Aaron (and others), how about some advice when it comes to hunting lioness... most of the discussion here revolves around male lions.

After booking my first trip to Zim, a lioness was added to quota. Not knowing if I'd ever have the opportunity to hunt a big old male, I jumped at the chance to add lioness to my license.

Obviously a cat with a cub in tow should be off limits. The PH should know what animal is ethically acceptable or not to take, but I'd rather get some opinions and advice from those that know more than me before I have an opportunity to pull the trigger. What type of standards are there or should there be in hunting the female of the species? Do you have some photos of what one should be looking for and what clues should tell one not to shoot?

Thanks for your input.

Opus72 - Man, that's something we don't often think about, but certainly a good question. Fact is, rarely are lioness available in the first place. With parts of Zim being the exception for the most part, choosing the right lioness is not much of a concern.

I really don't think you need to have near the concerns when deciding what lioness to harvest, as one does when it pertains to a male lion. I think you stated the obvious, I would certainly avoid shooting a lioness with cub/cubs, or one that is obviously lactating. But shooting a lioness, regardless of her pride status, should have little to no negative effects.

Just for personal reasons, I would probably avoid shooting a young/immature cat. Generally, a young female can be identified the same as a male. If you see noticable or faint "spots" on its lower legs/hips, likely its still a young female.

Bottom line though, the few places in Zim that are allowing lioness on quota, are doing so because the lion population is actually getting out of balance. So I really don't think you can do much harm when shooting a lioness.

To add to what Aaron said, there are several more females to every male lion in the wild. The fact that soo few are even hunted legally makes it less of a issue form a sustainability point of view.

I think targetting an "older" lioness is simply the right thing to do if one has to. Be aware though that in the majority of cases, if that lioness is in a pride containing a pride male and she is not with cubs or lactating, chances are she is pregnant! Not a nice sight to witness when butchering the carcass and removing the insides! I know I would not want to take the chance.

quote:

Be aware though that in the majority of cases, if that lioness is in a pride containing a pride male and she is not with cubs or lactating, chances are she is pregnant!

I had wondered about this too.

For those of us who are not Africans, that are used to wildlife that has distinct breeding/calving seasons this would be a tough task, selecting a lioness to shoot.

Heavily gravid lionesses would be easy to discern in most cases, but not some early in their pregnancy.

Some thoughts to reflect upon...

Would it really matter if the reason for taking a female was indeed for population control?

As an example: In some places a whitetail doe is equivalent to three and sometimes four animals per year. First one being her, then her birth potential of from one fawn up to triplets per season!

Interesting thread. I wanted to hunt a male lion all throughout my childhood and early adulthood. When the realization of the financial cost hit home, I shifted the focus to a lioness. When I learned a bit about the plight of lions today, I felt that I should just forget about hunting them altogether. When I started reading this thread, I thought that maybe a lioness would be an acceptable goal after all. Now, further into the same thread, I'm swinging back to crossing them off the list completely...or maybe foregoing a lot of other hunting and saving for a male...or...

Can you spell "conflicted"?

John

Lion as a species are not above being managed anymore than ele, or buff. In our lower Zambezi areas lions are breeding like crazy and we have seen a very significant decline in buffalo calf numbers due to predation by lion. Half of those calf's are male and the writing was on the wall.
Zim Parks toured our area with our PH's ( CHIFUTI SAFARIS )and agreed that the removal a several older lionesses would not hurt the population one bit and was indeed necessary for a proper predator \prey balance.
The hunt for lioness is exactly the same as hunting for the male at significant savings and a nice option when a male may be out of a hunters price range.