Trophy Hunting

[Richprins]

Here is a record of all our efforts at these meetings, and the negligible results as far as getting any sense across...


viewforum.php?f=342

[Peter Betts]

Kruger Animals are heavily situated in all the Western Private Game reserves its their HISTORIC east West Migration Route ..Kruger is North South ..Hunters DO Kill Kruger animals both on the Moz side (Major Lion baiting adjacent to L Sabie in Moz ) and Trophy Ellie Bulls and Kruger Gene Pool Lion Males etc on the Western Side of Kruger ..Where are the 9 young Lion males born to the Skybeds Pride (Orpen/Ngala/ Manyeleti territory) They would be adult now for almost 5 years ..Nobody has seen them ANYWHERE even with disperion the natural way ..I BET they are rugs on the floor in Texas

[okie]

Uh-Uh ... their bones , ground up into bone-meal/ bone dust , are ingredients for sex-orgies in China

[Peter Betts]

Uh-Uh ... their bones , ground up into bone-meal/ bone dust , are ingredients for sex-orgies in China

..And their meat left to rot in the veld as no locals will eat cat meat apart from E Cape

[Lisbeth]

That's a lot of speculations

[Peter Betts]

That's a lot of speculations

No thats what happens when a lion is murdered ..They leave the meat and Google McDonald Safaris Moz and read the scandals of baiting Kruger lions ..I am in with most Section rangers and I hear it all

[Lisbeth]

Dereck Joubert sets the record straight about trophy hunting impact on lions and refutes claims of so-called benefits

Posted on 6 February, 2019 by Dereck Joubert in Opinion Editorial, Wildlife and the Opinion Editorial post series

Opinion post by Dereck Joubert

I’ve been asked to respond to the following remarks that came up in a discussion following the broadcast of our latest Documentary, Birth of a Pride:

The remarks:

“He is exaggerating the extent to which hunting had anything to do with the near absence of lions and the extent to which his taking over the area contributed to the lions coming back again. The whole of northern Botswana has very unstable rainfall (like Namibia) – if it is dry (or flooded) in an area for a couple of years the herbivores move out and the predators go with them. When it rains (or the floods are lower) they all come back again – nothing at all to do with human interventions. They were certainly involved in moving SA rhinos to the Okavango, an intervention which allowed Great Plains and Wilderness to market themselves as big 5 destinations. They are not fake conservationists, but their approach to hunting and other forms of ultilisation is driven by a very narrow focus on the bottom line. Joubert is on record as saying that he would give a job to every hunting employee post ban, in reality he gave no jobs to anyone and his company did not take over any of the vacated hunting concessions.”

My response is detailed but is as follows:

Actually we lived in the area permanently through the hunting era unlike so many of the old ‘Hunters Africa’ hunters and friends of mine, who probably spent three or four months in the bush each year, and would probably not be considered ‘reliable witnesses’, in particular they were doing the shooting. There will always be different opinions of how to USE the land and wildlife and the South African policy is pro-hunting, while the Kenyan, Uganda, and Botswana one is of no hunting. So the differences will always be there, and I have learned that trying to convince someone who has firm views one way or another is probably not going to be successful, but I can speak to some of the details you mention, just for accuracy for those who may be interested.

The demise of wildlife in what was once called Area 6 and now NG 16 is very clear. I wrote a paper on this for government in 1993 and lion researchers – Drs Winterbachs – similarly presented the results of zero recovery from excessive lion hunting in 2004 at the Lion Symposium. So the science is irrefutable. I personally saw hunters shoot the last 6 of 11 tsessebe, with sable antelope being shot for ration meat and fed to hunters’ dogs at home in Kasane. Elephants were wild and attacked Beverly and me nine times during that era as a result of being persecuted or wounded by hunters.

Once I may have been one voice in dozens at these symposiums, who felt that big cats were suffering from over-hunting. Today there are very few scientists that disagree. There are parallels to the Climate Change debate. People can simply deny it over and over – but it doesn’t go away.


