MUMBA MWANSA,
Mumbwa
FARMERS in some parts of Mumbwa district are living in fear as a result of marauding lions believed to have strayed from Kafue National Park.
The big cats, which are moving in a pride of about two, have been preying on livestock, especially cattle, and it is feared they may turn to humans.
“This is the third year of suffering from lions attacking my cattle. As at this year, the lions have eaten about 10 cattle and I have been reporting the cases to ZAWA, who respond favourably,” one of the farmers, Davison Mpilibuka, complained recently.
Mr Mpilibuka said few weeks ago, some Zambia Wildlife Authority (ZAWA) officers camped at his farm to help chase the lions away.
“While the officers were camped at my farm, which is about seven kilometres from here [Kaindu community], the lions appeared in the night and killed two of my cattle.
“And the officers advised me not to tamper with my dead cattle but leave them where they were killed,” Mr Mpilibuka said.
He has been rearing cattle for about 15 years and owns about 40 animals.
The aggrieved farmer explained that from the many years he has been living in the area, he could proudly boast of the community’s commitment to the conservation of wildlife regardless of their livestock being at risk.
However, the lions seem to be multiplying in number and getting closer to the people.
“Just yesterday [Friday, June 5], my neighbour Namakau Simasiku’s cow was also eaten by two lions. When we try to chase the lions away, they charge towards us and chase us, sometimes up to the doors of our houses. These lions are scaring us and threatening our lives, too,” Mr Mpilibuka said.
Another affected farmer, Humphrey Kabinda, said there seem to be many lions that are terrorising the people and preying on livestock.
“I saw six of them less than a kilometre from this school [Kaindu Community School]. This happened three days ago [on Wednesday, June 3, 2015] in the late evening. These lions are those that have overgrown,” he said.
But ZAWA senior wildlife warden for Kafue region Phanwell Moonga refuted some of the farmers’ claims saying his officers only reported two lions terrorising the farmers and not six.
However, he noted that the authority is committed to ascertaining the exact number of the lions.
“According to the report from our officers, there are only two lions, a male and a female, which are preying on the farmers’ cattle,” he said.
Mr Moonga also attributed the high number of cattle being attacked by the big cats to the weak kraal fences that the farmers use to protect their livestock during the night.
“Some animal kraals are so weak that when a lion scares the animals, they [livestock] break free from the kraal and become more prone to being killed. Once they break the kraal, they give chance to the lions to have a wider selection of which cattle to prey on,” he explained.
Mr Moonga also attributed the increased attacks on cattle to some farmers living in isolated areas and tending to move closer to game park areas where these wild animals are found.
Despite the farmers losing their cattle to the wild beasts, they are still committed to conserving wildlife as they consider the animals to be their ‘pets’.
“ZAWA officers often do come to scare the lions away, but they don’t kill these animals [lions] terrorising our cattle. When we, common men, try to scare the lions, they charge towards us. Worse off, we cannot shoot the animals because it is illegal,” Mwanabunda senior headman Gibson Wapitanga said.
For the Mumbwa farmers, wildlife conservation is widely appreciated as the animals also add to the generation of revenue for the district as it has been evidenced in Kaingu, where a school is one of the beneficiaries.
“We are aware that the animals are ours. Through wildlife conservation, we make revenue, which we use in a number of projects. With this revenue, we have been able to do the wiring [installation of electric wires] for the school [Kaindu Community School]. The benefits are already visible enough,” Mulowa senior headman Boniface Shantebe added.
ZAWA director for conservation and management James Milanzi was impressed with the community’s patience in the handling of the lion crisis and their contribution to the conservation of the wild animals.
“Please, continue being patient. It will take a long while for the wild animals to completely disappear in this area [Kaingu] as the community is situated close to the Kafue National Park,” he told the farmers.
He, however, assured the residents that ZAWA will soon deal with the crisis and one of the ways of tackling the lion attacks is issuing cat-hunting quotas.
“To help bring sanity, Government has re-introduced cat-hunting so that the number of lions is controlled and the community also benefits from the revenue collected. When we have more [wild] animals, the community will have more revenue,” Mr Milanzi said.
Another method to be used in the controlling of this human-animal conflict is sensitising the farmers on how to use suitable materials to protect their farms from lions.
ZAWA director-general Andrew Kombe said the institution will apply ways other communities have used to keep the wild animals away from reaching their farms.
“Livingstone, Sioma and Mfuwe have used this particular method [sensitisation] to protect livestock and we will bring the experts to educate you [farmers] as well. We will work together and ensure that these methods of scaring animals are implemented. And it will be up to you [community] to safeguard the materials,” Mr Kombe said.
He said once ZAWA receives funding, it will buy the materials used to scare away the wild animals.
The director-general urged the public to realise that cat-hunting is a good solution to reduce human-animal conflict because the overgrown lions can now be hunted down.
The government has announced that the hunting of cats begins next year, but with the escalating lion attacks, Mr Kombe said the authority would soon consider introducing hunting quotas in Kaindu.
The African Cats Specialist Group of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (CSG-IUCN) considers Zambia’s lion population to be medium with a stable population status trend.
With this current population, it implies that from a global perspective, Zambia’s lion population could be hunted and trophies derived from the hunts.
A number of factors are considered when deciding a hunting quota, among them the animals’ age-sex structure, distribution, human-wildlife conflict and availability of prey.
According to the hunting guidelines, only lions aged six and above and are not associated with any pride can be hunted.
This is because these lions are old and no longer breeding, thus have a diminished biological function.
Since these lions have been pushed out of prides and have difficulty to hunt wild prey, they pose a danger to human life and domestic animals, which are easier prey, especially in the rural areas.
ZAWA
Mumbwa
FARMERS in some parts of Mumbwa district are living in fear as a result of marauding lions believed to have strayed from Kafue National Park.
