January 2016- Trophy Hunting.Pdf

CECIL THE LION: DOES KILLING LIONS HELP SAVE

THEM? ROBERT FERRIS CNBC JULY 29, 2015

A male African lion was shot by an American hunter near the border of a national park in Zimbabwe where the lion lived with several lionesses and cubs, and the death has reignited a debate about whether the hunting of big game animals—particularly those that may be threatened or endangered—helps fund conservation efforts that would otherwise lack support.

The lion, named "Cecil" by locals, was a favorite attraction for tourists visiting the park. He reportedly was shot by a dentist from Minnesota named Walter Palmer, an avid big game hunter who is believed to have paid around $50,000 to kill the animal, according to reports from the Associated Press.

The hunt may have been illegal. The Zimbabwean government has arrested both the professional guide and the owner of the land where the hunt took place, said Johnny Rodrigues, executive chairman of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, a conservation group based in Zimbabwe.

Local hunter Theo Bronchorst and game park owner Honest Trymore Ndlovu, who allegedly "connived" to kill Cecil the lion, appeared court in Hwange on Wednesday. They did not speak to reporters.

Killing lions and other big game is sometimes legal, if permits are obtained and rules are followed. Palmer told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that he believed the hunt was legal, but some activists, including Rodrigues, question that assertion.

A man shot a lion in Africa, and the Internet exploded.

Andy Loveridge | AP In this undated photo provided by the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, Cecil the lion rests in Hwange National Park, in Hwange, Zimbabwe. Two Zimbabweans arrested for illegally hunting a lion appeared in court Wednesday, July 29, 2015.

Local hunter Theo Bronchorst and game park owner Honest Trymore Ndlovu, who allegedly "connived" to kill Cecil the lion, appeared court in Hwange on Wednesday. They did not speak to reporters.

Conservation groups are divided about whether trophy hunting is a ultimately beneficial to wild populations of animals. Many say that if it's managed properly, it can aid conservation by providing needed revenue for fighting poaching and helping other efforts.

A 2009 report from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature said that regulated hunting can help conservation efforts, but that its record has produced "mixed results."

Jeff Flocken, North American director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, said most people are unaware that lions and other big game animals are regularly killed for sport.

"The real question here is, 'Why are we allowing these imperiled species to be killed for fun?'" Flocken said. "Lions, elephants and rhinos are being killed for sport, often by Americans."

Flocken said that polls show that 80 percent of Americans across party lines are against the hunting of endangered animals for sport. His group is one of several that have pushed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to place lions on the endangered species list.

Those efforts have been unsuccessful so far. While the Endangered Species Act is unenforceable outside the United States, it does ban the transport of endangered animal products—including trophies—into the U.S.

A spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the agency is "deeply concerned" about the killing of the lion Cecil and is gathering facts about the case.

"In 2014, the service proposed listing the lion as threatened under the Endangered Species Act with a special rule that would establish a permitting mechanism for the importation of sport-hunted lion trophies, provided that the lions originate from countries with a scientifically sound management plan for African lions," the service said in a statement. "The public comment period for that proposal closed in late

January, and we are currently working on preparing a final rule. That process generally takes a year."

A staffer for an international hunting and conservation association called the Safari Club International Foundation wrote an editorial in National Geographic in 2013 contending that hunting funnels money toward conservation. In theory, the fees paid by hunters like Palmer go toward saving species.

The editorial also said that scientific evidence does not support the notion that lions are endangered, though their numbers in the wild have almost halved in the last two decades. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says the biggest threats to lions are habitat loss, loss of available prey and retaliation from humans for killing livestock.

Flocken is skeptical of trophy hunters' arguments, saying that "studies have found that as little at 3-5 percent of that money actually gets to people on the ground."

He also said that attempts to compare hunting with "nonlethal" tourism, such as wildlife watching, places "the revenue from hunting in Africa in the millions, and revenue from nonlethal tourism in the billions."

Wolf Pack Size Has Big Impact on Livestock Attacks Joshua Rapp Learn Wildlife.org December 1, 2015

New information about the likelihood that a wolf pack will reattack livestock could give wildlife managers better tools to prevent such conflicts.

“We found that the biggest factor that affected the depredation recurrence was pack size,” said Liz Bradley, a biologist with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and the lead author of a study published recently in The Journal of Wildlife Management.

The researchers analyzed reports on nearly 1,000 attacks from approximately 150 grey wolf (Canis lupus) packs on livestock in Idaho, Wyoming and Montana from 1989-2008, paying particular attention to the length of time between depredations. Of these, they looked at how quickly another attack on livestock occurred if they removed part of the pack, the whole pack, or did nothing at all.

“What was more surprising was that the partial pack removals weren’t that much more effective than doing nothing,” Bradley said, adding that removing the whole pack was the most effective action at reducing the likelihood of another attack. Removing part of the pack meant an average of 64 days between attacks on livestock while removing the whole pack resulted in a 730-day average period between livestock depredations. When nothing was done, there was an average of 19 days between attacks.

Another finding, she said, was that killing a few wolves at a time isn’t always a very effective solution, and sometimes could result in more wolves being killed in the long run than just removing the entire pack on the first or second offence.

She said that during the study years, wolves had not yet been delisted in Montana and Idaho, so wildlife managers were still trying to strike a careful balance between removing the least number of wolves possible to ensure a sustained population with stopping the carnivores going after livestock.

Despite the effectiveness of removing an entire pack, preventing attacks on livestock in the first place is always a better option than removing wolves. Some of the

6 strategies to prevent attacks include increased human presence near livestock, Bradley said.