© Dereck and Beverly Big Cat Conservation

With regard to the Selinda ecosystem, rainfall and trophy hunter behaviour

To suggest that an area in an open ecosystem like northern Botswana can collapse because of a drought is incorrect, especially along a permanent river system like the Linyanti! If anything it should be even more concentrated with wildlife as pools dry up in the interior and the Spillway, but with water remaining in the river. Droughts happen all the time and unless the wildlife is dying up against fences in closed systems, they simply follow the water and adapt most of the time. Some local resident species don’t move, but our study showed that even resident species like impala moved when they had to.

In fact, this dry cycle you talk of is exactly when most of the hunting took place, when the tectonic shift caused the drying up of the Savute channel, starting in 1981. As that happened, large numbers of wildlife flocked to the rivers – and were shot.

I have 15 years of detailed logs of hunters shooting madly from vehicles – at night, on baits – almost in a frenzy. And today, many of those same hunters tell me it was a crazy time of abundance and excess. Lions were shot down to such low numbers that male cubs started breeding with their mothers and sisters, and were then shot. New sub adult male cubs mated with their sisters, mothers and grandmothers just because hunters had shot out every breeding male in the region and beyond. Again, I documented this, as well as the rash of deformities the subsequent cubs were born with. Then it collapsed. So the notion that when it floods again, ’they all come back’ is a wonderful idea but not realistic if you are shooting them all, year in and year out.

By chance, when we took the concession over, the rains brought water into the Selinda Spillway again. We have annual game counts and official censuses on that recovery process. But there are still have species here that were very highly desired by hunters, and once occurred in good numbers but that have simply not recovered. In over 136,000 ha we have fewer than 400 zebras, and wildebeest are half that number. It took years for hyena numbers to recover, and they usually do really well in dry conditions. But as I recall, one hunter who had just slaughtered nine of them in one moment around a den (1997) answered me when I asked how he decided which to shoot, males or females (only males were legal even then): “Oh, hyenas are both male and female, they are hermaphrodites!”. This was 1997 I see in my notes – not 1897!! And this was by a licensed professional hunter.

There was no science behind what to kill, how many and when to stop. It was the Wild West, and these declines are just too easy to blame on a dry cycle. The recovery, as it is, is also not to be accredited to a wet cycle, but on sane wildlife management. At the time, by the way, wildlife advisors to Chief Tawana came to me to tell me what used to happen 100 years ago, and even then there was basic science on what not to shoot and kill, as hunters accounted for their kills, and if the chief noticed fewer of a certain species, or the stories were about how much harder it was to find something, he would place a ban on either that species or on all hunting. Those representatives asked me to help take their call for a ban to government.

I won’t go into the detail of what I saw and recorded in this post, but I can say that if there is a solid record of what happened in that area at all over a 30-year period of time, it lies in my notes, footage and photographs in my office, not in the rhetoric in the bars of Maun. That humans could behave like that was a disgrace, to be frank. Dragging a squealing and gutted duiker across the ground to a tree where it was wired up (still alive) to attract a leopard to shoot after dark (also illegal), diesel used to pour into warthog holes where a wounded leopard had run, and then set on fire; over 200 rounds of gunfire shot into a palm island where they thought a male lion was holed up, but ended up shooting his pride and eight cubs, and then later, setting the palm alight to “smoke the sucker out” – are all testaments to the atrocities. The male was wounded so couldn’t escape and burned to death, but the hunters logged it up to an accident and went on to shoot his brother. I saw all these things, and heard the hunters tell the stories with no remorse afterwards around the campfires. Well known local professional hunters were nicknamed ‘Matches xyz’ and ‘Fireman xyz’ for burning the swamp to attract the rare sitatunga to kill, amongst other unsavoury hunts.