The big cats, which are moving in a pride of about two, have been preying on livestock, especially cattle, and it is feared they may turn to humans.
“This is the third year of suffering from lions attacking my cattle. As at this year, the lions have eaten about 10 cattle and I have been reporting the cases to ZAWA, who respond favourably,” one of the farmers, Davison Mpilibuka, complained recently.
Mr Mpilibuka said few weeks ago, some Zambia Wildlife Authority (ZAWA) officers camped at his farm to help chase the lions away.
“While the officers were camped at my farm, which is about seven kilometres from here [Kaindu community], the lions appeared in the night and killed two of my cattle.
“And the officers advised me not to tamper with my dead cattle but leave them where they were killed,” Mr Mpilibuka said.
He has been rearing cattle for about 15 years and owns about 40 animals.
The aggrieved farmer explained that from the many years he has been living in the area, he could proudly boast of the community’s commitment to the conservation of wildlife regardless of their livestock being at risk.
However, the lions seem to be multiplying in number and getting closer to the people.
“Just yesterday [Friday, June 5], my neighbour Namakau Simasiku’s cow was also eaten by two lions. When we try to chase the lions away, they charge towards us and chase us, sometimes up to the doors of our houses. These lions are scaring us and threatening our lives, too,” Mr Mpilibuka said.
Another affected farmer, Humphrey Kabinda, said there seem to be many lions that are terrorising the people and preying on livestock.
“I saw six of them less than a kilometre from this school [Kaindu Community School]. This happened three days ago [on Wednesday, June 3, 2015] in the late evening. These lions are those that have overgrown,” he said.
But ZAWA senior wildlife warden for Kafue region Phanwell Moonga refuted some of the farmers’ claims saying his officers only reported two lions terrorising the farmers and not six.
However, he noted that the authority is committed to ascertaining the exact number of the lions.
“According to the report from our officers, there are only two lions, a male and a female, which are preying on the farmers’ cattle,” he said.
Mr Moonga also attributed the high number of cattle being attacked by the big cats to the weak kraal fences that the farmers use to protect their livestock during the night.
“Some animal kraals are so weak that when a lion scares the animals, they [livestock] break free from the kraal and become more prone to being killed. Once they break the kraal, they give chance to the lions to have a wider selection of which cattle to prey on,” he explained.
Mr Moonga also attributed the increased attacks on cattle to some farmers living in isolated areas and tending to move closer to game park areas where these wild animals are found.
Despite the farmers losing their cattle to the wild beasts, they are still committed to conserving wildlife as they consider the animals to be their ‘pets’.
“ZAWA officers often do come to scare the lions away, but they don’t kill these animals [lions] terrorising our cattle. When we, common men, try to scare the lions, they charge towards us. Worse off, we cannot shoot the animals because it is illegal,” Mwanabunda senior headman Gibson Wapitanga said.
For the Mumbwa farmers, wildlife conservation is widely appreciated as the animals also add to the generation of revenue for the district as it has been evidenced in Kaingu, where a school is one of the beneficiaries.
“We are aware that the animals are ours. Through wildlife conservation, we make revenue, which we use in a number of projects. With this revenue, we have been able to do the wiring [installation of electric wires] for the school [Kaindu Community School]. The benefits are already visible enough,” Mulowa senior headman Boniface Shantebe added.
ZAWA director for conservation and management James Milanzi was impressed with the community’s patience in the handling of the lion crisis and their contribution to the conservation of the wild animals.
“Please, continue being patient. It will take a long while for the wild animals to completely disappear in this area [Kaingu] as the community is situated close to the Kafue National Park,” he told the farmers.
He, however, assured the residents that ZAWA will soon deal with the crisis and one of the ways of tackling the lion attacks is issuing cat-hunting quotas.
“To help bring sanity, Government has re-introduced cat-hunting so that the number of lions is controlled and the community also benefits from the revenue collected. When we have more [wild] animals, the community will have more revenue,” Mr Milanzi said.
Another method to be used in the controlling of this human-animal conflict is sensitising the farmers on how to use suitable materials to protect their farms from lions.
ZAWA director-general Andrew Kombe said the institution will apply ways other communities have used to keep the wild animals away from reaching their farms.
“Livingstone, Sioma and Mfuwe have used this particular method [sensitisation] to protect livestock and we will bring the experts to educate you [farmers] as well. We will work together and ensure that these methods of scaring animals are implemented. And it will be up to you [community] to safeguard the materials,” Mr Kombe said.
He said once ZAWA receives funding, it will buy the materials used to scare away the wild animals.
The director-general urged the public to realise that cat-hunting is a good solution to reduce human-animal conflict because the overgrown lions can now be hunted down.
The government has announced that the hunting of cats begins next year, but with the escalating lion attacks, Mr Kombe said the authority would soon consider introducing hunting quotas in Kaindu.
The African Cats Specialist Group of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (CSG-IUCN) considers Zambia’s lion population to be medium with a stable population status trend.
With this current population, it implies that from a global perspective, Zambia’s lion population could be hunted and trophies derived from the hunts.
A number of factors are considered when deciding a hunting quota, among them the animals’ age-sex structure, distribution, human-wildlife conflict and availability of prey.
According to the hunting guidelines, only lions aged six and above and are not associated with any pride can be hunted.
This is because these lions are old and no longer breeding, thus have a diminished biological function.
Since these lions have been pushed out of prides and have difficulty to hunt wild prey, they pose a danger to human life and domestic animals, which are easier prey, especially in the rural areas.
ZAWA
need to get the antis to go live with the villagers so they can talk to the lions and stop them from being naughty.......
would give them an insight into living near these cuddly animals as well...............
.......
me crazy for the time I was there.