“It’s very much a learned behavior,” she said of wolves attacking livestock. But by stopping this learning, [wildlife managers] may be able to decrease the attacks on cattle or sheep. “You don’t have to get into this whole cycle of dead cattle and dead wolves.”

The study included attacks on sheep and cattle and the results showed no statistical difference in the number of attacks between the animals. They also found that livestock attacks occurred more frequently as wolf packs got bigger.

Bradley said that wolf packs are smaller on average across Montana. She believes this could be part of the reason that conflicts between wolves and livestock are decreasing in the state despite the wolf population going up. Larger packs are more likely to “stay in trouble once they get in trouble,” but she indicated that further studies will be needed to confirm this.

CAN HUNTING HELP SAVE ENDANGERED SPECIES? Jennifer Bove About Education

Since there are no clear-cut solutions when it comes to saving endangered species, the concept of conservation is subject to interpretation. Of course, unconventional approaches are often met with criticism, and controversy ensues.

Case in point: the use of hunting as a tool for protecting endangered species from extinction. Sounds counterintuitive, right?

Let's explore both sides of the argument so that you can decide which side of this divisive management scheme makes sense to you.

Shoot to Save? The idea is simple: put a price on a rare species' head, and let hunters foot the bill for managing and sustaining the population. In theory, the practice of trophy huntingprovides incentives for governments to protect animals from unrestrained poachingand preserve habitat to support the quarry.

As with any commodity, rarity seems to increase value. The same can be said for endangered species. On a broad scale, most people appreciate the beauty and fascination of a rare creature, and they feel concern about its impending disappearance from the earth. In the particular case of trophy hunters, the acquisition of a rare animal's head (or some such token) is worth a great deal of money.

It's a basic principle of business. A diminishing supply augments demand, and suddenly a dwindling species is deemed financially desirable. Empathy for individual animals is not part of the equation, but the risk of extinction may drop with every dollar tagged to a species' hide.

Arguments in Favor of Hunting According to Dr. Rolf D. Baldus, President of the International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation Tropical Game Commission, "Total protection of wildlife and hunting bans often achieve the opposite, as they remove the economic

8 value of wildlife, and something without value is defenselessly doomed to decline and in final consequence to extinction."

Dr. Baldus' claim is supported by Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, Namibia's Minister of Environment and Tourism who has been instrumental in conserving Namibia's wildlife through hunting tourism. Ms. Nandi-Ndaitwah boasts that Namibian wildlife has more than tripled in recent years, as hunting tourism encourages landowners to promote game on their farms and ranches, where many species were once considered a nuisance. Rural communities have also created conservancies through which proactive wildlife management helps support their livelihoods. In turn, game species are returning to areas where they had long been extirpated.

"The CIC is very concerned about the present effort of a coalition of anti-hunting and animal rights groups to list the African lion under the U.S. Endangered Species Act," reports Sports Afield. "All large cats, which have been formally protected for decades are indeed more and more endangered: the tiger, the snow leopard, and the jaguar. In Kenya the lion has not been legally hunted for over 30 years and during that period, the lion population size has crashed to roughly about 10 percent of the neighboring Tanzanian lion population, which has been hunted all along the same period. Bans clearly not only do not work, but accelerate the extinction of species." "It's a complicated argument," admits Giraffe Conservation Foundation founder Dr. Julian Fennessey. ""There are lots of factors. The loss of habitat and breaking up of populations by man-made constructions are the main factors threatening their numbers. In the countries where you can hunt legally, the populations are increasing but across Africa the overall numbers are dropping alarmingly."

Arguments against Hunting Scientists that are studying the sustainability of hunting endangered species have proven that trophy hunters attribute a higher value to rare species. Upgrading the IUCN status of various African wildlife species has been linked to an increase in trophy prices, and it has been argued that this demand for rarity could lead to increased exploitation of animals already poised for extinction. In response to a recent scholarly article in Nature suggesting "a market approach to saving the whales," Patrick Ramage of the International Fund for Animal Welfare argued that "breathing new life and economic value into this [whaling] is a breathtakingly dumb idea." Phil Kline of Greenpeace echoed Ramage's concern. "It would be safe to assume illegal whaling would flourish if a legal whaling trade was set up." According to Zoe, a website created by Michael Mountain of Best Friends Animal Society, hunting as a conservation strategy "is completely at odds with current

9 thinking about who other animals are and how we should treat them. The great danger of a scheme like this is that it actively legitimizes something that is fundamentally wrong rather than stopping it." Leaning on economic evidence rather than pure sentiment, the League Against Cruel Sports cites a 2004 study by the University of Port Elizabeth which estimated that eco-tourism on private game reserves generated more than 15 times the income of livestock or game-rearing or overseas hunting.

Hunting Big Game in America Reginald Wells Sports Illustrated September 17, 1956

The forests and mountains of the U.S. have their own version of the prey which brings the hunter his supreme thrill. Here, in words, color pictures and area maps, is a preview of what awaits the sportsman in the 1956 season.

The sporting goods store operated by Charles Sutfin was broken into and 24 guns were taken. —Entry in Sacramento police blotter last week.

The above item, as far as motive was concerned, posed no great mystery to Sacramento's police force. Unmistakably, fresh hunting sign was showing up all over the place as 6 million hunters got ready for what should be the best big-game season in decades. Nearly all of the country's top big-game animals, most of them pictured in color on the following pages, have shown population increases in the past year, and seasons and bag limits are being increased on some to harvest the surplus crop.

