Leopard Trophy Hunting – Let’s Talk Numbers

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Leopard trophy hunting – let’s talk numbers

Opinion post: Written by Simon Espley, CEO of Africa Geographic

I will keep this short and sweet, because my message is not difficult to comprehend.
So, our Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) has brought back trophy hunting quotas for leopardsdespite announcing last year that “ trophy hunting posed a high risk to the survival of the species”. This year – 2018 – will see seven leopards baited and going down to trophy hunters’ bullets.
My concern about lack of proper research or consultation and my mistrust of the trophy hunting industry to abide by regulations aside, the following: It’s no secret that brand South Africa is taking a pounding each time the DEA announces yet another strategy to squeeze relatively meagre revenue from the consumptive use of our wildlife – think lion bone exports, trophy hunting and rhino horn trading.
Based on the many comments on our social media pages and blog, people cancel plans to travel to this great country each time these unsavoury practices burst into the public spotlight. By no great leap of logic, we can safely assume that people are in fact doing so – they either ignore this country as a vacation option, or they cancel already made plans.

The big question therefore is:

At what point does the decision to hunt leopards lose money for the South African economy – when the value of cancelled or redirected safari plans exceeds the revenue generated from the hunting of these seven leopards?

The answer: 21

To be clear: It takes only 21 cancelled photographic safaris for the DEA decision to hunt seven leopards to start losing revenue for this country.
Bearing in mind the finite leopard hunting resource, and the massive potential to grow photographic safaris, this seems like a really stupid business model, where risk and return are way out of line. Is the comparatively meagre revenue raised by hunting seven leopards worth the financial losses due to photographic safari cancellations/redirections and the enormous brand damage to this country? Just what is it about trophy hunting that makes our government go all weak at the knees and place our economy and good name on the line? Someone please tell me …


My calculation is derived from the following proven figures:

1. The cost for a 14-day leopard hunting safari in South Africa ranges from $15,000 to $35,000 – based on hunting websites I perused. That cost includes accommodation, permit, services of professional hunter, trackers, bait etc. And so, I used an average cost of $25,000 per leopard, or $175,000 (total revenue for the year that accrues to the South African economy from the hunting of seven leopards). I am of course assuming that all revenue does find its way to this country.

2. The average photographic safari holiday sold by my team here at Africa Geographic costs $10,000 to $12,000 (to all parts of Africa, multi-day and usually 2 or 3 people). South African safaris come in about 25% cheaper, so I used an average figure for a South African safari of $8,250.

3. Dividing $175,000 by $8,250 we get to a figure of 21. Bear in mind that someone paying $25,000 to hunt a leopard clearly has plenty of cash, and can be compared to a typical luxury safari customer. One can argue and nitpick this is all sorts of ways, but in the end you will arrive at a surprisingly low figure.


https://africageographic.com/blog/leopard-trophy-hunting-lets-talk-numbers/
 
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The law in principle protects leopards. The Act states that it’s illegal to possess a leopard skin without a permit. Even though thousands of Zulus own skins, no permits have been issued in KZN or the rest of SA in the last few years,’ says Tristan Dickerson, a leopard researcher for conservation organization Panthera.

Yet the law means little to a cultural group that has valued leopard skins for over a century, ever since King Cetshwayo became the first monarch to wear a so-called amambatha in the 1870s.

While some members of the Zulu nation may not know the law, and inadvertently buy real leopard skins – at a price of about R4 500 - ....



Do you think there is a better target to whine about than hunters?
 
2 + 2 =6 on photo Safari
2 + 2 = 3 on hunting Safari
 
The biggest issue with this piece is that it depends entirely on photo safaris being canceled because of the mere existence of leopard hunting.

Of course, there has been leopard hunting for many years in South Africa, until the temporary "moratorium" on permits was imposed a couple of years ago. Did photo safari numbers go up when the moratorium was in place? If the numbers did indeed go up, Mr. Esply would still have to prove a correlation, which I suggest would not be easy given the number of potential confounding factors.

And of course, Mr. Esply must be suggesting that such photo safaris as are canceled go elsewhere, presumably where leopard hunting is not allowed. Where would that be? Most other photo safari destinations (including Botswana) allow hunting of at least some animals, and most allow the killing of leopards in the protection of livestock. So what's left? Kenya? Safaris there are much more expensive than in South Africa as a rule, and of course, you would have to assume that those who book there in lieu of South Africa - because of leopard hunting - care nothing for the rampant poaching and habitat loss in Kenya which is responsible for enormous declines in large mammal populations since the end of hunting.

This seems to be just another emotional appeal to anti-hunting, but this time gussied up as business or science. Without more - a lot more - it is no such thing.
 
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You have to wonder what it all means. Leopard is tops on my bucket list. But importing it back is very important to me. Hunters continue to lose..
 
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You have to wonder what it all means. Leopard is tops on my bucket list. But importing it back is very important to me. Hunters continue to loose..
Hunters dont lose, leopards lose. That's what these anti idiots don't get
 
Hunters dont lose, leopards lose. That's what these anti idiots don't get
Yes sir it seems we all lose while the antis think their doing something right.
 
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I spend some time on a few places that are more orientated to photo safaris.

There is always a few claiming they will boycott a certain destination due to management policies; but in the end these lodges are booming for business. Day rates can run 500-1000/PP a day just like DG hunts; and in the right places the sightings are ridiculous close and quite amazing.

If the anti hunting photo guys like this want to end hunting its stupid easy; buy up the properties or out bid for the quota.

