Threats to Lions & Lion Conservation

Information and Discussions on Endangered Species
User avatar
Toko
Posts: 26619
Joined: Sat May 19, 2012 12:29 pm
Country: -

Re: Threats to Lions

Post by Toko »

http://www.traffic.org/home/2015/7/16/n ... trade.html

New study throws light on South Africa’s Lion bone trade
Thursday, July 16, 2015 at 7:51
TRAFFIC in In Africa, Mammals - lions, Report launch
South Africa, 16th July 2015—A new study finds there is little evidence that the Lion bone trade in South Africa is currently adversely impacting wild Lion populations there, but warns the situation needs to be closely monitored and that too little is known about the situation elsewhere in Africa.

The findings, by researchers from Oxford University’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCru), TRAFFIC and the University of Witwatersrand, were published today in Bones of Contention: An assessment of the South African trade in African Lion bones and other body parts (Download PDF, 5 MB).

Lions are listed in Appendix II of CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), which means international trade in live animals or body parts can only take place under a strictly controlled permit system. Prior to 2008, the only record of South Africa issuing CITES permits to export Lion skeletons was for three units to Denmark in 2001.

However, Lion bone exports from South Africa have increased dramatically in recent years. From 2008 to 2011, the official number of skeletons legally exported with CITES permits totalled 1160 skeletons (about 10.8 tonnes on bones), 573 of them in 2011 alone, with 91% of them destined for Lao PDR. The North West, Free State and Eastern Cape, all home almost exclusively to captive-bred Lions, were the only provinces to issue export permits. Not all Lion bone trade in South Africa has been legal, however. In 2009, a Vietnamese national was arrested and later deported for being in possession of Lion parts without permits, while in June 2011 two Thai men were arrested after being found with 59 Lions bones.

“The trophy hunting industry…is the main source of carcasses once the trophy hunter has taken the skin and skull,” say the report’s authors. Numbers of Lions at breeding facilities in South Africa almost doubled from 2005 to 2013 when around 6188 animals, some 68% of the national total, were in captivity, many destined for the lucrative trophy hunting industry, which generates around USD10.9 million per year. However, the report finds: “there is no economic incentive to farm Lions solely for their bones, especially given the costs involved in raising Lions and the current prices paid for skeletons.”


Nevertheless, the value of bones generated as a secondary by-product of the trophy hunting industry has allegedly motivated farmers to dig up previously discarded carcasses originating from trophy hunts and captive mortalities and whereas female Lions formerly had little or no trophy hunting value to breeders, the emergence of a market for bones has generated a previously overlooked value. The authors recommend Lion breeding facilities are closely monitored to restrict opportunities for abuse of the system for financial gain.

The authors speculate that bone exports to Asia may be connected to Lion bone being used as a substitute for Tiger bone in tonics. In 2005, TRAFFIC found evidence that African Lion bones were an ingredient in “tiger bone strengthening” wine produced in Guilin, China, and distributed in Tiger-shaped bottles, but with Lion bones as an approved ingredient.

The authors also note the difficulty of distinguishing Lion from Tiger bones. With more than 280 Tigers captive in South Africa, they recommend DNA spot checks of shipments to verify their origin and also in the report provide some guidance, based on skeletal characteristics, on how to distinguish the two species.

The reports also notes the large discrepancies in information on Lions in South Africa: between 2004 and 2010, 2950 Lions were registered as having been hunted there – yet CITES export permits indicate 4088 trophies for the same period, a difference of more than 1100 trophies.

Several reasons are proposed to explain the discrepancies, including specimens incorrectly described as trophies and animals not being hunted in the same year as the permits are issued. The authors recommend a number of improvements to recording systems, including development of an integrated national system for issuing permits that can be crosschecked by all enforcement and Customs officials. They also make a pragmatic blanket recommendation that measures currently in place to impede opportunities for illegal activities are strengthened across the entire supply chain from Lion breeding to skeleton exports.


User avatar
Toko
Posts: 26619
Joined: Sat May 19, 2012 12:29 pm
Country: -

Re: Threats to Lions

Post by Toko »

Minister Edna Molewa addresses lion breeding and hunting

17 Jul 2015
Minister of Environmental Affairs Mrs Edna Molewa convenes stakeholder engagement to address issues around lion breeding and hunting

The Minister of Environmental Affairs, Mrs Edna Molewa has held a ground-breaking stakeholder engagement to discuss matters around lion management in South Africa; and in particular, breeding and hunting.