© Dereck and Beverly Big Cat Conservation

Buffalo herds, science tells us, are often indicator species and when you see them in their ideal numbers of around 250 in a herd, there is a balance. Larger herds in this habitat indicates high predator numbers (so their behavioural response is to band together as a defence). But very low herd sizes indicate massive human persecution (where the better defence is to disband and hide in the thickets). Selinda, between 1993 and 2010 had average herd sizes of 15-20. We have just taken over an ex-hunting area in Zimbabwe where the hunting was very heavy, and the herds are small there as well. In Duba Plains or places like Kidepo in Uganda those herd sizes are well over 1,000 – not because of habitat or drought, but because of high lion numbers. Anyone who denies that hunting, and in particular heavy or overhunting has no effect, is not being logical or totally truthful with themselves.

On the rhinos, we don’t actually market rhinos in Great Plains Conservation and with regards to this area, Selinda, we actually refused to move rhinos here, partly because it may be seen as us providing some commercial advantage to ourselves, which would probably be fine given that with our partners we raised the full $5m and brought them in, but I was always determined to “give” them as a gift to Botswana and the people of Botswana. If Wilderness Safaris do indeed market rhinos, it is not from the batch of nearly 100 we have donated to the nation of Botswana, but something they may have done themselves and nothing to do with me or marketed or condoned by me.

Besides that, frankly I don’t think there are many people who would book a ticket to come to Africa to see rhino. Studies show rhinos to be quite low down the list of requested species (in Kruger), and below giraffe, for example. Booking a ticket to come and shoot a rhino – as is possible in South Africa or Namibia, is another thing however, and studies also show that the more endangered a species the more desirable it becomes as a hunting ‘trophy’. If the price to shoot an endangered or threatened species is higher than the ‘yet to be threatened’ species, then my mind questions the conservation ethics of those hunters.


© Dereck and Beverly Big Cat Conservation

With regards to employment and other benefits

Selinda was a hunting area when I purchased it, so it came with its financial records, and I was able to analyse the different benefits to the two opposing management styles. It turns out that, where 12 semi-permanent staff were hired before, we now hire 140. (On the day we took over, 100% of our staff were therefore ex-hunting staff so in fact that alone refutes the statement that we didn’t hire any ex-hunting staff in itself.)

Those (all ex-hunting staff,) under the previous management, were hired for five months of the year and let go every year, so no 5, 10 or 15 year gratuities were ever paid to them. In addition very few advanced their careers. The most senior was a tracker earning about $1.60 a day. Today we have those same cooks and trackers as managers, as guides, as PR and HR staff in our offices, earning more than ten to twenty times that. And more relevant to me, is that many have left us and moved into other sectors, in banks and businesses, and started their own companies. Airline tickets, curios, food supplies, fuel transport, etc. etc. all developed as a result of this conversion from hunting to photographic tourism.

In converting Selinda from a marginal area for hunting to one of the most productive wildlife areas in Africa, it has generated jobs and businesses around it for local communities. In fact, the net benefit (in a paper I did about six years ago), to the nation is 2,500% better than it is for trophy hunting! Jobs, taxes, skills, costs are all included, and we do that by inviting fewer than 50 people a day into the area, so the environmental footprint is minimal, and we do it without killing an animal. An analysis of benefit to communities is interesting because, by way of example, our guests have left behind around $1M in donations over the past few years, and a lot of that goes to providing communities with solar lanterns and a range of projects, We are about to start the Great Plains Academy to prepare some of the forgotten community members for higher education. This was not going on before.

By the way, around 15% of our current staff are ex-hunting employees and actually finding staff who were once hunting workers is getting even harder as time passes, as they are either absorbed into the tourism market or retire. We are constantly looking for staff to hire. Obviously we have to train them and they need to be willing to be trained, but we are growing and will probably see the need for another 50 people to join us in the short term (18 months). We hire about 300 people in Botswana alone and over 660 across the group. According to the UN benefit proportion of breadwinners:dependants that means we put food in the mouths of over 4,000 each day. And we do it without shooting sable or elephants as ration meat. So the claim of us not hiring a single person is factually incorrect.