Thanks to scientific management and the courage of those enlightened hunters who, for the sake of improving the herds, could last year bring themselves to shoot does, where legal, as well as bucks, the nation's No. 1 big-game animal, the deer, this year is coursing its nationwide range in healthier and bigger numbers than ever before. And a record-breaking number of hunters—most of whom haven't had a gun in their hands since last year—are out after them as seasons open across the nation.

Next to deer, the fleet-footed antelope will entice the greatest number of hunters, and by season's end 80,000 pronghorns will have been killed. Elk, with an expected kill of 52,000, is the hunter's third choice; then bear (24,000), javelina (8,000), boar (1,200), moose (900), mountain goat (300), mountain sheep (250) and buffalo (40). And approximately 1,175 hunters will also be dead.

For the greatest danger the hunter faces is himself. A day's hunting on public lands near any big city was recently likened by one sportsman to the first 48 hours on the beaches of Dunkirk. "Going into the woods on opening day," he added, "is like dealing yourself in on a concealed game of Russian roulette."

SPORTS ILLUSTRATED'S Bakersfield correspondent, Duane Spilsbury, reported from California: "Opening day at dawn on Saturday (Aug. 4) gave promise of a roaring season to come. Ten thousand hunters crowded through a check station at Frazier Mountain Park in the Tehachapi Range in a period of 48 hours. By Sunday night 155 bucks had been killed, one hunter had shot himself in the foot, a $12,500 forest fire was burning briskly, 50 citations for illegal fires had been handed out, another six had been given for illegal discharge of firearms within a quarter mile of campgrounds and roads. Theoretically, the 10,000 hunters were spread out over an area of 200,000 acres. Actually the hunters followed the ridgetops and canyons, cross firing enthusiastically at each other over the deer caught between."

Considering the amount of deadly ammunition which cannonades through the woods during any hunting season, remarkably few fatalities occur while hunting—less than while swimming, in fact. But as the number of hunters grows, so do the hunting accidents. The biggest hazard, as usual, is the hunter suffering from "buck fever"— that old hunting malady which can turn the most calm and placid citizen into a trigger-happy gunman the instant he steps into deer country with a gun. When this happens, nothing-that moves (and a lot of things that don't) is safe.

On opening day in the Los Padres National Forest this year, one eager hunter shot and killed a horse within a 100-yard range. Pot shots have been taken at pack horses carrying slain deer out of the woods; cattle—even such undeerlike varieties as Holstein dairy cows—have been particularly vulnerable, and Kern County Sheriff Leroy Galyen has seen empty handed and frustrated hunters actually shoot beef steer and make off with the hind quarters in lieu of venison. It is also a matter of record that a hunter in the Angeles National Forest carefully tied his horse to a tree, circled quietly around a mountain and seeing something move in the distance joyously shot—his own horse.

To the increasing danger of more and more hunters using the diminishing range, a frightening fact has now been added. It is known that, of the total population of the U.S., roughly eight percent is color blind in varying degree. With this in mind, the Fish and Game Department of California considered its figures of 650,000 hunters and came to a deadly conclusion: some 50,000 men without normal color perception are abroad in the fields and forests of the state with loaded guns in their hands. Under these circumstances, what good is a bright red, protective coloring?

Working with the National Rifle Association and the California Optometric Association, the California officials conducted field tests with both color-blind subjects and those with normal vision. They found that red is definitely an unsafe

12 color for hunters. The best color for hunting caps and jackets is lemon yellow. But whether this conclusion will stand the test of acceptance by the hunters remains to be seen. A stubborn lot, they are not quick to change what they believe to be traditionally right—whatever science says. Perhaps the biggest hunting controversy in the country remains the question of shooting doe deer. Right now the pros and cons of this question are being hotly argued in California, which has opened a season on does for the first time. Sides are sharply drawn between young and old hunters. Oldtimers oppose shooting females "on principle." Young hunters shrug and say "meat is meat." Though biologists tell them that shooting the does is the best thing that could happen to the herds, few hunters can bring themselves to do it. "You would think we were asking them to shoot Bambi's mother," complained one biologist ruefully.

Two new trends have emerged from the increased hunting pressure. Perhaps the biggest trend is toward bow and arrow hunting. Special early seasons, when the deer are not yet panicked by the crackle of constant gunfire, plus the added safety factor that a hunter has to get pretty close to what he is shooting at to be able to kill it, are drawing thousands of former gun hunters to the weapon of Robin Hood.

The other new trend which is gaining popularity with each season is wilderness hunting. Hunters who can afford it are flying by plane into safer and better country for their sport. Last season, on opening day in the middle Sierras, 60 private planes were parked on a mountain meadow landing strip. The charter business is booming, too, and in a day-and-a-half period one pilot flew more than 150 hunters into the backwoods.

One of the places to which overcrowded hunters are fleeing is the bountiful hunting state of Colorado. Boasting the most liberal big-game season in the nation, it draws more nonresident hunters than any other. The good news for them this year is that the upcoming season will be better than 1955 when 70,000 deer were killed, and the total bag included 7,000 elk, 3,000 antelope, 590 bear and 43 bighorn sheep.

Led by hunters from Texas, Kansas and California, these nonresidents gladly fork out $40 and $50 for deer and elk permits respectively for the privilege of an almost certain kill. The hunting success ratio in Colorado for all hunters is a high 63% to 70%.

Elsewhere around the country hunting prospects couldn't be better. In Wisconsin 300,000 hunters will turn out to try for whitetail buck deer during their nine-day gun

13 season Nov. 17 through Nov. 25, and this year the usual forked-horn buck season is being liberalized to allow hunters to shoot spike-horn bucks.