The Minister convened the engagement to address widespread and mounting public concern around the practice of so-called ‘canned hunting’ of lion.

The engagement is the first in what is to be a series of regular interactions between the Minister, departmental officials, and industry role-players on matters of mutual interest and concern.

Among those in attendance were representatives from lion breeders and the hunting industry. This included high-level representation from the Professional Hunters Association of South Africa (PHASA), the South African Predator Association (SAPA), the Confederation of Hunters Associations of South Africa (CHASA), the South African Predator Breeders Association (SAPBA) and the South African Hunters and Game Conservation Association (SAHGCA).

They engaged with the Minister as well as with the Free State, North West, Mpumalanga, Limpopo, Northern Cape, Gauteng and Eastern Cape provincial environmental departments, and representatives from Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife.

“This meeting is a reflection of the seriousness with which we as the department view allegations of criminality operating at the fringe of the legal, well-regulated breeding and hunting industries,” says Minister Edna Molewa, adding that the engagement would open channels of communication between all stakeholders on issues relating to lion management.

“South Africa is recognised worldwide for its conservation successes with regards to African lion, so much so that the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) just recently hailed our advances in protecting the species,” says Minister Molewa.

On the matter of so-called ‘canned hunting’ of lion, all industry role-players present at the meeting conceded that ‘rogue elements’ were operating within the lion breeding and hunting industries, and that these needed to be rooted out.

Departmental representatives emphasized that in terms of the Threatened or Protected Species (TOPS) Regulations published in terms of the National Environmental Management Biodiversity Act (NEMBA) it is prohibited to hunt a lion:

in a controlled environment (the minimum size of the hunting camp is not prescribed in the TOPS Regulations, as it will differ from area to area. However, the minimum size is prescribed in many of the provincial acts/ ordinances);
while it is under the influence of a tranquiliser (the minimum time frame before a lion may be hunted after it has been darted, is not prescribed in the TOPS Regulations but is regulated in terms of some of the provincial acts/ ordinances);
with certain methods, such as poison, snares, air guns, shot guns, or by luring it with scent or smell.
The organisations present agreed that the illegal hunting of lion was damaging the legal industry. They further also noted that negative publicity fuelled by misconceptions that ‘canned hunting’ took place in South Africa, was resulting in substantial financial losses for the local legal hunting industry.

However it was noted that provincial conservation authorities have taken a proactive stance with regards to rooting out illegality, adding that there were a number of cases before the courts relating to suspected illegal activities around lion breeding and hunting, particularly in the Free State province.

In a move to promote consistency across provinces with regards to hunting ordinances, provincial authorities (such as in the North West province) are considering developing norms and standards to further ensure compliance on lion hunts.

Industry role-players have similarly developed norms and standards which have been presented to the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) for consideration. These include clarifying issues around the release period (prior to a hunt) of captive bred lions; handling of cubs and the prohibition of contact with humans in facilities where lions are bred for hunting.

Participants agreed to the establishment of a forum to investigate a number of issues related to the lion industry in South Africa. Participants agreed, inter alia, to

Working together to determine how to move forward as the Department of Environmental Affairs in cooperation with the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) in addressing and regulating the welfare of captive bred lions
Supporting research relating to captive bred lions
“The Department is reviewing the comments received on the draft Biodiversity Management Plan for Lion that was published for public participation on 17 April 2015 and regulations are being reviewed and tightened to ensure that all gaps that exist in the lion breeding and hunting industries are closed. This stakeholder engagement, the first of many, will assist us, as the Department, in addressing areas of concern” Minister Molewa said.

Participants emphasized their commitment to promoting sustainable use as South Africa’s conservation model, noting further that responsible utilisation of wildlife was a key driver of economic growth, skill development and job creation in the sector.

Enquiries:
Albi Modise
Cell: 083 490 2871

Issued by: Department of Environmental Affairs

http://www.gov.za/speeches/minister-env ... -2015-0000


User avatar
Lisbeth
Site Admin
Posts: 67235
Joined: Sat May 19, 2012 12:31 pm
Country: Switzerland
Location: Lugano
Contact:

Re: Threats to Lions

Post by Lisbeth »

The reports also notes the large discrepancies in information on Lions in South Africa: between 2004 and 2010, 2950 Lions were registered as having been hunted there – yet CITES export permits indicate 4088 trophies for the same period, a difference of more than 1100 trophies.
For which reason do cites give export permits for such a big number? Especially if the hunted lions are many less :-?


