Death of Zimbabwe’s Best-Loved Lion Ignites Debate on Sport Hunting

I agree. I also had a look at the profiles.
Funny how you are a newmember since 2013.

I also looked for new info on the net. At this stage all I could find is speculations of what actually happened.

Lets wait.
And for the antis, you are more than welcome to participate as long as you have facts to put on the table, hear say is not facts. Most of what I could find was "Apparently" this and Apparently" that, so to copy and past something is not factual in my books.

This other little tidbit in the research is a rather interesting fact of how the Lions appeared to be coping with the change in populations dynamics.

"The proportion of male cubs increased between 1999 and 2004, which may have occurred to compensate for high adult male mortality."

Source:
The impact of sport-hunting on the population dynamics of an African lion population in a protected area
Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, Oxford University, Tubney House, Abingdon OX13 5QL, United Kingdom
Biological Conservation 02/2007; 134(4):548-558.

Vevew said:

The research found that 34 of 62 tagged lions died during the study period; 24 were shot by sport hunters. Sport hunters in the safari areas surrounding the park killed 72 percent of tagged adult males from the study area. This caused a decline in numbers of adult males in the population.​

Click to expand...

now i might have this wrong as my maths is crap, but if 62 lions were tagged in the "study area", 34 died and only 24 from the "study area" were shot by hunters in the surrounding safari areas how does that come to 72pcnt ?

Who is to blame for lion attack?
April 7, 2014

The conflict between humans and wildlife is one of the greatest threats to the survival of endangered species throughout the world.

Viewpoint by Wisdom Mdzungairi

While this conflict is not a new phenomenon, the relationship with lions has been marked by intense competition for as long as humans have walked the earth, dwindling resources and a soaring human population has seen it become an increasing focus of conservation efforts.

Although human-wildlife conflict occur in both rural and urban settings, they are most widely seen in rural areas adjacent to protected areas, where wildlife is abundant and often moves in to nearby land cultivated in to fields or grazing areas.

On Friday, a seven-year–old Grade 1 pupil at Chezhou Primary School in Hwange was mauled to death by a male lion.

According to Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (Zimparks) spokesperson Caroline Washaya-Moyo, when the incident happened, parks rangers were dispatched to the area and killed the rogue lion.

Information gathered was that the boy who was going to a neighbour’s house was intercepted by the lion along the way. The lion attacked the boy before dragging him for some 110 metres from the pathway and left the body under a thick bush while it rested some 100 metres from its kill.

It might be pertinent to point out that this area under chief Bitu borders the vast Hwange National Park — the country’s flagship game reserve hosting all the big five, plains game, and many endangered animal species.

This incident happened hardly a week after four lions escaped from the enclosed Lion and Cheetah Park near Harare throwing the whole community into panic. While three others were accounted for within 48 hours, one remained missing until after three days.

When it was finally spotted the parks rangers and police gunned it down for fear it had developed queer tendency that could result in it attacking visitors to the popular tourist site.

What is also telling is the fact that this incident happened some eight months after over 115 elephants succumbed to cyanide poisoning by poachers while a host of other game species also died after drinking poisoned water in the vast Hwange Game Park.

Domestic animals have also died especially in the Tsholotsho community bordering the national park. In fact the effects of the cyanide poisoning are still being felt as some poison was swept into drinking spots during the rainy season as the Environmental Management Authority struggled to detoxicate the poisoned water holes and pan salts within the game park.

These incidents are just, but a few recorded cases across the country in which people or game species have clashed. Notably, the implications for both during such encounters have been immense.

In several cases species most exposed to conflict are more prone to extinction, as a result of high occurrences of injury and death, either accidentally, in road traffic or railway accidents, getting caught in or intentionally, caused by trapping, poisoning or retaliatory huntings, and such extinctions or population changes are shown to have huge impacts on broader ecosystems and biodiversity protection.

Surrounding communities in mainly Hwange and Zambezi Valley are also at risk of exposure to zoonotic diseases, injury or death from wildlife, and can suffer severe economic losses through damage to property, infrastructure and livestock.

So, who is to blame for this lion attack on this innocent young soul?

To what extent can government protect its citizenry from wildlife conflicts?

Wildlife areas have become a conflict zone with each defending its own territory and occasionally making forays into the others.

One would want to look into why there has been an increase in human-animal conflict if it is not the destruction of the environment by mainly people.

Only last week, it was disclosed that over 30 000 hectares of timber plantations in Chimanimani have been destroyed by thousands of villagers who were illegally settled there by politicians during the 2008 election period.