For bow and arrow hunters Wisconsin will have, in addition to the gun season, two archery seasons. The limit will be one deer, any age, either sex, and about 25,000 archers are expected to take advantage of the statewide season from Sept. 22 to Nov. 11. In southern counties a second season from Dec. 15 to Jan. 13 will be open. Last year, 1,130 deer were killed by archers in Wisconsin.

Pennsylvania, another of the country's top big-game hunting areas, has inaugurated a "farm game project" to alleviate its extremely heavy hunting pressure. Under the plan devised by the game department approximately 10,290 farms, covering 1,040,000 acres, have been opened up to hunters in a mutual pact which permits hunting on the land in return for strict observance of signs marking "safety zones" around pastures and buildings. Farmers cooperating in the plan are also supplied with shrubs, trees and advice on game management by the Pennsylvania Game Commission. Most big-game hunting in Pennsylvania is for deer and bear, and seasons for them this year will be Oct. 1-19 (archery) and Dec. 3-15.

Top topic in Michigan, which has the largest number of licensed hunters in the country, is its special two-day season, resuming this year, on antler-less deer. About 40,000 bucks will be taken in the state during the regular 16-day season from Nov. 15 through Nov. 30. The bear season will run concurrently except for a special season which opened Sept. 1 on the upper peninsula, during which bears may be hunted with dogs. In Michigan, too, archery is booming, and 40,000 bow and arrow hunters are expected to show up for their special season Oct. 1-Nov. 5.

New York State hunters will also get a chance at antlerless deer again this year during a special one-day season which has been extended to all of 24 counties and parts of five others. Regular hunting prospects, says Chester Griffith, assistant District Game Protector, "are better than they have ever been."

The same can be said for nearly every hunting state in the country. Hunters just haven't had it so good in years. All they have to do is to watch out for each other.

Is Trophy Hunting Helping Save African Elephants? Adam Cruise National Geographic November 17, 2015

African elephants are in trouble. Their numbers have fallen from as many as ten million a hundred years ago to as few as 400,000 today. Recent losses are largely from poaching for the illegal ivory trade (some 30,000 elephants a year), but also because of the shrinking habitat for elephants, as people open up land for farming and development.

Killing more elephants to help save the species is one counterintuitive strategy for preserving them. Here’s the thinking: Invite hunters from rich countries to pay generous fees to shoot specified numbers of elephants, and use that money for conservation and to help give local communities a boost. Do that, the theory goes, and poor villagers won’t need to poach elephants to feed their families.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature, an internationally recognized organization that sets the conservation statuses for species, supports this idea. “Well- managed trophy hunting can provide both revenue and incentives for people to conserve and restore wild populations, maintain areas of land for conservation, and protect wildlife from poaching,” its guiding principles say.

But a closer look at trophy hunting in Africa shows that the industry employs few people and that the money from hunt fees that trickles down to needy villagers is minimal. Government corruption can be a factor. In Zimbabwe, for instance, individuals associated with President Robert Mugabe have seized lands in lucrative hunting areas. Trophy hunting isn’t stopping poaching, especially in countries that have a poor record of protecting their wildlife.

Six countries—South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, Namibia, and Tanzania—have many of the remaining savanna elephants. Along with Cameroon and Gabon, these nations allow sport hunting regardless of the level of decline in their elephant populations. (Botswana, which has more than 130,000 elephants by one recent estimate, has banned trophy hunting.)

According to the latest figures, Tanzania’s elephant population has fallen from nearly 110,000 in 2009 to just over 43,000 at the end of 2014—a 60 percent drop. Mozambique’s elephants declined from an estimated 20,000 to 10,300 during the same period. In Zimbabwe, a recent survey shows massive losses in some parks.

In Tanzania and Mozambique, elephants are now considered at risk of extinction, which means that none of their products can be traded commercially. But trophies aren’t considered commercial products.

Namibia, a destination for sport hunters, is one of six African countries with significant populations of savanna elephants. In Etosha National Park, tourists come from around the world to see the elephants.

Here’s how many tusks that the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (CITES) allows hunters to export from the big six countries in 2015:

 Zimbabwe: 1,000 tusks  Namibia: 180 tusks  Zambia: 160 tusks  Tanzania: 200 tusks  Mozambique: 200 tusks  South Africa: 300 tusks

Trophy hunting in Zimbabwe made the news in October when an unidentified German hunter shot what may have been one of the continent’s largest bull elephants. From 2003 to 2013, trophy hunters exported more than 28 tons of tusks from Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe and Namibia’s sport hunting programs provide contrasting examples of the benefits of this form of conservation.

Zimbabwe’s CAMPFIRE

Supporters of trophy hunting often cite Zimbabwe’s CAMPFIRE (Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources), in which rural district councils allow locals to sell safari operators access to their wildlife. In turn, safari operators sell sport hunting opportunities, mostly to foreigners.

“Since its inception, CAMPFIRE has been very successful,” the foundation’s website states. It says that households participating in CAMPFIRE increased their incomes by an estimated 15 to 25 percent.

But the benefits from the program are not equally shared within the communities, according to a 1997 study analyzing CAMPFIRE, and corruption has eaten away at revenue.

Rural councils in Zimbabwe are notoriously underfunded and almost always have nothing in their coffers to support the communities in their districts. For example, revenue from sport hunting in the Chiredzi Rural District (where the hunter shot that big bull elephant) was negligible, according to a 2014 end-of-year report.

In the report, the council’s chairman suggested it would be better to switch from hunting to more profitable non-consumer-based tourism, such as sightseeing and photography.

While a portion of the hunting fees foreigners pay (which can run into the tens of thousands of dollars) is earmarked for community projects such as CAMPFIRE, Emmanuel Fundira, Chairman of Safari Operators Association of Zimbabwe, told CBS News in October that rural councils get “nothing.” In most cases, he said, corrupt government officials take the money.