With regard to former hunting concessions

The allocation and management of retired hunting concessions has been a disappointment to all of us, and some areas have actually been gazetted as part of the National Park scheme, so they actually aren’t available for me or others to take over, even if we wanted to. But some of these concessions came up for tender two years ago, and we were the only company to apply to take over all eleven of these old hunting concessions. Unfortunately, that process was stopped for some internal government reason (possibly to do a survey on what could be incorporated into National Parks). We can hardly be blamed for not taking over an area that was not awarded at all, let alone to us.

Finally,

The debate on whether to hunt or not is not really relevant anymore as we stare down the barrel of 8 billion people on Earth and over 1 billion head of livestock in East Africa alone – and massive disenfranchisement across Africa, and within our communities. This is the real threat to wildlife. The answer, in my humble opinion, is in education, creating real benefits (like the Selinda model does), and in being respectful to those people who need us to drive the increase in their basic wealth and to fight poverty and corruption. The Okavango and the few wild places like it in the world deserve complete protection. The people who look after it deserve our respect. Dumping a rotting elephant carcass at their villages from time to time is not respectful or of real benefit to the poor. It may feed people today, but it doesn’t lift them up to that place where they can feed themselves. Together we need to tackle the far bigger problems with knowledge and passion and the deeper insight that local communities bring from generations of living side by side with nature, something we in the Western mindset are losing daily.

Kind regards,
Dereck


© Dereck and Beverly Big Cat Conservation

[Lisbeth]

Opinion: Selinda Reserve in Botswana was not hunted out, say former owners in reply to Dereck Joubert

Posted on 16 April, 2019 by Guest Blogger in Hunting, Opinion Editorial, Wildlife and the Opinion Editorial post series.

This post is in response to the blog post ‘Dereck Joubert sets the record straight about trophy hunting impact on lions and refutes claims of so-called benefits,’ and is written by Brian Graham, Bryan Kent and Grant Nel – the shareholders of Linyanti Explorations and leaseholders of NG16, also known as Selinda Reserve (currently leased by Great Plains, and referred to in the blog post by Dereck Joubert).

We are concerned that the above blog post has created an inaccurate impression of the state of the Selinda concession (NG16) when it was purchased from us by Dereck Joubert in 2005. We wish to place on record that our operating methods in Selinda during our 10-year tenure as concessionaires have been recognised as being some of the foremost by any safari operator in an era that saw many shifts in Botswana’s applauded conservation strategies.

We started the process of isolating trophy hunting away from prime wildlife areas, and of using detailed wildlife and habitat research and surveys to determine, and in many cases, reduced hunting quotas. Our role led to the area becoming known as a prime wildlife area – a reputation that continues to this day.

Despite our respect for Dereck and his safari successes, we feel it is important that we set the record straight with regard to his claims relating to our custodianship of Selinda Reserve prior to his involvement.


Selinda spillway game drive, during the time of the former owners of Selinda Reserve

The provisions of the lease we signed with the tribal owners of NG16 in 1994 stipulated that Selinda Reserve be used for both consumptive and non-consumptive tourism. As a photographic safari company, we understood that hunting and photographic safaris do not mix and consequently decided to zone the concession into three well defined areas:

• A high-density wildlife zone (Zone A), where all photographic safaris were conducted (two safari camps, a support HQ and a walking safari trail). There was zero tolerance for hunting in this zone. This is the zone where Dereck currently operates his Selinda camps with great success, thanks in no small part to our efforts.

• A medium-density wildlife zone (Zone C) where a safari camp (some 70km distant) was established, to be run and managed by ourselves. Hunting outfitters would book this camp as ‘guests’ during the legislated hunting season. This control allowed us, as the concessionaires, to mediate any unethical hunting practices, and fulfilled the conditions of the lease. This zone bordered the community area of Godikwe and allowed the benefits of hunting to filter through directly to them. Even back then we understood and believed that involving local communities in direct benefits is vital for conservation success.