"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." Nelson Mandela
The desire for equality must never exceed the demands of knowledge
User avatar
Lisbeth
Site Admin
Posts: 67235
Joined: Sat May 19, 2012 12:31 pm
Country: Switzerland
Location: Lugano
Contact:

Re: Threats to Lions

Post by Lisbeth »

The reports also notes the large discrepancies in information on Lions in South Africa: between 2004 and 2010, 2950 Lions were registered as having been hunted there – yet CITES export permits indicate 4088 trophies for the same period, a difference of more than 1100 trophies.
For which reason does CITES give export permits for such a big number? Especially if the hunted lions are many less :-?


"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." Nelson Mandela
The desire for equality must never exceed the demands of knowledge
Scipio
Posts: 154
Joined: Wed Mar 27, 2013 8:17 pm
Country: South Africa

Re: Threats to Lions

Post by Scipio »

Maybe because hunting and actual trophies are different in the letter of the law. 0*\ There are also differnce intiming of hunting and exporting. OTHER countries need certain certificates on the trophies that might take a period over the actual year periods by different groups.


nothing changed, i have not grown up yet.
User avatar
Toko
Posts: 26619
Joined: Sat May 19, 2012 12:29 pm
Country: -

Re: Threats to Lions

Post by Toko »

http://theconversation.com/the-african- ... tems-49688

The African lion: what faster decline of apex predator means for ecosystems
October 26, 2015 7.05pm GMT


There is nothing as awe-inspiring as watching the brutal power of a lion capturing its prey. At close range, their throaty roars thump through your body, raising a cold sweat triggered by the fear of what these animals are capable of doing now, and what they once did to our ancestors. They are the most majestic animals left on our planet, and yet we are currently faced with the very real possibility that they will be functionally extinct within our lifetime.

In fact, lion populations throughout much of Africa are heading towards extinction more rapidly than previously thought, according to new research by Oxford biologist Hans Bauer and colleagues, published in PNAS. The team looked at 47 sites with credible and repeated lion surveys since 1990, and found they were declining everywhere in Africa aside from four countries: Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

West and Central African lion populations have a 67% chance of halving in size in just two decades, and East African populations a 37% chance. Almost all large lion populations that once exceeded 500 individuals outside of southern Africa are declining. These declines in Africa’s apex predator occur at the same time that the continent’s mega-herbivores are also plummeting.

Fences save animals

Governance problems are less severe in the southern regions. These countries have also recognised the sad reality that large dangerous wildlife often come off second best when interacting with people. Consequently, these countries often fence their conservation areas. Where lions are free to wander in and out of East Africa’s flagship reserves like the Serengeti or the Masai Mara, their cousins in South Africa’s Kruger National Park are fenced in.


This is a sad acknowledgement that our existing conservation actions aimed at living alongside wildlife are failing, but a robust analysis conducted recently points to the value of fences. Though they fragment habitats, potentially lead to genetic isolation and require costly upkeep (some say too costly) smaller, fenced reserves may be lions' best hope. It takes a lot of hard work to maintain the fences and keep the animals in – and poachers out.

Africa without its top predator

Bauer and colleagues caution that lions “may no longer be a flagship species of the once vast natural ecosystems” across much of Africa. Research I’ve carried out with colleagues just published in the same journal reinforces the devastating implications this will have on their wider ecosystems.

We predicted what the mega-predators of the Pleistocene (2.5m to 11,700 years ago) would have killed. These predators, including sabre-toothed cats, cave lions, dire wolves and Homotherium (scimitar-toothed cats), were substantially larger than their modern day equivalents and were faced with a lot more competition from rival carnivores.

The largest of these would have regularly killed prey up to the size of juvenile mammoths and mastodons. This is likely to have meant some degree of top-down limitation on numbers of mammoths, giant sloths and other mega-herbivores, protecting the landscape and keeping ecosystems balanced. When the mega-predators died off – over the past 10,000-40,000 years or so – this control was lost. And this same lack of top-down limitation of herbivores by predators is likely to happen again as today’s lion populations are lost.