CAMPFIRE CEO Phindile Ncube told CBS News that his rural district, Hwange, made more than $158,000 in hunting fees during the past year. He claimed that the money is goes to infrastructure and food programs for local communities.

But when CBS interviewed local villagers, they said they haven’t received a cent from the council.

Furthermore, hunting operations in wildlife-rich areas are being seized by Zimbabwe’s land-hungry political elite, according to a 2014 report from Born Free, a wildlife conservation nonprofit, and C4ADS, a nonprofit conflict and security analysis firm. Safari and game reserves are one of the few remaining lucrative industries in Zimbabwe, both for legal and illegal hunting.

The takeover of these lands has coincided with overhunting and poaching, according to the report, as the political elites who have come to manage them are driven more by profit than conservation. Revenue is more likely to go into personal and foreign bank accounts than into conservation and community programs.

Major General Engelbert Rugeje, for instance, who’s the chief of staff of Zimbabwe’s army, is linked in the report to land seizures in Save Valley Conservancy, home of 80 percent of Zimbabwe’s rhinos. Poaching in the area has already begun, the report says. Rugeje also alleged to have been involved in the eviction of 350 villagers at Matutu conservancy in Chiredzi.

Namibia’s Conservancy Approach

In Namibia, elephant numbers have been increasing, and the nation’s conservancy approach is applauded as a factor in this success.

Established by the Namibian government in 1996, the program grants communities the power to manage wildlife on communal land and to work with private companies to develop their own tourism markets.

The latest government statistics indicate that the estimated contributions from trophy hunting exceeded $70 million. The vast majority of this income is returned to operators and spin-off beneficiaries such as airlines, hotels, tourism facilities, but there is a trickle-down effect.

In 2000, the total income to communal conservancies from all forms of wildlife use, including trophy hunting, amounted to $165,000. Six years later, this had increased almost tenfold to $1,330,000. Though small compared to the overall income from trophy hunting, it does provide one in seven Namibians with $75 a month.

Conservancy lands given over to trophy hunting have the added benefit of keeping the wild, wild. If these areas were farmed, for instance, the incentives for conservation would undoubtedly wane, and habitat loss would reduce wildlife numbers. The ecological footprint of trophy hunting—even of a safari lodge catering for groups of wildlife watching tourists—is far lighter than that of commercial farming.

Conservancies offer hunt operators land largely devoid of people—a draw for hunters who want an African wilderness experience. Camps are small, with few overheads other than equipment and licenses.

The Namibian model has critics, however.

As reported in Africa Geographic, some government officials have handed out elephant hunting permits in an effort to get political support from the communities, especially in the Kunene region, which is renowned for its rare desert elephants.

Plus, the country’s export quota of 90 elephants doesn’t include permits to hunt “problem animals,” but Namibian law allows hunters to easily obtain permits to shoot elephants judged to be in conflict with people.

A closer look at trophy hunting in Africa shows that the industry employs few people and that the money from hunt fees that trickles down to needy villagers is minimal.

According to a CNN report in 2014, these permits are sometimes granted even before a “problem” animal has been identified. A hunter can then shoot any elephant a community declares to be a problem, whether it’s actually a problem or not. CNN reported that several desert elephants have been shot either for their meat or for the cash from hunt fees.

In a letter posted online, Namibia’s Ministry of Environment and Tourism strongly denied these claims. Namibia, the ministry says, has more elephants now than in the past hundred years, and “one of the reasons for their increase in numbers is that they have a value.”

The Money Story

According to an IUCN report, the sport hunting industry does not provide significant benefits to the communities where it occurs. Across Africa, there are only about 15,000 hunting-related jobs—a tiny number, especially considering that the six main game-hunting countries alone have a population of nearly 150 million.

Besides that, local communities make an average of only ten cents a hectare (25 cents an acre) from trophy hunting. A return that small, the report says, explains locals’ “lack of interest in preserving hunting areas and their continued encroachment and poaching.”

With more than one-sixth of the land in those six countries set aside for trophy hunting, and the fact that land-hungry politicians are seizing more and more land for themselves, impoverished rural communities often resort to poaching and the illegal wildlife trade to sustain themselves.

Citing the failure of trophy hunting interests to provide much needed revenue for both conservation and communities, and the failure of governments to control rampant elephant poaching, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service imposed a ban on imported elephant trophies from Zimbabwe and Tanzania for 2014 and 2015. The ban is likely to be extended indefinitely.

The view that sport hunting of elephants in Zimbabwe and Tanzania is causing more harm than good is gaining momentum. In Zimbabwe, says Gavin Shire, a spokesperson at the service, “trophy hunting does not currently support conservation efforts that contribute towards the recovery of the species.”

Still, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s director, Dan Ashe, maintains that there is a place for “responsible, scientifically managed sport hunting.” The Service, he says, “remains committed to combating heinous wildlife crimes while supporting activities that empower and encourage local communities to be a part of the solution.”

SHOULD TROPHY HUNTING OF LIONS BE BANNED? Alastair Bland Smithsonian December 7, 2012

Nowhere in the world is it legal to hunt wild tigers, as each remaining subspecies of the giant cat is infamously on the verge of extinction.

21 in March 2011 in which the author—lion researcher Luke Hunter—condemned the act of shooting a big cat but still argued that lion hunting is an important tool in generating revenue for land preservation. The author reported that trophy-hunting tourists may pay $125,000 in fees and guide services for the privilege of killing a lion, and he questioned the wisdom in protecting the animals under the Endangered Species Act, an action the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering. A hunter’s organization called Conservation Force also makes the case on its website that African “tourist safari hunting” benefits land, wildlife and communities while imparting “no detrimental biological impact.”

