Lion - stalk vs. bait

[Red Leg]

Yip. Spot on.

I don't think so. I believe it is imperative that we have a collective group of ethics which define our sport. Otherwise we would indeed be judged by our lowest common denominator. And no, I do not believe that is the current situation. Were it not for a perhaps fading perception that most hunters are indeed ethical, we would have been regulated out of existence by the non-hunting majority decades ago. I strongly believe raising lions to be killed by shooters or collectors otherwise identified as hunters undermines that collective ethic. And yes, I believe that there is a difference between hunting a kudu born in a fenced environment and a lion placed there to be executed by the highest bidder. Though I personally have no desire to hunt that kudu either, I do believe its roll in hunting can be accommodated by the ethics of our sport. Though PG too can be abused. I know of one small game farm which brought in an eland, put a .22 round thru his hoof, and rolled out an American "client" to slay him two days later. I assume the client didn't know.

I also find the danger issue irrelevant. That sort of danger has nothing to do with the "hunt", but rather everything to do the risk associated with executing the animal. Sort of like taking a pocket knife to a basket of snakes - dangerous as hell but then .....

Keep up the good fight Shakari and have another local vintage ruby!

 

[KWALATA SAFARIS]

What about a kudu bought on auction drop of on Saturday and shot on Sunday ,?.... honestly redeg would your collective idealistic ethic not be against this?

Would the two not be the same? mentioned earlier a convenient differentiation at best.....no cheap attempts to cloud any issue but just a friendly reminder of the truth and reality... that's all not acknowledging the greater picture is ignorant from i industry side to say the least, and clearly shows substandard of the collective ethic does it not gentlemen........

Or is it just an inconvenient truth we are shying away from, as it would place even larger question marks over our already highly questionable industry?.

Buff are camp raised bought and hunted, kudu, are as well so are nyala.... honestly boys how are these two any different...... emotion..or inconvenient reality......


My best always

 

[shakari]

Jaco

Your last post is another cheap attempt to cloud the issue.

No-one here says it's OK to shoot any newly released animal but let's reverse the issue for a moment........ You seem to acknowledge as we all do that it's wrong to shoot a newly released kudu etc........ so perhaps you can tell us why you think it's OK to shoot a newly released lion?

Or putting it another way, perhaps you can tell us why you think it's acceptable to shoot a lion that has been translocated a few hours or at most, days later?

 

[KWALATA SAFARIS]

Shakari please read through all my posts and point out where I stated that I fully agree with the statement you just made or indicated that I might have...... I am definitely saying though that one can not be isolated from the other I believe the fact that many will not acknowledge my point I am making as it is an inconvenient truth, and plays close to home even on those who do not prefer or dislike lion hunting in sa but do offer pg safaris in SA....

I would most definitely as an educated wildlife biologist say that if it was to be the solution to relieve pressure of wild lion populations that I would fully support the hunting of such lion... with this being said I feel that there should be stricter control as I have admitted to on more than one occasion... no ifs ands or but about it....

So if it could distract from the demand for wild lion hunting under more ideal and controlled circumstances why not.

I have shared fires and hunting experience with legendary African hunters and have discussed this subject with such individuals at length, a very interesting point was made by several of them, and whether I agree with their thoughts or not is besides the point, but here it is, certain individuals feel that with better control in SA, and very (allot more so than what we currently have even on my own two areas in Moz) limited lion quota in other African countries, that this would give lion populations on such free roaming blocks the opportunity to increase, as set anti poaching and efforts are a constant on such areas.

Just a thought.

Yet still there is no difference between the plains game many outfitters claim to hunt and lion hunting. Not clouding the issue just telling the truth and for most inconvenient to admit, due to the fact that many including or excluding yourself take part in on a continual basis.

This is a simple concept to grasp, with no distraction to the lion hunting issue but adding the pg drop and shoot issue into the same mix.

As a side note I am by no means cheap or occupy myself with cheap attempts, I do appreciate and occupy myself with the finer things in life....

My best always

 

[KMG Hunting Safaris]

Jaco,
What is your view, whether its factual, or even your opinion will be good enough, on Shakari's statement that South African Captive Bred Lion hunts does no good whatsoever for the wild lion population? Do you agree with this statement? I hope that you have the time to elaborate on your answer, whether you agree with the statement or not. Will like to hear your view of the subject.

