

As a portion of any national economy, trophy hunting revenue never
accounts for more than 0.27 percent of the GDP. Additionally, trophy
hunting revenues account for only 1.8 percent of overall tourism in nine
investigated countries that allow trophy hunting, and even pro-hunting
sources find that only 3 percent of the money actually reaches the rural
communities where hunting occurs. While trophy hunting supporters
routinely claim that hunting generates $200 million annually in remote
areas of Africa, the industry is actually economically insignificant and
makes a minimal contribution to national income.

"Local African communities are key stakeholders for conservation, and
they need real incentives for conservation," said Jeff Flocken, North
American regional director, International Fund for Animal Welfare.
"Non-consumptive nature tourism–like wildlife viewing and photo
safaris–is a much greater contributor than trophy hunting to both
conservation and the economy in Africa. If trophy hunting and other
threats continue depleting Africa's wildlife, then Africa's wildlife
tourism will disappear. That is the real economic threat to the
countries of Africa."

Many species suffer at the hands of trophy hunters including the African
lion. The number of African lions has declined by more than 50 percent
in the past three decades, with 32,000 or fewer believed remaining
today. The steepest declines in lion population numbers occur in African
countries with the highest hunting intensity, illustrating the
unsustainability of the practice.

"Trophy hunting is driving the African lion closer to extinction," said
Teresa Telecky, director, wildlife department, Humane Society
International. "More than 560 wild lions are killed every year in Africa
by international trophy hunters. An overwhelming 62 percent of trophies
from these kills are imported into the United States. We must do all we
can to put an end to this threat to the king of beasts."

Listing the African lion as endangered under the ESA would generally
prohibit the import of and commercial trade in lion parts, and thus
would likely considerably reduce the number of lions taken by Americans
each year.

"The U.S. government has a serious responsibility to act promptly and
try to prevent American hunters from killing wild lions, especially when
the latest evidence shows that hunting is not economically beneficial.
Listing the African lion under the Endangered Species Act will help
lions at almost no cost to African communities. Government inaction
could doom an already imperilled species to extinction through much of
its range," said Adam Roberts, executive vice president, Born Free USA.

A copy of the economic study is available for download. For more
information about African lions, please visit www.helpafricanlions.org.

http://www.sys-con.com/node/2704833

I am an economist and my position has always been that, in the developing world in particular, even an inefficient and extremely leaky system of revenue generation offers a lot more income to local stakeholders than so called "fortress conservation" and costs the government a whole hell of a lot less!

quote:

The study, authored by
Economists at Large—commissioned by the International Fund for Animal
Welfare (IFAW), The Humane Society of the United States, Humane Society
International and Born Free USA/Born Free Foundation

Gee, I wonder if the authors of the study had a reason to come up with the results that they did?????

Just another reason to hate democraps aside from the usual fact they are nothing but traitors to Americans and our way of life.

The level of conservation I saw when I hunted with Save Safaris in the Save Conservancy was remarkable.


The only thing i saw left behind in the bush was disposable toilet paper used to mark - everything else including soda can caps were picked up by the ph along with snares.

Without hunting majority of the African bush would be barren and desolate. But the PETA
folk would like that.

quote:

Originally posted by Zig Mackintosh:
The study, authored by
Economists at Large—commissioned by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), The Humane Society of the United States, Humane Society International and Born Free USA/Born Free Foundation

.....and you mean it WASN'T favorable towards hunting???



Brett

What is really sad is that some reporter will pick this piece of tripe up and publish it as gospel in his/her newpaper to fill space!

As Mark Twain once said, there are lies, damn lies and statistics. Once someone resorts to statistics, you can rest assured that their argument is weak and needs some bolstering.

This type of article certainly explains why so many in the general public can be steered to believe complete non-sense. Notice how there is no mention at all about the methods of the study or what was measured. My guess is that this study was conducted by interviewing antis within the corrupt governments that were carefully selected to provide select information only from "official" government records.

Does anyone think "economists" from anti-hunting groups would do anything to actually measure the economic effects of hunting? How were tips to trackers, skinners, camp staff accounted for. Meat provided by trophies taken? How much protein is provided by eco-tourists to these communities?