THEIR NUMBERS ARE DECLINING, BUT LIONS REMAIN A LEGAL TARGET OF TROPHY HUNTERS IN AFRICA. BIG MALES, LIKE THIS ONE, ARE POTENTIAL TROPHIES. PHOTO COURTESY OF FLICKR USER SUBURBAN CHICKEN.

Nowhere in the world is it legal to hunt wild tigers, as each remaining subspecies of the giant cat is infamously on the verge of extinction.

Yet the close cousin of the tiger, the lion—almost equally large, equally charismatic and, in places, equally threatened—is legally killed by trophy hunters across its shrinking African range. The remaining lion population, centered in eastern and southern Africa, has declined by as much as 30 percent in the past 20 years, and the cats are considered seriously imperiled. Yet every year 600 lions fall to the bullets of licensed and legal tourists on safari hunts. The activity is opposed by many, but those in favor argue that trophy hunting of lions and other prized targets generates employment and revenue for local economies. The Huffington Post ran an editorial in March 2011 in which the author—lion researcher Luke Hunter—condemned the act of shooting a big cat but still argued that lion hunting is an important tool in generating revenue for land preservation. The author reported that trophy-hunting tourists may pay $125,000 in fees and guide services for the privilege of killing a lion, and he questioned the wisdom in protecting the animals under the Endangered Species Act, an action the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering. A hunter’s organization called Conservation Force also makes the case on its website that African “tourist safari hunting” benefits land, wildlife and communities while imparting “no detrimental biological impact.”

But a report published in 2011 says otherwise—that the environmental and economic benefits of trophy hunting in Africa are negligible. The paper, produced by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, states that in 11 sub-Saharan countries that allow trophy hunting of large game, 272 million acres—or 15 percent

22 of the land—is open to the sport. However, returns from trophy hunting are dismal. While hunters in Africa kill, in addition to lions, 800 leopards, 640 elephants and more than 3,000 water buffalo each year, among other species, they leave behind only 44 cents per acre of hunting land. In Tanzania, that figure is much smaller—a per-acre benefit of less than two cents. A closer look by the report’s authors at seven of the 11 countries—Namibia, Tanzania, Botswana, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Burkina Faso and Benin—revealed that trophy hunting employs not even 10,000 people on a permanent and part-time basis. About 100 million people live in these seven nations.

The IUCN’s report points out that since the economic benefits of trophy hunting appear to be virtually nil in Africa, the only way hunting can be used as a conservation tool is by allowing it as part of carefully designed conservation strategies. Which beckons the question: What species are to gain by hunters prowling their habitat? Certainly, in some cases of overpopulation—usually of grazing herd animals—hunting can serve a direct purpose and even benefit ecosystems. Even elephants are widely said to be overpopulated in certain locations and in need of intervention via rifles.

But for lions, can the intentional removal of any animals from remaining populations be tolerated? Their numbers are crashing from historic levels. Lions once occurred in most of Africa, southern Europe, the Arabian peninsula and southern Asia as far east as India. But nation by nation, lions have disappeared. In Greece, they were gone by A.D. 100. In the 1100s, lions vanished from Palestine. The species’ greatest decline occurred in the 20th century, when Syria, Iran and Iraq saw their last lions die. In 1950, there may have been 400,000 left in the wild; by 1975, perhaps only 200,000. By the 1990s, their numbers had been halved again. Today, an isolated population in the Gir Forest of India numbers more than 400 and seems even to be growing. But the current African population of 32,000 to 35,000 is declining fast. (Defenders of Wildlife has estimated that not even 21,000 lions remain.) In Kenya, the situation is dire: In 2009, wildlife officials guessed they were losing about 100 lions per year in a national population of just 2,000 and that they might be extinct within 20 years. The causes are multiple but related; loss of habitat and decline of prey species are huge factors which, in turn, mean increased lion conflicts with livestock herders—and, often, dead lions; and as numbers drop, the gene pool is dwindling, causing inbreeding and weakened immune systems. Disease outbreaks have also had devastating impacts.

Then there is trophy hunting, which may remove powerful breeding males from a population. David Youldon, the chief operating officer of the conservation group

Lion Alert, said in an e-mail that no existing lion population needs culling. The only potential benefit from hunting could come as revenue for land preservation and local communities—but this, he says, isn’t happening.

“Hunting has the potential to generate conservation benefits, but the industry needs a complete overhaul, improved regulation and greater benefit to Africa if such benefits are to be realized, and I see little motivation within the industry to make those changes,” he wrote.

Incredibly, as lions disappear, tourists spur the decline; they may still shoot lions in Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Ethiopia also allows very limited hunting. Fifty-three percent of the cats are taken by Americans, according to Lion Alert, which has reviewed the IUCN’s report and warns on its website that the societal benefits of hunting in most of Africa are so minimal that the activity, in effect, creates little or no impetus to preserve land for the activity, maintain populations of target animals or stop poaching.

So what can travelers do to help? Take more pictures, perhaps. “Photographic tourism” generates 39 times the permanent employment that trophy hunting does, the IUCN report says, while protected lands generate on average two times the tourist revenue per acre as do hunting reserves. That is still just pennies—but at least it leaves the lions alive.

Tiger. Since 1900, tiger numbers from Turkey to Malaysia have dropped by 95 percent. Today, between 4,000 and 7,000 remain, and the outlook is grim. The largest population lives in India, where tourists have the best chance at seeing wild tigers in Ranthambore National Park, Kanha National Park and Bandhavgarh National Park.