Environment minister, Saviour Kasukuwere admitted during a recent tour of the timber plantations that illegal settlements have had their toll on the commercially viable forests and to wildlife.

“The challenge has been coupled with uncontrolled fires which destroy vast tracts of plantations as settlers try to clear land for agricultural purposes,” Kasukuwere said while commissioning Allied Timbers’ $1 million Gwindingwe Sawmill Plant.

Allied Timbers chief executive Joseph Kanyekanye, had told Kasukuwere his company has failed to recover its land from the invaders who have strong backing from local top politicians.

But Timber Producers Federation chief executive Johnson Mhungu, felt they could not carry the burden of finding land and relocating the settlers.

The settlers claimed they were resettled by politicians during the run-up to the 2008 elections where they were made to vote for a particular politician.

Apart from living at the suspicious generosity of the politicians, the villagers said they did not have any offer letters.

This indeed is a sensitive matter requiring serious consideration by Kasukuwere as it needs him to find a long lasting solution to save the environment. We doubt if there is any tangible solution yet, but no politician would commit themselves to any answer to the crisis for their careers and good self.

No doubt habitat loss is one of the largest threats to the large carnivore populations everywhere in Zimbabwe. The areas of natural habitat where these animals –lions, cheetahs and many more can safely exist have been reduced dramatically due to acts like the Chimanimani one.

Could it not be possible for government to stop people from extending their dominion over animals by farming in wildlife areas as in the Hwange case?
It is true that Kasukuwere is facing a dilemma.

In these “territories” animals need to either fight for their new home or run the “gauntlet” of farmers’ traps and guns, back to their former territory. We are therefore uncertain as to how many of the animals will survive in the next few years!


Source: newsday.co.zw/2014/04/07/blame-lion-attack/

Mr. 16 gauge said:

Looking at profile history, methinks I smell a couple of trolls..................... One member has been here since 2012 and has 3 posts in 3 years, the other has supposedly been a member since 2013, and all his posts have been in re: 'canned' lion hunting.
I responded, but after looking at their profiles, I don't think they are here to "understand" anything. My personal feeling is that they are antis who are looking for info that they can warp to their benefit...........I think it's more of a phishing expedition than "Not a hunter, but someone who wants to understand how hunting works in Africa."

I call "bullshit"!!!!!!!!!!

Anyone agree or disagree?

Click to expand...

Agree. From the initial post, I checked the profiles also. The info just didn't make sense. In my view this was a legal hunt or it was not! If not, then the government should take everything the so called hunter and PH have plus jail time. If this was a legal hunt, then the locals should complain loudly to the government officials who issued the permits and licenses since this was an apparent famous lion for the tourists to see. But I am hardly in a position to determine the evidence in this case from the U.S.

Trolls.

Here is an article from a Zim newspaper that demonstrates the attitude of the local folks about Wildlife.

Wildlife wreak Havoc in Hwange



Source: chronicle.co.zw/wildlife-wreak-havoc-in-hwange/

Chiefs call for thorough probe into Hwange Poaching






Source: chronicle.co.zw/chiefs-call-for-thorough-probe-into-hwange-poaching/

BRICKBURN said:

Here is an article from a Zim newspaper that demonstrates the attitude of the local folks about Wildlife.

Wildlife wreak Havoc in Hwange

View attachment 45656

Source: chronicle.co.zw/wildlife-wreak-havoc-in-hwange/

Click to expand...

I'd actually be interested to hear @Vevew and @african lion 's opinion on this article.

I agree they do not appear to be pro-hunting, but would still like to see what type of solution they would suggest for conflict situations such as are in the article. they have after all been polite.

BRICKBURN said:

What is the source of this information?

Click to expand...

Simply put the first sentence in Google. It appears the source is Facebook and....

Bhejane Trust is a Rhino and wildlife non-profit conservation organization based out of Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe and have been operating since 2010.

spike.t said:

now i might have this wrong as my maths is crap, but if 62 lions were tagged in the "study area", 34 died and only 24 from the "study area" were shot by hunters in the surrounding safari areas how does that come to 72pcnt ?

Click to expand...

24 of 34 equals roughly 72% because 34*0.72= 24.48
The article doesn't mention if all of the tagged 62 lions were males (of which 34 died).
72% is a big figure. And all of them were males.

sestoppelman said:

Trolls.

Click to expand...

I haven't criticized anyone here, and you are already calling me and my posts 'troll', 'bs' and 'anti'.
Is this forum supposed to be an echo chamber of self-affirming views where new users can't enter?

Would you react to this news article differently if it was posted by an older user?
I wrote the original post objectively; no opinions. Don't shoot the messenger.