• A low-density wildlife zone (Zone B) to act as a buffer between the above two zones. Although hunts rarely occurred here, the environmental limitations of little to no water, poor browse/grazing, and a limited road network precluded or severely limited any hunting successes. This zone comprised the greatest land area of the concession and separated the two permanent water sources of the Linyanti/Kwando and Okavango.


Selinda Reserve Zones 1995 to 2005

Prior to our involvement in 1994, Zone A was indeed a major hunting area and there is no doubt that many nefarious and unethical hunting practices took place, both through citizen hunting and commercial trophy hunting. Indeed, this is what precipitated the government standpoint to redefine and re-allocate the enormous blocks of land that make up northern Botswana’s wilderness.

Therefore, Dereck’s claim that ‘all hunting was stopped when we took over’ is misleading. Yes, he did close down the limited hunting quota allocated to Zone C – and deserves credit for that. But in fact, we closed down ALL hunting in the prime wildlife area of Zone A 10 years prior to his purchase of the concession. The current placement of Dereck’s camps in Zone A of the Selinda Reserve enjoys the fruits of our decisions and management, as did our guests prior to our selling the company in 2005.

Principally we are not against ethical, well managed trophy hunting whereby benefits are enjoyed by a wide sector of the community, particularly impoverished villages such as Godikwe. However, we did not wish to engage in hunting ourselves. Consequently, we sub-contracted the hunting quota of Zone C to professional outfitters under strict guidelines governing their operation on the concession. The payment we received for these contracts allowed us to run and manage a safari camp in Zone C that continued to operate outside the six-month hunting season. This year-round presence helped us keep poaching at bay, and employ people on a permanent basis

The financial benefit of this arrangement also provided us the budget to conduct tri-annual aerial surveys of Selinda Reserve. We were the only concessionaire in Botswana to maintain surveys throughout our tenure – which the current Selinda concession holders have sadly phased out and discontinued.

WILDLIFE RESEARCH AND SURVEYS


Example of historic biomass distribution on NG16. 1995-2004 under the previous owners; 2005-2008 under the current ownership. No significant changes are discernible.

Our company was the only safari operator to establish comprehensive, repeated and systematic wildlife surveys and monitoring in northern Botswana. Aerial surveys were conducted every spring, summer and autumn following one minute latitudinal transects using four counters in a fixed wing aircraft. The data was then analysed using the Norton-Griffiths method and compiled into a detailed annual report.

Furthermore, monthly ‘full moon ground counts’ were conducted using set road routes and data gathering sheets. These were then augmented with ‘supplementary counts’ specifically to monitor cryptic species, including small and large predators, including lions. Mortality records were also maintained of all observed predator/prey interactions, unknown causes and hunting offtake. As far as we are aware there is still no private concessionaire investing in and conducting wildlife monitoring with anything close to the intensity and thoroughness of our efforts – including the Selinda Reserve of today. It would be a challenge for any private concessionaire to proclaim any trends in wildlife numbers under their custodianship without quantifiable, historical public records to back it up.


Female Selinda leopard 2002

It is clear from our carefully maintained records that wildlife populations were flourishing during our time, subject of course to the usual ebbs and flows common to any large intact ecosystem that is subject to changes in season, rainfall, flood regimes and other natural events. Therefore, Dereck’s claims of ‘post hunting wildlife rebounds’ are also confusing and misleading.

If you prefer to believe an independent third party, then read this report http://www.safaritalk.net/topic/13958-s ... ove-story/ on a third party website by a tourist of his visits to Selinda Reserve during our time there. He visited us many times over 10 years, and wrote this report in 2015, of his own volition. His report includes his personal accounts and many photos, which speak for themselves.