What a pile of propagandized bullshit!!

Guys, esp. Zig,

The lion thing in the US is political. Born Free and HSUS etc. are spending their political capital (that they bought and paid for)...nothing more nothing less. The Secretary of Interior is going to instruct his agency to act in accordance of his bosses wishes.

Our only shot at winning the lion battle with USF&W was to defang them by putting Craig Packer, Luke Hunter, etc. etc. squarely on our side of the line a llllooooonnnngggggg time ago.

Washington is a political town and a couple of hundred lion hunters have NO political clout. The millions of dollars spent by these groups (HSUS etc.) on lobbying...talk loudly.

Now...thanks to a couple of key players...we have alienated the majority of the scientists...with Craig Packer being denied his entrance clearance into Tanzania. Craig is one of the key speakers (along with 5 antihunting groups, 2 other neutral scientists, John Jackson, and Joe Hosmer) on June 26th, the day of the last info gathering sessions. With his research clearance being revoked...how do you think his mood will be??? Although...I have seen his presentation and he will strongly lobby for a 'threatened status' like the leopard as he too sees the hand-writing on the wall for the lion if listed as 'endangered'.

Mark my words...and I pray to God that I am wrong...you will see the lion listed as endangered in a few months time. Despite the efforts of the LCTF, Craig Packer, and DSC to sway the politics in our favor.

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:

Mark my words...and I pray to God that I am wrong...you will see the lion listed as endangered in a few months time. Despite the efforts of the LCTF, Craig Packer, and DSC to sway the politics in our favor.

Does that mean prices will fall and I can import a bargain trophy lion to my place in Canada? Seriously, I do hope you are wrong and that the prices remain high...for the sake of the cats!

quote:

The study, authored by
Economists at Large—commissioned by the International Fund for Animal
Welfare (IFAW), The Humane Society of the United States, Humane Society
International and Born Free USA/Born Free Foundation—comes amid
consideration to grant the African lion protection under the U.S.
Endangered Species Act (ESA).

With sponsors like that, what did you expect the outcome of the study to be?

If you separate the argument into two parts, the economic benefit of hunting and take out the lions being endangered blah blah blah.

I would compare the idea of economic benefits of trophy hunting to the idea of economic benefits of subsidizing professional sports teams.

quote:

Mark my words...and I pray to God that I am wrong...you will see the lion listed as endangered in a few months time. Despite the efforts of the LCTF, Craig Packer, and DSC to sway the politics in our favor.

I am sorry that things have turned out this way, you and your associates have put forth a monumental effort to keep this from happening, but in the end, lions will be the ones lost, and humans will not realize what was lost until the last lion is gone.

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:
Guys, esp. Zig,

The lion thing in the US is political. Born Free and HSUS etc. are spending their political capital (that they bought and paid for)...nothing more nothing less. The Secretary of Interior is going to instruct his agency to act in accordance of his bosses wishes.

Our only shot at winning the lion battle with USF&W was to defang them by putting Craig Packer, Luke Hunter, etc. etc. squarely on our side of the line a llllooooonnnngggggg time ago.

Washington is a political town and a couple of hundred lion hunters have NO political clout. The millions of dollars spent by these groups (HSUS etc.) on lobbying...talk loudly.

Now...thanks to a couple of key players...we have alienated the majority of the scientists...with Craig Packer being denied his entrance clearance into Tanzania. Craig is one of the key speakers (along with 5 antihunting groups, 2 other neutral scientists, John Jackson, and Joe Hosmer) on June 26th, the day of the last info gathering sessions. With his research clearance being revoked...how do you think his mood will be??? Although...I have seen his presentation and he will strongly lobby for a 'threatened status' like the leopard as he too sees the hand-writing on the wall for the lion if listed as 'endangered'.

Mark my words...and I pray to God that I am wrong...you will see the lion listed as endangered in a few months time. Despite the efforts of the LCTF, Craig Packer, and DSC to sway the politics in our favor.

sadly, I think I have to agree with you.

The politicians and Joe public have lost all knowledge of reality, and all they care about now is how they look in the eyes of the fringe idiots of society.

I have a question for my fellow American hunter/conservationists.

