How trophy hunting actually helps sick puppies get their cheap thrills
Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2015 10:51 pm
How trophy hunting actually helps lions like Cecil
If you don’t know who Cecil the lion was by now, you’ve been living in a cave. Actually, even people in caves probably have Internet and know about Cecil, too. But they probably haven’t been living near lions.
Because in all the international furor over Cecil, who was killed outside Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe in July, one important thing to know about lions has been forgotten: Lions eat people.
It doesn’t happen often, but it is a fact of life for people living in countries where lions roam free. In Tanzania, where human population growth has squeezed habitat space for lions and depleted their usual prey animals, 871 people have been killed or wounded by lions from 1990 to 2005, according to the journal Nature.
As such, lions aren’t the most popular neighbours. Zimbabwean academic Goodwell Nzou wrote in the New York Times that villagers, armed with machetes and spears, keep children indoors when they know a lion is in town.
“In my village in Zimbabwe, surrounded by wildlife conservation areas, no lion has ever been beloved, or granted an affectionate nickname. They are objects of terror.”
Without the protection of the law, lions may be killed or driven out of the area to protect children and livestock.
Many wildlife management experts believe trophy hunting encourages governments to protect lions as assets, rather than allowing villages to exterminate them as pests. According to one 2012 study, a single sport hunt brings $24,000 to $71,000 US into the local economy.
While the international media wrings its hands over Cecil’s death, driven by armchair outrage on social media, Africans shake their heads. Sub-Saharan African countries are impoverished compared to the West. Their wilderness is vast, wildlife patrols aren’t free and poaching and habitat loss are far more serious threats to animal populations than trophy hunting, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Contrary to popular wisdom, lions aren’t technically endangered. The IUCN Red List lists the lion as “threatened,” meaning some populations are thriving while some are not. The major risk to the lion as a species — the reason their population declined 42 per cent from 1993 to 2014 — is primarily habitat loss.
When a rich foreigner spends tens of thousands of dollars on a hunt, it injects that money into national and local economies. Money may be the root of all evil, but try telling that to a Zimbabwean with kids to look after.
The money from trophy hunts helps pay for the salaries and equipment of wildlife conservation officers, who can still be outgunned by poachers serving a multi-million-dollar illegal trade in animal parts. In some countries the income from trophy hunts goes directly to conservation programs.
Trophy hunting indirectly helps preserve habitat for lions and their neighbours — cheetahs, leopards, impala and so many others. Without this commercial incentive, people do what people have done for millennia: Raze the wilderness to create farmland or pasture.
The Twitterverse can bemoan the death of one majestic animal all it wants, but until the crushing poverty in Africa is addressed and defeated, there will always be more Cecils.
Writer Gabriel Zarate is a Toronto-based editor who spent three years reporting from the Canadian North.
(August 21, 2015, Metro News)
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“According to one 2012 study, a single sport hunt brings $24,000 to $71,000 US into the local economy.”
Econo-euphoria must come before everything and everyone else. Indeed, unless I’m mistaken, our prime minister is reported to experience multiple organisms just by discovering that a dozen or more jobs (even if they’re but temporary or part-time) have been created somewhere on the globe; and he experiences bonus pleasures if those jobs materialize on Canadian soil.
“In my village in Zimbabwe, surrounded by wildlife conservation areas, no lion has ever been beloved, or granted an affectionate nickname. They are objects of terror.”
Hmmm. Maybe then such village people, who doubtlessly appreciate trophy-hunt revenue injections into their communities to help feed their kids, will have a bit of an idea and perhaps even feel some appreciation for what a crossbow-injured lion feels as it’s being chased for hours before the human hunter — “[whose] sport hunt brings $24,000 to $71,000 US into the local economy” — finally finishes the animal off with high-powered-rifle fire; an animal whose own newly-fatherless cubs not only don’t get fed but killed off by other lions following their nature’s dictate.
“Sub-Saharan African countries are impoverished compared to the West ... [and] until the crushing poverty in Africa is addressed and defeated, there will always be more Cecils.”
Oh, yeah. However, it may be relevant to mention that there are some African nations in which the average living standard exceeds that of a number of developed Western nations. How is that possible? The economies in those African nations are almost entirely underground, therefore there’s a misleading appearance (on paper) of low average income or standard of living status; this appearance then allows it a low official rating with the World Bank as to its impoverishment and by extension how much World Bank aid money is to be allocated to the ‘impoverished’ nations.