Cheetah. The world’s fastest land animal once lived in 44 countries in Asia and Africa, with a population of possibly 100,000. Today, most cheetahs live in Africa, where numbers are down to as low as 10,000. A gene pool bottleneck thousands of years ago has left a legacy of inbreeding, one of the major threats to the cheetah’s survival. For now, an excellent place to see cheetahs is Kafue National Park, in Zambia.

Snow Leopard. The granite-colored snow leopard of the Himalaya numbers possibly 6,000 in 12 nations, but, like most wild cats, the snow leopard is

24 disappearing. Trekkers in the Himalaya (PDF) have the best chance, though unlikely, of catching a glimpse.

Clouded Leopard. Perhaps the most mysterious of the big cats—and definitely the smallest—the clouded leopard ranges from Tibet through southern China and south through the islands of Malaysia and Indonesia. The animals weigh just 30 to 50 pounds and spend much of their time in trees. The current population is unknown but believed to be less than 10,000 individuals and shrinking. Seeing clouded leopards is rare—and we may take satisfaction simply in knowing that this beautiful creature exists.

Poachers, Not Big Game Hunters, Are the Real Threat to Endangered Rhinos Bryan Walsh Time Magazine January 13, 2014

BENEATH THE SURFACE OF THE AFRICAN TROPHY HUNTING DEBATE Christopher Clark The World Post September 29, 2015

Cecil the Lion in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe. Image courtesy of Daughter#3 via flickr

Now that the deafening noise around the tragic death of Cecil the Lion has finally subsided, it's time for some more reasoned debate. Please try to leave your emotions at the door. They are not helping anyone, least of all the wildlife that many of you claim to care so much about. What an insane racket you all made. Let's reflect a little: Many of you around the world who apparently abhor the killing of any animal called for the violent death of all trophy hunters. TV presenters broke down in tears, while

30 normally every night they read out the deaths of thousands of people without flinching. Strangely, many of you didn't seem to have any issue with this. Then some model with big eyebrows who generally doesn't seem to care much about anything except cocaine and clubbing held a benefit event for lion conservation. Ed Sheeran got a big lion tattoo. And suddenly, all of you were lion experts. To your credit, it wasn't all slacktivism. You actually managed to pressure a number of major airline carriers into banning the transport of wildlife trophies on their planes. Bravo. This "success" has been followed by repeated calls to boycott all countries that continue to allow trophy hunting, including Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania and also Zambia, who recently decided to lift a two year ban on big cat hunting. Seriously now, I know your hearts might be in the right place, but I want to implore you to see that this is not the way to go. First off, you need to appreciate that contrary to popular opinion, Africa is not a country, and so a one size fits all approach to this matter is not going to work. More importantly, you need to see that mass bans and boycotts might actually, in some instances at least, cause more damage than good. Let's take Namibia for example, where local Minister of Environment and Tourism, Pohamba Shifeta, went so far as to say that airlines banning the transport of wildlife trophies would be "the end of conservation" for the country. Namibia made world headlines some months before the whole Cecil debacle due to another American's (legal) hunt of an old and infertile male black rhino in Namibia's Etosha National Park, which was filmed by CNN. Like Cecil's killer, the Etosha hunter, named Corey Knowlton, was vehemently attacked on social media, but he has stood by claims that his hunt would benefit the conservation of the endangered black rhino species, which is particularly threatened by the scourge of poaching that is ravaging national parks across southern Africa. With regards to the rhino that Knowlton shot and killed, Namibian officials maintained that it was a threat to other fertile rhinos in the herd. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) subsequently claimed that "well-managed trophy hunting has little to do with poaching, and indeed can be a key tool to help combat it." On a personal level, I don't much care for trophy hunters and their egos. I love wildlife, and I love it most when it's alive. But personal feelings aside, as I have

31 written elsewhere there are certainly some convincing arguments for the positive conservation impact that trophy hunting can have, in theory at least.

Hunter Melissa Bachman in a picture that sparked outrage and death threats on social media. Image courtesy of Facebook

Namibia is often held up as trophy hunting's biggest success story. It is indeed very difficult to dispute that hunting played a vital role in rebuilding Namibia's game stocks after they were largely decimated during the so-called Border War of the 70s and 80s. Today there are still 80 conservancies in Namibia that rely entirely on funds from hunting. You should ask yourselves what would happen to that wildlife if hunting was now banned. As seasoned Namibian journalist John Grobler puts it, "farmers look after their game better if they can sell those to hunters". Many parts of Namibia are also currently experiencing a drought. According to Grobler, this means that game numbers will have to be reduced, or the game will starve.

"Better to hunt them then than let then die of hunger against a fence somewhere. We're now in a third year of drought and the game on many farms are in poor condition; competition between males getting nastier and many people losing game they bought at huge expense to those factors. There would be no point for any farmer to have lots of game but go bankrupt - so better to hunt them selectively than let the whole herd die". Speaking with regards to Botswana's much-lauded ban on hunting versus the Namibian context, Grobler says that "the difference is that in Botswana, the farms are not all fenced off as in Namibia and therefore the game can move to better grazing in times of drought. While I would prefer the Botswana model, that simply won't work here anymore." Even at home, Botswana's model of a total ban on hunting and culling, though obviously championed by the wildlife activists, is not without its problems, with human wildlife conflict being right on the top of the pile (incidentally, human wildlife conflict - along with poaching and habitat encroachment - is generally considered to be a far bigger wildlife killer than controlled hunting).