If the USF&W uplists the lion, should U.S. based conservationist organizations such as SCI, DSC, HSC, Conservation Force, etc. continue to fund lion research and conservation initiatives? If lion are uplisted thus making them unavailable to American hunters, then why should our membership fees continue to fund lion conservation efforts especially since we no longer "have skin in the game"? Perhaps LionAid, PETA, Born Free, and other "tree hunging" organizations should step up (financially).

If the answer is yes, we should continue to fund lion initiatives, then why aren't our conservation organizations currently funding research and conservation initiatives related to the other big cats, including but not limited to, jaguar, snow leopard, Asian tiger, etc.?

Your thoughts regarding this controversial issue?

The likes of Born Free forget that the maintenance and management of wildlife is expensive and a never ending expenditure. Mostly these are customary lands and the wildlife and associated habitats are there because there some of us have taken the initiative to protect them for future generations. At great cost.

So here is the speaker list for the USFWS lion workshop:

Anna Frostic- Humane Society of the United States
Alan Maki- Safari Club International Foundation
Jeffrey Flocken-International Fund for Animal Welfare
Jason Riggio-University of California
Craig Packer- University of Minnesota
Adam Roberts- Born Free Foundation
John Jackson- Conservation Force
Paula White- Zambia lion project

Not one African on the list. Three pro hunting, three anti hunting and two neutral, Packer and Riggio. No one on the list will be talking about the relationship between economics and wildlife, the single most important issue in wildlife conservation. I shall post the actual agenda if I can figure out how to upload a PDF to AR.

Saeed beat me to it!! Here is the agenda:

http://www.accuratereloading.com/2013/aflusfw1.pdf

quote:

Originally posted by Zig Mackintosh:
So here is the speaker list for the USFWS lion workshop:

Anna Frostic- Humane Society of the United States
Alan Maki- Safari Club International Foundation
Jeffrey Flocken-International Fund for Animal Welfare
Jason Riggio-University of California
Craig Packer- University of Minnesota
Adam Roberts- Born Free Foundation
John Jackson- Conservation Force
Paula White- Zambia lion project

Not one African on the list. Three pro hunting, three anti hunting and two neutral, Packer and Riggio. No one on the list will be talking about the relationship between economics and wildlife, the single most important issue in wildlife conservation. I shall post the actual agenda if I can figure out how to upload a PDF to AR.

Zig,
Cause it is about politics...NOT the lion. And that my friend is why I have worked so hard to maintain a good relationship with Craig Packer and why 'you-know-who' alienating him was bad.

The $200 million question: How much does trophy hunting really contribute to African communities?

"Advocates for the African trophy hunting industry invariably claim that hunting revenues provide benefits to rural communities. Analysis of literature on the economics of trophy hunting reveals, however, that communities in the areas where hunting occurs derive very little benefit from this revenue."

http://www.ecolarge.com/wp-con...ion-FINAL-lowres.pdf

Has anyone seen the actual report? ... have a link? I can't find it.

Yes, at the link above your post...

quote:

Originally posted by JabaliHunter:
Yes, at the link above your post...

Yeah, I saw that and checked it out but didn't see the logos of any of the organizations which are supposed to have funded the study, so I just assumed that it was someone else's summary and not the actual study itself. That happens. Hence my original question.

Now, after looking a little more closely, I can see that they are mentioned in the introduction, but in recognition of the fact that they don't have their logos prominently displayed or any formal acknowledgement that they actually did fund the study, I became even more suspicious.

In fact, it isn't really a study at all, simply a compilation of various quotes from a few sources which the author (Roderick Campbell) either agrees with or disagrees with; just his opinion more than anything else.

Hell, I could put together a report like that in about half a day, complete with a nice big picture of a lion on the cover and twice as many citations.

Then I went to the ecolarge website, which looks like it was created by someone with only minimal knowledge of internet technology, probably the same character (Campbell).

I could put together a better website than that in about half a day too.

And his team has very few academic affiliations; some with just a bachelor's in economics, some with possibly not even that. It doesn't say.

So my conclusion is that this is really just the work of one person, Roderick Campbell, possibly with the help of a few of his not particularly believable buddies; and whether he actually received any funding from the stated NGOs is possible (I suppose) but doubtful.