We can get a sense of these changes from the fact lion pride sizes are getting smaller. Lion pride sizes averaged about 24 between 1885 and 1950, and have declined dramatically to about nine since then. Human hunting seems likely to be the driver of this decline where larger prides were easier to detect and therefore hunt, which led to artificial selection against large prides.

Given cooperation between lots of lions is needed to successfully hunt an elephant, smaller prides mean smaller prey. These days only a few sites with unusually large prides have lions that actively hunt the biggest species, including elephants.


Such a change in impacts of apex predators is likely to lead to fundamental changes in the ecosystems in which they live. There will be less control of herbivore numbers, so overpopulation may become an issue. Indeed controlling overabundant herbivores such as kudu antelopes has been the primary driver behind reintroducing large predators in Africa.

With dense bushes near rivers and other obvious ambush spots no longer being so risky, vegetation will change. Those bushes will be eaten away. This may benefit some species at the expense of others and will have cascading effects throughout the ecosystem.

As they sit at the top of Africa’s food chain, declining lion numbers highlight a wider conservation crisis. Learning more about lions and funding on-ground action to protect them, coupled with improved and open governance of states in which they live, could help to avert this crisis.


User avatar
Lisbeth
Site Admin
Posts: 67235
Joined: Sat May 19, 2012 12:31 pm
Country: Switzerland
Location: Lugano
Contact:

Re: Threats to Lions

Post by Lisbeth »

Never try to upset nature nor think of changing it to your liking :X:


"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." Nelson Mandela
The desire for equality must never exceed the demands of knowledge
User avatar
Flutterby
Posts: 44150
Joined: Sat May 19, 2012 12:28 pm
Country: South Africa
Location: Gauteng, South Africa
Contact:

Re: Threats to Lions

Post by Flutterby »

Pride of Africa: New Lion Conservation Alliance

Posted by Joanna Eede on November 24, 2015

It is a little known fact that there are more rhinos remaining in Africa than there are lions. In fact, until the killing of the lion ‘Cecil’ by a U.S. hunter in Zimbabwe earlier this year, it was also not popularly known that African lion numbers are in free-fall.

The statistics are disturbing. In 1975, estimates given by the IUCN put African wild lion numbers at approximately 200,000. Forty years on, there are thought to be fewer than 20,000 left. Lions have disappeared from more than 80% of their historical range.

And yet, there is still hope for Panthera leo. Across Africa, dedicated conservationists are working to ensure that this iconic species does not become extinct. And last month, a visionary new lion conservation alliance, PRIDE, was officially launched at Houston Zoo.

As the moniker suggests, the founders of PRIDE (http://lions.houstonzoo.org/) are all women. They are all determined conservation biologists who run individual projects in Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique and all of whom have had extraordinary successes in lion conservation: Dr. Alayne Cotterill and Shivani Bhalla of Ewaso Lions; Dr. Leela Hazzah and Dr. Stephanie Dolrenry of Lion Guardians; Dr. Colleen Begg of Niassa Carnivore Project (NCP) and Dr. Amy Dickman of Ruaha Carnivore Project (RCP).

The genesis of the alliance lay in a series of conversations between the six women, which unveiled their shared ethos – that of truly collaborative conservation. “We were all working towards similar goals and realised that there must be a way of working that would make our efforts more effective,” says Dr. Alayne Cotterill, a British biologist who has lived and worked in Africa for 19 years. A lack of collaboration between conservation organisations had long given rise to unnecessary and time-consuming problems. Not only did the founders find that they were competing for the same funding, “which made us work less well together”, but there was also a dearth of mechanisms for sharing vital data. “We realised that we – and conservation as a whole – didn’t have time for such repetitive inefficiency,” says Dr. Cotterill. And so, PRIDE was born.

The philosophical aim of PRIDE is the elimination of any competition between the founders, for the sake of the common goal – the conservation of wild African lions. “Our vision is a world where conservation professionals work much more closely together and support each other, to better achieve their conservation goals,” says Dr. Amy Dickman, another British animal conservationist who holds the Kaplan Senior Research Fellowship in Wild Cat Conservation at Oxford University. Theirs is an ideologically sound concept whose message is clear: now is not the time for egos or professional territoriality. If lions are to survive in the wild, genuine cooperation and the down-tooling of personal agendas is paramount. “Everything we do in each individual project will have a greater impact on saving lions because it will be shared among us,” says Dr. Dickman. With a study published in early November in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) suggesting that half of lion populations will be lost in key regions of Africa within two decades – if sustained conservation efforts are not made – it seems the nascence of PRIDE is timely.