 

[shakari]

Jaco

OK. Let me rephrase the questions:

Do you agree or disagree that it's ethical to shoot newly released PG species that do not know the terrain and escape routes etc?

Do you agree or disagree that it's ethical to shoot newly released lions that do not know the terrain and escape routes etc?

Also;

Do you believe that shooting captive bred lions will (in your words) "relieve pressure of wild lion populations"?

If so, how will it do that?

 

[Norwegianwoods]

What about a kudu bought on auction drop of on Saturday and shot on Sunday ,?.... honestly redeg would your collective idealistic ethic not be against this?

Would the two not be the same? mentioned earlier a convenient differentiation at best.....no cheap attempts to cloud any issue but just a friendly reminder of the truth and reality... that's all not acknowledging the greater picture is ignorant from i industry side to say the least, and clearly shows substandard of the collective ethic does it not gentlemen........

Or is it just an inconvenient truth we are shying away from, as it would place even larger question marks over our already highly questionable industry?.

Buff are camp raised bought and hunted, kudu, are as well so are nyala.... honestly boys how are these two any different...... emotion..or inconvenient reality......


My best always

I think it is the same no matter what animal it is and as I understand the post of Red Leg, so does he.
I really think it is bad ethics from a landowner/outfitter/ph to have a client hunt animals that have just recently been released into the fenced area.
And also being a fraud if the client is led to believe that the hunted animal have lived in that area for months/years when it in fact was released a day or a few days before the hunt.
I also think it is bad ethics from the hunter to take part in such a hunt if he/she knows that the animal recently has been released for him/her to shoot.
Then they might as well shoot the animal in a cage without releasing it first.

If people feel this extreme need to collect trophies to hang in their house and are not willing to really hunt for them, then it is better that they just buy the finished mount instead of taking part of some sort of a pseudo hunt.

I totally understand that the danger and excitement of walking towards a aggressive newly released captive bred lion to shoot it, and why some people like to do it.
But it is not hunting and has nothing to do with hunting.
It is more similar to bungee jumping than hunting in my opinion.

I have nothing against hunting captive bred lions or other animals if they are released into the hunting area long time(many months) before they are hunted.
If I had the money for it, I would consider to hunt a captive bred lion if I knew 100% for sure that the lion had been released many months earlier and was able to kill its own food.
But how can I be sure that the lion really has been living in that area for 6 months or longer without being fed?
Sadly there to many in the hunting business that have no ethics and only care about the next dollar they can earn, and would not hesitate to lie to landowners, outfitters, PHs and hunting clients.

I am not worried about the antis themselves, but I am very worried about what the non-hunting public think about hunting and hunters when they associate all hunters and hunting with any form of release and shoot the next day hunting or other forms of unethical hunting.
I totally think we do ourselves a disfavour if we think that all people that call themselves hunters always should stick together and defend everything people do in the name of hunting, no matter what.
We need to tell the public that the majority of hunters are not like that and don't act in any ways similar to what some people calling themselves hunters do.

On the internet and specially YouTube I can find hundreds of videos of hunting that I as a very keen(obsessed maybe) hunter find totally upsetting and revolting and makes me want to beat the crap out of the people involved.
I wonder what non-hunting people feel if they happen to see the same videos and what they think about hunting and hunters after watching them.

 

[KMG Hunting Safaris]

Steve,
I would also like to answer your questions to your last post.
A)No, its not ethical to shoot newly released PG.

B)Not one of the lions that we hunted, just froze in their tracks because "they did not know the escape route" They a) either ran away, which takes us between 3-4 hours to catch up to them again. b) Charged. The reason for the charges we have narrowed down to the simple reason that by bumping the cat continuously, whatever the reason may be (hunter not seeing the cat, or not taking his chance, or factors out of our hands), we would run into him/her in the heat of the day. They don't like to overheat, thus get very agitated, and being a lion takes the matter into their own hands.
As I mentioned, one of the areas that we hunt lion is 60K acres. We have found fresh lion kills. Funny how they can kill for food if they don't know the routes.


Also: Should South Africa's captive bred lion hunting be stopped, where will the supply of lion bones to the Asian markets, used for traditional medicines come from? Wild populations from poaching is where I would put my money on, and that to me, is a good enough reason why Captive bred lions take the pressure of wild lion populations.