A recent New York Times article tellingly entitled "A Hunting Ban Saps a Village's Livelihood" spoke of lions and elephants destroying livestock and crops and linked Botswana's hunting ban to a "precipitous drop in income" in a village that once largely depended on the practice. In a slightly perverse paradox, the Botswanan villagers said they were more inclined to protect local wildlife when they could benefit financially from it through selective hunting.

However, this individual case study goes against an extensive study carried out by Economists at Large, which concludes that in nine African countries that allow trophy hunting, the "sport" accounted for just 1.8% of total tourism revenue, while, more crucially, only 3% of the money actually reached the rural communities where hunting occurs. So what does all of this tell us? It tells us that whatever we might think about the hunters, hunting can be a force for good - both for wildlife and for African people - when and where it is properly, ethically and transparently managed and administered, but that too often the opposite occurs and the industry becomes hampered by bad administration, bad ethics ethics and corruption. It also tells us that trophy hunting is a far more complex beast than both those who champion it and those who abhor it are inclined to acknowledge.

So while the hunting industry's house might be in need of some serious renovations, it's perhaps not time to tear it down just yet when viable and sustainable country specific alternatives have not borne enough fruit for often cash-strapped African wildlife governing bodies. It is telling to look at Zambia in this regard. Before a hunting ban was imposed in 2013, 60% of the Zambian Wildlife Authority's (ZAWA) revenue was generated by commercial hunting. Today, ZAWA is pretty much flat broke and has been bailed out by the Zambian government more than once. There is a rationale, therefore, that says that Zambia's hunting concessions were created to be an economic engine that allows and pays for Zambia's national parks (and ZAWA) to exist, and that without these concessions the parks cannot survive. Photographic tourism has failed, thus far, to fill the void. Hence the lifting of the hunting ban. To put it another way, boycotting Zambia is only going to put more strain on an already struggling ZAWA, on Zambia's national parks and, therefore, on its wildlife. Boycotts will also have a negative impact on the numerous Zambians (from lodge owners to craft vendors) who depend heavily on tourism for their income. All of you armchair critics must consider that boycotts are less likely to bring about hunting's demise than they are to make it more necessary than ever. So what can you do? Aside from supporting Africa's national parks and wildlife areas as photographic tourists, there are no easy answers or quick fix solutions. But quietly acknowledging this fact is a step you can take in the right direction. Contrary to what you might think, mindlessly shouting your outrage until you're hoarse in the throat isn't doing anyone any good.

Killing for Fun: How Trophy Hunters Are Hurting Us All Stephen Messenger The Dodo July 1, 2014

A petition has been mounted against a teenage trophy hunter from Texas after she posted graphic images onto Facebook posing with animals she shot in Africa. Like many who participate in the cruel sport, she sees nothing wrong with killing for fun. But the hunting is not just hurting the animals themselves, it’s hurting us all.

As some hunters will rightly point out, humans have been taking the lives of animals since the dawn of our existence, and it is, therefore, natural. But paired with that instinct, rooted just as deep, is another quality that’s uniquely human: a tendency to feel respect for the things we kill.

In fact, this played such a key role in our earliest predecessors’ relationship with animals that they were inspired to immortalize them, creating the very first examples of art.

Having respect for other animals is a remarkable trait for a predator, but it’s no accident of evolution. Given the advantage of our heightened intellect and ability to kill with astonishing skill and efficiency, it’s likely that feeling empathy is instilled within us as a natural preventative to ensure that we don’t do so needlessly.

It is in our nature to hunt. But there’s nothing natural about killing for fun.

For well over a century, trophy hunters from the U.S. and Europe have been shelling out money for the chance to shoot Africa’s most iconic wildlife, like lions, elephants, and rhinos, posing gleefully next to the corpses. Some argue that the revenue generated by the trophy hunting industry is helping to fund conservation. While that might be true in theory, what’s more devastating is that it also perpetuates a practice that’s unsustainable on a whole and is just plain wrong.

In the last five decades alone, lions have declined from over 100,000 across the continent to as few as 25,000. Still, trophy hunters kill roughly 600 of these animals every year, compounding lions’ other threats, like habitat loss and retaliatory killing by villagers, prompting many conservationists to argue that lions should be listed as an endangered species.

Other endangered animals, such as rhinos and elephants, both popular trophy game, are faring even worse -- with some predicting that the latter could go extinct in a little over a decade.

Meanwhile, as pleasure-seeking hunters are having a morbid thrill, others are paying the price, and not only the animals themselves. The pro-hunting organization International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation reports that only about 3 percent of revenue from these hunts go on to improve the local

37 communities -- while also diminishing their potential for another, more lucrative venture.

As Jeff Flocken of the International Fund for Animal Welfare points out, the economic boom from foreign trophy hunters is small compared to those paying to see wildlife alive on safaris.

“The money that does come into Africa from hunting pales in comparison to the billions and billions generated from tourists who come just to watch wildlife,” write Flocken. “If lions and other animals continue to disappear from Africa, this vital source of income -- non-consumptive tourism -- will end, adversely impacting people all over Africa.”

Moreover, and perhaps most importantly, the glorification of killing of animals simply for fun sets an offensive and untenable precedent with how we relate with the other creatures. When life is given so little value that it can be taken needlessly, or worse, for an individual’s own pleasure, it dims the outlook of our collective future by suggesting that it’s okay not to care that the world is growing emptier by the day.

Trophy hunting advocates tout the activity as a key form of conservation -- but in reality, it merely contributes to the gradual decimation of endangered species around the world. Join us in pledging never to support big game hunting of any form, and to stand with governments that ban the sale of imported animal “trophies.”