“Given the perilous state of Africa’s rapidly declining lion population, it is imperative that conservationists collaborate as much as possible. It is therefore really encouraging that many of the leading conservationists working to protect lions have come together to form the Pride alliance to share and swap ideas and pool their considerable knowledge,” says Charlie Mayhew, Founder and Chief Executive of Tusk Trust.

On a practical level, the six founders have agreed to share “anything and everything” that they feel is of use: organisational talents, leadership abilities, raw data, sensitive material, educational packages, an understanding of key conservation tools – not to mention the vast banks of knowledge they have each accrued and, of course the experiential benefits of having spent 100 combined years deep in the African bush. Fundamental to this collaborative pledge is the founders’ implicit trust in one another. This bedrock of emotional security means they feel able to disclose any professional failures without the fear of criticism, so learning from each other’s mistakes as well as successes. “The emotional side will be much harder to quantify than the practical, but it is just as important,” says Dr. Stephanie Dolrenry, a field scientist who has been working and living at remote sites for more than 15 years. Their vision is teamwork par excellence – accepting human differences and frailties while capitalising on assets, all in the name of the ultimate goal.

Today, the major threats to lions across Africa are conflict with people and the loss of habitat and prey. On a more specific level, threats vary between the Founders’ project sites. In Mozambique’s Niassa National Reserve, where South Africans Dr. Colleen Begg and her husband Keith have been working to save lions and other big cats for more than a decade, the greatest threat to lions comes from snares that are set to poach bushmeat. In the process of ensnaring game, poachers kill not only lion prey but, inadvertently, lions as well. “This problem could eventually lead to an empty woodland,” says Dr. Begg. Her work in Niassa has tackled poaching with the use of the high-tech tool, SMART (Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool) and also by providing locals with alternative sources of protein, such as rabbits and ducks.

In both Kenya and Tanzania the leading cause of lion deaths is conflict with people over livestock depredation. Over the past 40 years, human population growth in rural Africa has increased exponentially. The conversion of great tracts of land to agriculture or human settlement has led to an unsustainable loss of lion habitat and the poaching of traditional lion prey such as gazelle or zebra. Hungry lions then turn to easy targets – livestock – the loss of which has adverse economic effects on locals. In retaliation, livestock owners shoot, spear or poison the lions that have depleted their livelihood.

The threats to lions are not insubstantial. Yet through their individual organisations, PRIDE’s founders have had positive impacts on lion communities’ tolerance towards lions in their respective areas. Lion Guardians has observed a staggering tripling of the lion population across a massive area (4,000 square kms) of the Amboseli-Tsavo ecosystem, and over $3,500,000 of potential livestock loss was avoided in 2014; retaliatory killings in certain villages in Ruaha, one of the most important areas in the world for large carnivores, have dropped by at least 80% since the inception of the RCP’s conflict mitigation project six years ago; northern Kenya is one of the country’s only other regions where lion populations have increased outside fenced areas over the past five years, thanks to Ewaso Lions’ community programmes. And since 2012, no lions have been snared in one area in Niassa, after the NCP’s livestock breeding and anti-poaching programmes were introduced – whereas 5-6 lions were being snared every year previously.

It is clear that the founders have accrued extraordinary individual successes in their fields. They also share deeply held convictions. One is that the future of the wild African lion lies in the ability of humans and lions to coexist, and that the key to peaceful co-existence is to change the attitudes of those local people who not only live with lions, but whose livelihoods are threatened by the big cats. “Lion conservation is as much about working with people as it is with lions,” says Dr. Leela Hazzah, the first female Egyptian carnivore conservationist, who has been studying the motivations behind lion killings for the past decade. “We need to design innovative and culturally-appropriate interventions, which are aimed at changing human behaviour”.

Each of the founders has invested hugely in engaging their local communities in conservation, running programmes with elders, children, women and warriors. These programmes fit as closely as possible with the rôles people have historically held within their communities – hence ‘culturally-appropriate’. So as warriors in Kenya and Tanzania would traditionally guard their community livestock from large carnivores and theft, it makes sense that their traditional role is adapted, “instead of killing the lions that threaten the livestock, they learn where they are and warn herders to keep their livestock away,” says Dr. Hazzah. Warriors also spend time visiting manyattas [homes] and talking to villagers about how better to guard their livestock. Women have typically always been responsible for looking after livestock at home, when men drive herds further afield. So schemes have been devised that encourage women to strengthen their bomas [animal enclosures] with heavy-duty chain-link fencing and learn how to keep carnivores at bay.“It is much easier to slightly tweak cultural values and practices to be more conservation-friendly than it is to completely change them,” says Dr. Hazzah.

