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Not pulp cavity width Ben. And especially not the ID to OD ratios. Now you are for sure talking on my ground. And there is data from all over Southern Africa. And...you know what...it is highly consistent...even to cage raised lions.

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Originally posted by 505 gibbs:

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Not pulp cavity width Ben. And especially not the ID to OD ratios.

Lane,
Are you saying that tooth size does in fact vary with skull size but pulp cavity width does not?

What I am saying is that tooth size varies little regardless of skull size...esp. the upper PM2. And for what little variance that there is...each tooth can serve as its on control by using the ratio to correct. However...from what I have seen...the ratio is usually not needed to say >5 or <5.

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And there is data from all over Southern Africa. And...you know what...it is highly consistent...even to cage raised lions.

Do you have access to that data, could you point me in the right direction where to get it?
Thanks in advance.

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The aging of Lion is always going to be a problematic and contentious issue. LCTF has raised awareness which is a good thing and their movement to find a solution is commendable. The decision to take a Lion is dictated by the PH and it is these fellows who need to be able to judge the maturity of these cats with or without tooth. There are many who consistently take young animals and to date we are unable to control this practice. This is not trophy hunting this is fulfilling quotas and the client's desire just to have a Lion.

There has to be some control regarding the shooting of immature Lion but I do not have the answer.

In my mind, the only people to do this are the hunter and the PH.

However if penalties are to be applied in the future and the tooth is a fairly good indicator then it should be used as one component to determine age. As should photographs, size of skull etc.

This is where we part, possibly because you are a vendor and I am a consumer, I have no interest in taking part in an action (much less paying for it), where whether I am legal or not is determined by a "fairly good indicator". As John Jackson said so eloquently on the lion discussion forum:
"I am torn between advising hunters not to import their trophies if in doubt and telling them not to import lion from Tanzania at all unless they are crazy. I mean, should a person in his right mind risk a felony conviction or, win or lose, a prosecution and related record? It can cost a million dollars to defend yourself! If you think this is insane, it is. Let's say I don't issue an alert and one of my friends loses his lion or worse. What is the reaction going to be? A lawyer does not have to tell hunters that they may be at risk and a prudent person should not import one."

Who then makes the final decision and who dictates policy?

I believe when governments begin writing laws that are determined by something other than what can be positively, scientifically proven (i.e. sex), hunting of that species will end shortly after, and consequently, that animal will become something to be viewed in an enclosure as that is the only sure way to protect it, a true travesty.

Currently the only way to protect Lion is probably to reduce quotas and for the operator to heavily inflate the trophy fee to compensate loss of income. However then the sport of Lion hunting will be out of reach by most along with black rhino and the likes of mountain Nyala. This will reduce the off take of young Lion.

This is exactly what Craig Packer wants (according to his paper). He bases his claim of reduced lion population specifically upon the fact that there has been reduced offtake by trophy hunters. If quotas are reduced (or anything is done to reduce lion harvest, i.e. legal age restrictions), Packer will translate that to mean continued population reduction and further protection is needed. I feel this will happen whether he has pictures of young lions under trophy hunters or not.

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I dunno Lane,

I was always told that unpublished research was unproven research.

I have seen way too many games played with statistics and modification of the study group to necessarily buy that it is all that accurate if Dr. White said it was not that accurate in 2008 (my memory was playing games when I said 09) and the only change is this unpublished study.

I also have to say basing the legality of a lion kill based on unpublished research and methodology is begging for trouble. In my business of human medicine, I would be taking a big gamble doing anything based on unpublished data.

Not to say anything to denigrate Dr. White or you, but do either of you understand statistics well enough to see if there have been enough samples to really prove anything? Edit to add that I personally have a pretty strong math background, but I personally cannot do it.

Traditionally medicine (whether human or animal) has not done studies with sufficient power to really know what is going on. We are left to practice an art, where we use the scientific evidence we have, our understanding on a theoretical level, and to some extent, plain old intuition. That's why they call it an art.

You (as near as I can see by perusing this particular forum) seem to be saying that we need to be limiting lion take to greater than 5 year old nonpride males.

Since pride status cannot be verified after the fact by viewing the trophy, the only thing left is to age the lion, correct?

So you are taking a xray of a tooth, which is at this point is interpreted subjectively (not objectively, until the criteria are published it cannot be...) and you are going to have people lose trophies and possibly be prosecuted on unpublished, unproven data.

Additionally, if you are talking that this is a correlation, it would seem that there are some known samples where it does not hold. I hope you see where I am going with this- we are going from biological science "close enough" to legal "it is" here.

Now, I can understand that the goal is to take old 6+ year old lion when we are hunting. I think that's a good idea- for no other reason than that is what makes a good lion trophy, but what is the statistical evidence here? 80% likelihood that the animal in question is somewhere between 5-7? What about the 20% that are in the margin of error?

Chuck Butler

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Originally posted by crbutler:
I dunno Lane,

I was always told that unpublished research was unproven research.

I have seen way too many games played with statistics and modification of the study group to necessarily buy that it is all that accurate if Dr. White said it was not that accurate in 2008 (my memory was playing games when I said 09) and the only change is this unpublished study.

First...I think you may have misunderstood Dr. White. I have an e-mail in to her right now with your exact quote of her and I will post it when I get it back. She has never said the same to me...in fact the opposite. it is a reliable method to put lion into age categories post mortem...the categories I mentioned above.

I also have to say basing the legality of a lion kill based on unpublished research and methodology is begging for trouble. In my business of human medicine, I would be taking a big gamble doing anything based on unpublished data.

We'll just have to see how that plays out. Tanzania has implemented the law and has a plan in place to manage it. As I have said many times we were against a hard-and-fast 6 year old rule. We favored a system similar to the Niassa system.

Not to say anything to denigrate Dr. White or you, but do either of you understand statistics well enough to see if there have been enough samples to really prove anything? Edit to add that I personally have a pretty strong math background, but I personally cannot do it.

How would you be able to statistically analyze the numbers if you have not seen them.

Traditionally medicine (whether human or animal) has not done studies with sufficient power to really know what is going on. We are left to practice an art, where we use the scientific evidence we have, our understanding on a theoretical level, and to some extent, plain old intuition. That's why they call it an art.

You (as near as I can see by perusing this particular forum) seem to be saying that we need to be limiting lion take to greater than 5 year old nonpride males.

That is correct.

Since pride status cannot be verified after the fact by viewing the trophy, the only thing left is to age the lion, correct?

That is true for the people who will verify the trophies.

So you are taking a xray of a tooth, which is at this point is interpreted subjectively (not objectively, until the criteria are published it cannot be...) and you are going to have people lose trophies and possibly be prosecuted on unpublished, unproven data.

Again...TZ implemented this law not us. We favored a point system which made allowances...see Niassa system in the same forum.

Additionally, if you are talking that this is a correlation, it would seem that there are some known samples where it does not hold. I hope you see where I am going with this- we are going from biological science "close enough" to legal "it is" here.

Actually...as long as you only try to put the lion into >5 or <5 categories...there is ~100% correlation.

Now, I can understand that the goal is to take old 6+ year old lion when we are hunting. I think that's a good idea- for no other reason than that is what makes a good lion trophy, but what is the statistical evidence here? 80% likelihood that the animal in question is somewhere between 5-7? What about the 20% that are in the margin of error?

See Above.

Chuck Butler