Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Zimbabwe alleges second American illegally hunted lion

My own personal troll (insert eyeroll icon again).

ALL lion hunting in South Africa is of captive bred and raised lions...

http://www.sportsafield.com/content/second-hand-lions

It happens at least a couple of times at the major hunters' conventions. I'm shown a picture of a magnificent lion, so resplendent in mane that it is extremely unlikely that it's a wild lion. Of course it's a South African lion, so now there is little doubt about the actual circumstances.....

So why do some hunters and outfitters feel the need to lie about it, and why do other hunters feel the need to apologize for it? The captive-reared lion industry is major in South Africa.... there are several thousand lions in hundreds of private breeding programs, the sole purpose of which is to provide mature males for visiting hunters.

I got no problem with this sort of thing any more than I do with it in Texas, long as the animal is raised and dispatched humanely/

Botswana outlawing most hunting? 2014.

http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-botswanas-marauding-elephants-trigger-hunting-ban-debate-2015-5

Tshekedi Khama, Botswanan environment minister, said the tourism industry was the way forward.

"Hunters only employ people during the hunting season. (Tourism) is throughout the year, that's why we prefer it."

Hunting of almost all animals -- by bushmen as well as overseas visitors -- was banned by the Botswanan government to halt the decline of springbok and other species hit by habitat loss and illegal hunting.

At best what this ban could amount to is a once-in-forever opportunity to compare unhunted vs. hunted wild lion populations in similar settings, and to regulate harvests accordingly. Tho I personally don't believe this ban will last very long.

On the sustainability of wild lion harvest, an excellent paper here.....

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0073808

Several studies have demonstrated that excessive trophy harvests have driven lion population declines..... Problems include: unscientific bases for quota setting; excessive quotas and off-takes in some countries; fixed quotas which encourage over-harvest; and lack of restrictions on the age of lions that can be hunted. Key interventions needed to make lion hunting more sustainable, include implementation of: enforced age restrictions; improved trophy monitoring; adaptive management of quotas and a minimum length of lion hunts of at least 21 days.

And as for benefitting the locals, do you really think the hefty fees paid in a place like Zimbabwe for a lion permit actually filter down much to the grass roofs level?

Birdwatcher

Been browsing up on the topic.

No surprise that in a place like Zimbabwe very little of the hefty fees charged filter back to the locals.

The other thing that emerges is there really ain't a true "sticks" there anymore, meaning anything like unknown wilderness as we understand the term. This was pretty much the way it was in West Africa when I was there too.

Most hunting was recently outlawed in Botswana, but it is significant that most of the male lions filmed twenty years back there by that famous Belgian couple the Jouberts ("Eternal Enemies: Lions and Hyenas" were ultimately shot by trophy hunters, meaning just as photographers' vehicles could get back there, so could arranged hunts.

Same appears to be true in Zimbabwe. Interesting stuff on the internet about lion populations vs. wild lion harvest. Only about one in eight male lions survive to become pride males, and shooting one pride male often means the subsequent doom/displacement of its brother(s) and killing of the cubs by rival males.

A contention is, given all of the above, that the present levels of take of wild lions is not sustainable. It is interesting to ponder how we here in the US would manage lion populations and the hunting thereof if they were a native species over here.

Anyways, it will be interesting to see what happens to lion and other wildlife populations in Botswana now that hunting is strictly limited.

Old news to many here I'm sure, but apparently ALL lion hunting in South Africa amounts to put and take at best, and plainly canned hunts at worst. However these captive bred and raised lions commonly make better-looking trophies, not having had to survive the tough school of hard knocks necessary to survive to maturity among their wild brethren.

Birdwatcher

Less than a week ago, others were uniquely qualified to comment on lion hunting, and now you're a friggin' expert because you've "browsed" it.

http://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/10208532/1/Shooting_Cecil_the_Lion

Carry on, with your "in depth" research...

fwiw the PH, stated in his Testimony that they did indeed have all of the required permits. I have to wonder if the whole thing is BS it really was a legit, legal hunt, but the Zim. Govt figures they can exploit money out of retards

You go further left by the day.

No surprise, really, but it's becoming quite obvious.

Given the corruption of Zimbabwe, this would seem quite likely.

Yet, we should probably defer to the "wisdom" of our expert "browser" on all subjects concerning hunting and conservation in Africa.

I am shocked that anyone anywhere would take the word of any in the zim government or its employ.

Good grief, can't people think!

Idi Amin had more moral fibre than Mugabe and his lot, and Amin had NONE.