 

[shakari]

Norwegianwoods

I agree absolutely about you tube, antis & the non hunting public and even to a large extent with what you say about wilding periods.

Unfortunately, the costs involved in having even a single lion on your game farm for even 6 months are astromonical which is why landowners don't do that and also why the lion breeder's assoc threatened to sue the govt & van schalkwyk.

To save people going back through my posts, I'll remind them of what those costs are and I'm sure most if not all people will realise I'm being very conservative in my cost estimates:

1 lion eating 1 impala valued at just US$100 per day for 6 months = US$18250

Then add on 10% to allow for an occasional more expensive animal = US$20075

Then you need to add on the cost of the lion, a profit margin, salaries for PH & staff, the cost of hosting the hunt & licences/permits etc and you see why the lion breeder's assoc were kacking it when they could see someone about to kill their goose that laid so many golden eggs.

 

[shakari]

Marius

A) If you think it's not ethical to shoot newly released PG, why do you think it is ethical to shoot newly released lions?

B) Your answer doesn't address the issue at all so I see no point in responding to that. The question was; Do you agree or disagree that it's ethical to shoot newly released lions that do not know the terrain and escape routes etc?

Your final point is quite frankly ludicrous. What the hell has the shooting of captive bred lions for pretend trophies got to do with the Asian bone trade? - IF (note the big IF) it's legal for breeders to sell bones to the Asian market they don't need to have some psuedo hunter shoot the lion first other than for additional profit.

Your argument is not only another attempt to cloud the issue being debated, it's also tantamount to saying the poaching of rhinos is somehow linked to the sport hunting of rhinos and it quite simply isn't!

 

[peras]

The lion bone trade forms an integral part of lion farming,and yes it is legal,this definitely adds to the profit of breeding lions.However,as Marius mentioned this satisfies the Asian demand and in this way helps clamp down poaching.The supply of lion bone is also seen as a replacement for tiger bone,in this way helping with the protection of the wild tiger.Much better selling the bones than letting them go wasted.In this sense I can find a link to the rhino poaching problem,if the rhino farmers were allowed to legally trade rhino horn to satisfy the demand,legal supply should make poaching less attractive.

 

[KMG Hunting Safaris]

Steve,
On to my ludicrous point....
FACT: Bones from the captive bred lion hunts supply a demand in Asia.(Whether legal or not to sell them is not the point. I'm not a lion breeder so don't know and don't care) If this supply is not there, that supply WILL come from somewhere else.

 

[KMG Hunting Safaris]

Thanks for clearing up the issue about the bone, Pieter.

Yes Pieter, 100% correct about the Rhino horn. At this stage a dead Rhino is worth more to the owner than when its alive.
Should they legalize trade, this will allow owners to harvest the horns surgically from their own animals. Flogging the market from the South African Reserves will no doubt affect the price. Once we can get the risk of poaching to be higher than the reward, it will be a step in the right direction.

 

[shakari]

Those arguments don't wash at all........ and are yet again cheap attempts to cloud the issue. One thing has nothing to do with the other and neither justify how it is ethical to shoot a newly released lion.

I ask yet again; How can it be ethical to shoot a captive bred lion that has been released into an area he doesn't know just a few hours or at the very most days before?

Such as act is indefensible and one cannot successfully defend an indefensible act.

Wild lions that are properly hunted are on quota and the shooting of captive bred lions doesn't alter that quota one single iota so one thing has absolutely nothing to do with the other and never will have.

I can argue this point until the cows come home simply because my arguments are right and the arguments are completely wrong and as I've said before, if something is wrong, it simply ain't right!

 

[peras]

Those arguments don't wash at all........ and are yet again cheap attempts to cloud the issue. One thing has nothing to do with the other and neither justify how it is ethical to shoot a newly released lion.

I ask yet again; How can it be ethical to shoot a captive bred lion that has been released into an area he doesn't know just a few hours or at the very most days before?

Such as act is indefensible and one cannot successfully defend an indefensible act.

Wild lions that are properly hunted are on quota and the shooting of captive bred lions doesn't alter that quota one single iota so one thing has absolutely nothing to do with the other and never will have.

I can argue this point until the cows come home simply because my arguments are right and the arguments are completely wrong and as I've said before, if something is wrong, it simply ain't right!