Combined, the founders’ programmes have engaged over 30,000 local people in conservation, and have helped to conserve around a quarter of all the lions left in the world. “Involving all demographics is key in the conservation process,” says Shivani Bhalla, a 4th generation Kenyan who grew up watching Kenya’s wildlife. “I believe that conservation should become a way of life and I am excited to see that happening in Samburu.”

That livestock are kept alive is vital. But it is also essential that local communities are made aware of the direct benefits of living with lions. PRIDE founders have thus equipped schools and healthcare clinics; established community funds; sponsored local football teams; provided pastoralists with veterinary care for their livestock; initiated workshops for local women on conservation and safe herding practices and funded local children through secondary boarding school. “I strongly believe that lion conservation is not only about providing benefits to communities to conserve lions, but also inspiring them to conserve,” says Shivani Bhalla. “Often the communities we work with have had no voice in conservation, and we give them that opportunity.”

Although much of the PRIDE members’ work focuses on human-dominated land, which represents over half of the remaining lion range, the Founders are also convinced that all but the most famous and visited parks and reserves in Africa – such as the Selous National Park or the Serengeti National Park – must also be secured. “Most protected areas in Africa are not receiving anywhere near the funding they need to be effective,” says Dr. Begg. “We need to get realistic about lion conservation and recognise that it is going to cost a lot of money.” PRIDE’s founders have recently been fund-raising in the U.S; a gala event held at Houston Zoo on the night of the launch raised $872,000 for PRIDE and for lion conservation worldwide.

PRIDE’s ultimate goal, in their own words, is ‘to secure lion populations into the future through effective collaboration’. Their formidable union brings together a unique collaboration of skills and experiences. And it also pools something less tangible but no less powerful – their respective passions. Each of the women is driven by a strong affinity for lions and an intense love of the African wild. “I am stubborn and passionate about large wilderness areas,” says Dr. Begg. “I personally refuse to contemplate a future for our children without lions, elephants and rhinos.” Dr. Cotterill agrees. “I instinctively feel sure that if the roar of a wild lion can no longer be heard anywhere on this planet, it will be a profound loss to us all.”


User avatar
Flutterby
Posts: 44150
Joined: Sat May 19, 2012 12:28 pm
Country: South Africa
Location: Gauteng, South Africa
Contact:

Re: Threats to Lions

Post by Flutterby »

Colleen Begg and I were in the same class at high school. ;-)


User avatar
Flutterby
Posts: 44150
Joined: Sat May 19, 2012 12:28 pm
Country: South Africa
Location: Gauteng, South Africa
Contact:

Re: Threats to Lions

Post by Flutterby »

LION CAPTURES IN ZIMBABWE, DESTINATION CHINA

Tuesday 26th January 2016

LionAid was approached this morning with information that the first lion captures of this year started yesterday in Zimbabwe. We are told that three lions, which were taken from Hwange National Park, are already in cages awaiting shipment to China. There are huge concerns about the number of lions left now in Zimbabwe, especially in Hwange. There are indications that there are simply not enough to form a sustainable basis and the few remaining animals may well become inclined to become aggressive towards humans. There is also an expectation that the capture of elephant calves may resume around March. We will update once this has been substantiated.

Comment from the Blood Lions team:

The Blood Lions team are aware of reports that indicate wild lions are being caught in national parks to be shipped to China and other destinations in the Far East.
These reports must be taken seriously as these events may well be the beginning of increasing pressures on wild lion populations due to the burgeoning lion bone trade. Blood Lions and many others have long warned that South Africa’s promotion of the lion bone trade is dangerous and will in all likelihood impact on wild lions. In addition, we have serious welfare concerns and with wild lion populations under threat in most countries, capturing and shipping animals to the East plays no conservation role for the species.

Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife:
mutinhimaw@yahoo.com Wilson - Chairman of Zim Parks.
Harare Telephone: 00 263-4-706077
‪#‎BLOODLIONS‬


Post Reply

Return to “Endangered Species”