Royal27 said:

I agree they do not appear to be pro-hunting, but would still like to see what type of solution they would suggest for conflict situations such as are in the article. they have after all been polite.

Click to expand...

The news you are referring to doesn't mention the time frame in which those incidents of cattle loss etc. happened. Is it a period of one month or 20 years? The problem is difficult to put it in perspective.

The African lion is a declining species, which is constantly losing habitat and prey species because of humans (Growing population leads to more villages and unsustainable hunting of prey species leads to hungry lions who will enter villages). Ultimately the government of the country must decide how many lions they want to protect. Lions are a major tourist attraction after all (depends on the area). If money wasn't a problem, they should create a huge protected area where all of the country's lions would be relocated, and then help the villages to move away from there.

I just answered a question. If the shoe fits....

@Vevew

So no proposed solution to the issue, other than money, which is a problem especially in Zimbabwe.... I also don't believe that the time frame of the lion attacks is relevant as you suggest. The point is that the locals (and yes I'm making a broad statement here) believe the lions are an issue and they want them dealt with. And by dealt with they mean removed, which means to kill them all. Until that under lying culture is addressed nothing else really matters, does it?

Sustainable hunting is a solution. A solution which provides jobs and gives the lions, and other animals, a perceived value to the locals that won't otherwise exist. I also believe that "unsustainable hunting" in your reply actually referring to poaching. Big difference between hunting and poaching....

Have you ever seen the attached video? As you seem to be open minded you might enjoy it and find it educational. The speaker is an anti by the way. It is worth the watch. I promise you that everyone here wants to save the species in the wild just as you do.

https://search.yahoo.com/search?p=ted+lion+hunting&ei=UTF-8&fr=moz35

Vevew said:

The African lion is a declining species, which is constantly losing habitat and prey species because of humans (Growing population leads to more villages and unsustainable hunting of prey species leads to hungry lions who will enter villages). Ultimately the government of the country must decide how many lions they want to protect. Lions are a major tourist attraction after all (depends on the area). If money wasn't a problem, they should create a huge protected area where all of the country's lions would be relocated, and then help the villages to move away from there.

Click to expand...

And there are times when hunting benefits both the Lion and the local Community....

Frostbit said:

And there are times when hunting benefits both the Lion and the local Community....

Click to expand...

And this, is what I call a successful lion hunt!

Vevew said:

What strikes me the most is this bit in the article:

From 1999 they (Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at Oxford University) began an ongoing ecological study of African lions in Hwange to measure the impact of sport-hunting beyond the park on the lion population within the park, using radio-telemetry and direct observation.

The research found that 34 of 62 tagged lions died during the study period; 24 were shot by sport hunters. Sport hunters in the safari areas surrounding the park killed 72 percent of tagged adult males from the study area. This caused a decline in numbers of adult males in the population.​

The article didn't mention if they tagged only male lions. Is the park so small that the adult males have to wander outside the park, or are the hunters systematically luring the lions out of the protected area? Those numbers (72% of adult males are shot) don't seem very healthy, and will surely affect the pride structures. Is this sustainable?

Click to expand...

Vevew said:

24 of 34 equals roughly 72% because 34*0.72= 24.48
The article doesn't mention if all of the tagged 62 lions were males (of which 34 died).
72% is a big figure. And all of them were males.

Click to expand...

The article doesn't mention lots of things, the first being how it arrived at 72%. What it did say in bold above is "Sport hunters in the safari areas surrounding the park killed 72 percent of tagged adult males from the study area." And that is intended in my opinion to suggest to the world that hunters killing of 72% of all lion deaths be they tagged or otherwise . Notice how it did not give the cause of death for the other 10 lions. Were those natural causes? One would have to assume due to the poor writing. Are we certain that sport hunters killed the other 24? Or did they assume it was "sport" hunters that killed the lions when they recovered carcasses and determined they died of gunshot wounds when in fact poaching could have been the cause of death. For that matter it doesn't even say what the cause of any of the death of lions were.

Also because of the lack of date in the article, I don't know when this was written or what the timeframe was from the time of collaring to the time of death. There's also no mention of how old the lions were at the time they were collared, thus you have no idea how old they were when they died.

If this article were to be presented in court as evidence against someone, the worst defense lawyer in the world would have a field day exposing the holes.