Steve,I think there are merit to both sides of the coin.Both sides mentioned valid points.Just like one mans freedom fighter is anothers terrorist,we will not convince each other.It makes for an interesting debate though.:thumb:

 

[Adrian]

It has been a very interesting discussion with good points put forward by both sides of the debate.

There is no right or wrong here, just differing opinions and what hunters base their individual ethics upon.

It is also a case of supply and demand. As long as hunters wish to take part in lion or 'exotic' plains game hunts that are more realistic to their budget there will always be farmers willing to breed lions or any other type of game to satisfy that market.

Whether or not we as individuals accept that practice is up to us as individuals to accept or decline the opportunity to hunt such an animal.

There is no situation that where I would be happy to pay my money or have a lion skin rug in my house and know I shot that animal within a fenced enclosure, no matter how large that fence is. For me it just doesn't sit right.
It is also the same feeling that I would refuse an 80 inch kudu bull if it walked across a track in front of me and I was in a truck or sitting on a kopjie shooting an antelope at 500 metres.
I haven't earned the right to shoot at that animal and therefore I would refuse based upon the personal ethics I stick to when I hunt.

I may be old school and living in a time gone by and if the only opportunity to hunt a lion comes from a captive bred and fenced operation then I am happy to live without it.

We all have to accept this debate and this practice will continue no matter what side of the fence (pardon the pun ) we sit on but I am enjoying the thoughts and opinions put forward by those whose experience I can never hope to emulate.

 

[shakari]

There's absolutely no merit, no justification, no good conservation principle & no good ethic in shooting a newly released captive bred lion and there never will be.

The only things such an act achieve are:

Obscene profit for the PH & outfitter.

A trophy to decorate the trophy room for the unethical shooter who no doubt will brag to his friends that he's a brave lion 'hunter'

Ammunition for the antis to use to influence the uneducated general public in an attempt to have all African sport trophy hunting banned.

No matter how you dress it up or try to cloud the issue, this practice is disgracefully wrong and if it's wrong, it ain't right and it never will be.

simple really........ Which is why the pro canned lion shooting side of the debate refuse to answer the simply question; Do you think it's ethical to shoot a newly release lion etc?

 

[KMG Hunting Safaris]

There you go, Steve.
You have the last word.
You once again bad mouth other hunters.(Astonishes me that you believe you have the right to do this.)
You win.

 

[shakari]

Marius

The reason I win is as I said: No matter how you dress it up or try to cloud the issue, this practice is disgracefully wrong and if it's wrong, it ain't right and it never will be.

Which is why the pro canned lion shooting side of the debate refuse to answer the simply question; Do you think it's ethical to shoot a newly release lion etc?

Simple really.

And what's more I believe I have every right to state my opinion & if I prevent just one person from shooting such a lion in my entire lifetime, it'll have been well worth the effort I've gone to by repeatedly stating my opinion.

And quite frankly, I don't care whose noses I put out of joint by stating that opinion.

Oh & incidentally. I've never bad mouthed another hunter in my life........ I have however stated the truth as I've seen it & criticised a good many unethical practices & people who partake of those unrthical practices......... I also try to have the good manners & good taste not to name individuals involved in those unethical practices.

Those people who do support the unethical practices actually identify themselves by arguing an indefensible practice.

Again, simple really!

 

[KWALATA SAFARIS]

Same here Steve.... wild lion quotas will be cut mark my words, as they have been in many countries north of South Africa.....the Sourh African demand will rise, and by the first simple action hunting pressure which is but one small factor that plays a role on wild lion population numbers will be lighter, this on hunting blocks NOT BUFFER ZONES but hunting blocks with set and paid for and operational anti poaching will cause number to increase...

It worked in Matetsi, it is going to work in Moz as most blocks now receive only 1 lion per season, and quite frankly I believe blocks should alternate...

In the interim the South African solution will supply the demand... I am still hoping for stricter control and a 6 month wander period is not such a bad thing Steve as it will get rid of the rof raf in the industry and provide larger more dependable and better operations to provide the South African alternative.

As another side not or rather a question Steve, seeing that you have labelled anyone and everyone that has not agreed with you thus far on this thread, and I have not seen anyone else do this...... How active are you in today's industry Steve or do you prefer to slam into lion debates and other debates when the opportunity arises... Just a question in as a polite a way as I can possibly put it.

My best always