Frank Sterle Jr
If you don’t know who Cecil the lion was by now, you’ve been living in a cave. Actually, even people in caves probably have Internet and know about Cecil, too. But they probably haven’t been living near lions.
Because in all the international furor over Cecil, who was killed outside Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe in July, one important thing to know about lions has been forgotten: Lions eat people.
It doesn’t happen often, but it is a fact of life for people living in countries where lions roam free. In Tanzania, where human population growth has squeezed habitat space for lions and depleted their usual prey animals, 871 people have been killed or wounded by lions from 1990 to 2005, according to the journal Nature.
As such, lions aren’t the most popular neighbours. Zimbabwean academic Goodwell Nzou wrote in the New York Times that villagers, armed with machetes and spears, keep children indoors when they know a lion is in town.
“In my village in Zimbabwe, surrounded by wildlife conservation areas, no lion has ever been beloved, or granted an affectionate nickname. They are objects of terror.”
Without the protection of the law, lions may be killed or driven out of the area to protect children and livestock.
Many wildlife management experts believe trophy hunting encourages governments to protect lions as assets, rather than allowing villages to exterminate them as pests. According to one 2012 study, a single sport hunt brings $24,000 to $71,000 US into the local economy.
While the international media wrings its hands over Cecil’s death, driven by armchair outrage on social media, Africans shake their heads. Sub-Saharan African countries are impoverished compared to the West. Their wilderness is vast, wildlife patrols aren’t free and poaching and habitat loss are far more serious threats to animal populations than trophy hunting, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Contrary to popular wisdom, lions aren’t technically endangered. The IUCN Red List lists the lion as “threatened,” meaning some populations are thriving while some are not. The major risk to the lion as a species — the reason their population declined 42 per cent from 1993 to 2014 — is primarily habitat loss.
When a rich foreigner spends tens of thousands of dollars on a hunt, it injects that money into national and local economies. Money may be the root of all evil, but try telling that to a Zimbabwean with kids to look after.
The money from trophy hunts helps pay for the salaries and equipment of wildlife conservation officers, who can still be outgunned by poachers serving a multi-million-dollar illegal trade in animal parts. In some countries the income from trophy hunts goes directly to conservation programs.
Trophy hunting indirectly helps preserve habitat for lions and their neighbours — cheetahs, leopards, impala and so many others. Without this commercial incentive, people do what people have done for millennia: Raze the wilderness to create farmland or pasture.
The Twitterverse can bemoan the death of one majestic animal all it wants, but until the crushing poverty in Africa is addressed and defeated, there will always be more Cecils.
Writer Gabriel Zarate is a Toronto-based editor who spent three years reporting from the Canadian North.
(August 21, 2015, Metro News)
_________________________________________________________________________________________
“According to one 2012 study, a single sport hunt brings $24,000 to $71,000 US into the local economy.”
Econo-euphoria must come before everything and everyone else. Indeed, unless I’m mistaken, our prime minister is reported to experience multiple organisms just by discovering that a dozen or more jobs (even if they’re but temporary or part-time) have been created somewhere on the globe; and he experiences bonus pleasures if those jobs materialize on Canadian soil.
“In my village in Zimbabwe, surrounded by wildlife conservation areas, no lion has ever been beloved, or granted an affectionate nickname. They are objects of terror.”
Hmmm. Maybe then such village people, who doubtlessly appreciate trophy-hunt revenue injections into their communities to help feed their kids, will have a bit of an idea and perhaps even feel some appreciation for what a crossbow-injured lion feels as it’s being chased for hours before the human hunter — “[whose] sport hunt brings $24,000 to $71,000 US into the local economy” — finally finishes the animal off with high-powered-rifle fire; an animal whose own newly-fatherless cubs not only don’t get fed but killed off by other lions following their nature’s dictate.
“Sub-Saharan African countries are impoverished compared to the West ... [and] until the crushing poverty in Africa is addressed and defeated, there will always be more Cecils.”
Oh, yeah. However, it may be relevant to mention that there are some African nations in which the average living standard exceeds that of a number of developed Western nations. How is that possible? The economies in those African nations are almost entirely underground, therefore there’s a misleading appearance (on paper) of low average income or standard of living status; this appearance then allows it a low official rating with the World Bank as to its impoverishment and by extension how much World Bank aid money is to be allocated to the ‘impoverished’ nations.
Frank Sterle Jr