Well my bad, I didn't notice the article cited by Vevew had a hyper link. It is in fact more of a study then an article. If you click it, the study was performed between 1999-2004. It also contains the following information and considerably more:

Of the 62 (18 adult male, 10 sub-adult male, 34 female)
marked individuals 38 died or disappeared during the study.
The majority of lion mortality was due to sport hunting (24
individuals; 13 male, 5 female and 6 sub-adult male). The
mean distance from the park boundary that tagged study
animals were shot was 1.7 ± 3.5 km (
n
= 17 adult and sub-
adult males, 2 females; range 0–15 km, exact locations for
the remaining 5 animals shot could not be ascertained).
82% of sport-hunted lions were shot within 1 km of the
park boundary. Other sources of mortality of marked ani-
mals were due to human conflict (4 females killed by illegal
wire snares or gin-traps; 1 female hit by a train). In addi-
tion, two sub adult males and one adult female (all un-
marked) were rescued from snares and all survived. At
least one adult male, three adult females and three sub-
adults (all unmarked) were also known to have been killed
in snares during the study. Five marked females died of
natural causes; none within one year of capture. Four indi-
viduals (1 adult male, 1 sub-adult male and 2 females) dis-
appeared during the study and despite intensive searches,
could not be found. We could not discount radio-collar fail-
ure or long range dispersal in these cases.

The only adult male to disappear was displaced from his territory by a
younger coalition and there was circumstantial evidence
that he was then shot by hunters.

You might want to pay attention to this part underlined above @Vevew and @african lion, this is where the PH's have gone with respect to lion hunting now, targeting older lions which have been kicked out of their prides by younger lions.



The over riding feature
of lion mortality in this population was that at least 72%
of adult males we tagged in the study area were shot by
sport-hunters outside HNP. In addition 60% of the 10 sub-
adult males we tagged were also shot by sport-hunters.

It's 2015 now not 2004 and things have changed. Outside of RSA I'm not sure you could get a lioness tag, and if so they're quite rare. Attitudes and hunting practices have also changed where only older male lions that are not with a pride are hunted. And it is making a difference.

Vevew said:

24 of 34 equals roughly 72% because 34*0.72= 24.48
The article doesn't mention if all of the tagged 62 lions were males (of which 34 died).
72% is a big figure. And all of them were males.

If money wasn't a problem, they should create a huge protected area where all of the country's lions would be relocated, and then help the villages to move away from there.

Click to expand...

told you maths wasnt my big thing, but using the original figure of 62 lions and the way its written after, makes it look to me like it is saying 72pcnt of the 62 were shot. so i am sure plenty others will take it that way.........apologies for my ignorance in the mathematical stakes.

as for the 2nd part you have written here......well you are really in disney cuckoo land with that comment. i take it you havent been to an african country, or one north of the limpopo, well its time you did and have a look for yourself how it is in a bush village in big game areas in a proper third world country . move the people away.........i have a sneaking suspicion all your most likely liberal friends would have a shit fit at that.......forced removal, as most would not want to leave their land. now you might not have noticed but their are massive problems at the moment in certain countries, with people who where or say their ancestors were forcibly relocated wanting land returned, even wanting parts of the kruger nat park back........how does that work in your thoughts.......? typical cloud cuckoo thoughts of people with no concept of the reality of the situation.

Frostbit said:

Simply put the first sentence in Google. It appears the source is Facebook and....

Bhejane Trust is a Rhino and wildlife non-profit conservation organization based out of Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe and have been operating since 2010.

Click to expand...

Thanks Jim.

The latest from:
Zimbabwe Professional Hunters and Guides Association
5 hrs ·
"ZPHGA would like to make the following statement, regarding the ongoing investigation of the hunt outside Hwange that resulted in the death of Cecil the Lion at this time.
Zimbabwe Parks Wildlife Management Authority, are currently still conducting an investigation on the legalities of the hunt that took place and for which they are the appropriate authority to do so. We therefore can not and will not comment on the legal aspect, whilst this investigation is ongoing. ZPHGA are working together with ZPWMA and Safari Operators Association of Zimbabwe (SOAZ).
ZPHGA confirms the Professional Hunter in charge of the Safari is a member of ZPHGA. Therefore ZPHGA can make a ruling on the aspect of ethics and his membership at this time.
ZPHGA in the follow up of the investigation concludes that in regarding the responsibility of his membership, the PH was is in violation of the ethics of ZPHGA.
ZPHGA therefore with immediate effect, suspend his membership indefinitely.
The professional hunter and company he works for have been co-operative in the investigation.
ZPHGA re-iterates it will not tolerate any illegal hunting or any unethical practices by any of its members and their staff.
ZPHGA will await the completion of the current investigation by ZPWMA before commenting any further.
We ask all members of ZPHGA, as well as the general public, to please respect the ongoing investigation underway by the appropriate authorities ZPWMA."