Of course that'll take capital they don't have and controlling properties they can't make a profit on; so they bitch and moan with their mantra of hunting is bad with no solution of how to keep that habitat preserved.
 
If the anti hunting photo guys like this want to end hunting

Africa: Why Cheetahs in the Maasai Mara Need Better Protection From Tourists
https://allafrica.com/stories/201808160375.html

Cheetahs have relatively big litters, ranging between one to six cubs. But cheetah cubs can succumb to various factors including abandonment, poor health, and fires so the number of cubs that reach independence can be very low, ranging from 5% to 28.9%.

I was interested in finding out if tourism is playing a role in this.

By analysing four years of data on female cheetahs with cubs it became apparent that high numbers of tourists are having a negative effect on the number of cubs that reach independence. More specifically, females in areas with a lot of tourists on average raised one cub (or none survive) per litter to independence compared to more than two cubs in low tourist areas.

What can be done?

allowing no more than five vehicles at a cheetah sighting;

ensuring that no tourist vehicles are allowed near a cheetah lair (den);

ensuring that vehicles keep a minimum distance of 30m at a cheetah sighting;

ensuring that noise levels and general disturbance at sightings are kept to a minimum;

ensuring that vehicles do not separate mothers and cubs; and that

cheetahs on a kill are not enclosed by vehicles so that they can't detect approaching danger.

If human pressures, like tourism, remain unchecked it risks having a negative impact on wildlife and could mean the loss of some of the biggest attractions - like cheetahs.
 
Fully agree with @Fred Gunner, from what I have seen of these parks, human pressure caused by tourists are more likely to harm wildlife than hunting.
 
It would have been better if he at least gave out some statistics. People say "I'm never doing that ever" on social media all the time. Even outside social media, who here has personally broken their own promises?
 
It would have been better if he at least gave out some statistics. People say "I'm never doing that ever" on social media all the time. Even outside social media, who here has personally broken their own promises?
With social media the world is full of headline activists. They're so passionate and opinionated about something as long as it's in the news but as soon as it fades so does their interest.

On the other hand, virgin australia banned transport of hunting trophies after the cecil crap. I wrote them a letter outlining the above regarding headline activists and said that on the contrary i won't forget their discrimination and will never give them anither cent. I'm a man of my word and have on several occasions paid a few hundred bucks more for a flight so as to not use them.

I can't imagine the vegan warrior princess who threaten to boycott something while eating tofu thats been grown off land cleared of rainforest is going to pay a cent more than minimum to travel or "see the real africa"
 
No kidding having never been on a photo "Safari" myself I had no clue that these idiots would surround feeding predators with trucks loaded with tourists....WTF????

Its stupid ridiculous, some places. To me thats the point, the antis protest, but trample the very resource they claim to protect. Even if one agrees that 7 leopard hunters is 21 tourists, the support staff is equal or greater and theres 14 more people leaving an impact of waste behind them and demanding luxury accommodations and that impact.

On public places you get full on traffic jams when animals get near a road like in popular places like Kruger at sightings. You can't off road there or it'd be a disaster.

The more remote the less these occur, didn't see anything in Etosha a handful of vehicles at most and some buses that never seem to do much but slow down.

On private game reserves like Sabi Sands they limit sightings to 3 vehicles and none allowed at den sights with young without the adult there and nothing after dark at dens. This was amazing place with multiple relaxed leopard and lion sightings each day feet away. Had a male coalition of 4 adult lions and a 3 female pride and cubs on a fresh minutes old buff kill. Some anti hunting vibe, but very well run lodges in the area; but it comes at a price, not "cheap".

One place; the Mara Triangle in Kenya is revamping its blocks where tourists can off road responding to that cheetah article posted, and are trying to work on some rules for number of vehicles and getting them to distribute more over the park; not just congregate at crossing points for the migration or big cat kills. But thats a quasi private owned area owned by the local county as a conservancy agreement and they can make better rules than the national park that borders to the east. I haven't been but am researching as I think this will be a side trip next time; pretty much have a plan in place.


On a fun note, you can have some laughs too. In Kruger I had a cruiser with racks and spotting scope hanging out a window looking all pro and know what were doing; would stop at some random place and point and put a big camera with sun shade out and point at nothing on the horizon. After a few minutes its like moths to a flame you'd have 3 or 4 cars and a bus stopped all jockeying for position and then you drive off.......and theres nothing there. LOL
 
..........
On a fun note, you can have some laughs too. In Kruger I had a cruiser with racks and spotting scope hanging out a window looking all pro and know what were doing; would stop at some random place and point and put a big camera with sun shade out and point at nothing on the horizon. After a few minutes its like moths to a flame you'd have 3 or 4 cars and a bus stopped all jockeying for position and then you drive off.......and theres nothing there. LOL

Trolling for idiots! :ROFLMAO:
 
Yea going off topic for a bit, what rules are there to not stress the animals out through too much tourism?
 
Yea going off topic for a bit, what rules are there to not stress the animals out through too much tourism?

In Northern Botswana zero. Gameviewer vehicles congregate around predators like flies, flattening bush and trees so the occupants can take photos. It happens in mere minutes as they call each other over the radio.

Further more the drivers/ guides devalue all the ordinary game like waterbuck, kudu, etc by ignoring them in there chasing after predators.

And the Kale&Tofu warriors rejoice in seeing these predators in a “natural” environment. If a lion seeking the shade of one of 12 Land Cruisers full of picture taking tourists is natural.
 

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