HUNTING QUOTAS

Our detailed survey records of wildlife population numbers, densities and distributions for most species within NG16 were provided annually to the Botswana Department of Wildlife & National Parks (DWNP). Every year, concession by concession, the DWNP would set the quotas for the hunting season ahead. We would peruse these quotas as they pertained to NG16 and request the department to reduce or remove quotas if we felt that certain species required additional protection. At no time did we ever request DWNP to increase a quota.


Selinda pride on an elephant carcass in 2002

PREDATORS, SPECIALLY LIONS

During our custodianship of NG16 the predator populations were healthy and well dispersed throughout the area. Male lion coalitions were stable and the two principal prides (Selinda and Spillway prides) were tremendously successful in raising cubs to independence. And we can back these claims up because we have the data.


Example of supplementary counts to monitor cryptic species such as lions

Through 1997 to 2003, various award-winning wildlife filmmakers and photographers chose Selinda as their base of operations because the predator population was so healthy – especially lions. The tourist’s report referred to above includes photos of many lions, shortly before Dereck took over Selinda Reserve in 2005.

Therefore, claims by Dereck that only two lionesses ‘survived the ravages of trophy hunters’ are also confusing and misleading.


Monitoring ID photos of resident male lion coalition at Selinda in 2004

CLAIMS ABOUT OUR STAFF

Claims that ‘the staff of the previous owners were 100% hunting staff’ are simply not accurate. With a staff complement that hovered around 60 individuals (not 12, as claimed) we ran our small camps and operations with 80% of the staff solely employed for photographic safaris. The safari camp in Zone C was utilised by trophy and photographic guests alike, at different times of the year, but the staff we employed ran the camp and were employed permanently and not involved in the hunting which, as already mentioned, was contracted out.

Therefore, claims by Dereck about our staff, their employment status and remuneration are also confusing and misleading.


Selinda camp, during the time of the former owners of Selinda Reserve

FINAL THOUGHTS

The ecotourism industry in Botswana is constantly evolving, and we are proud to have played a substantial part in the process that has brought Botswana to the top of the safari tourism heap in Africa – the benefits of which Dereck’s company now enjoys. We are also proud to have played a role in converting a previously heavily-hunted wilderness into the wonderful safari tourism beacon that Selinda Reserve is today. In that way, we see ourselves as having helped pioneer the journey back to intact wildlife populations and ecosystems. Dereck and his team have taken that baton over from us; earning our respect in the process and we wish them only good things for the future. But perhaps he, and they would be wise, and gracious, to recognise and applaud the efforts of those who have gone before them, rather than cast us as the villains.


Walking trail in Selinda during the time of the former owners of Selinda Reserve

[Lisbeth]

Trophy Hunting, Part One: The nasty colonial sport of shooting wild animals

By Don Pinnock• 25 April 2019

A male white lion, part of a rare white lion pack, in the wild in South Africa. (PHOTO: EPA/LIESL EICHENBERGER)

Trophy hunting has historically been the preserve of colonial, white males. The only thing that has really changed is that the white males are no longer colonials, but come from all over the world to hunt Africa’s wild animals. Their weapons are high-powered, precise, and often a product of developments in military technology. Part one of a two-part series.

The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest. – Henry David Thoreau

It’s time to take stock of trophy hunting. For most of our existence as Homo sapiens, we have been hunters as well as gatherers. Trophy hunting, however, is something else entirely.

It’s not rooted in our deep, instinctive past, as hunters will often claim, but in the relatively recent conquest of foreign lands and the invention of devices that hurl projectiles from a safe distance.

“Sport” hunting is driven, neither by the need for food nor for conservation in a time of the planetary biological collapse, but by money and the desire to hang a reconstructed “conquest” on the wall or walk on its flayed skin in the hallway.

If the membership of hunt clubs is anything to go by, the strange and almost erotic act of pulling the trigger on a beautiful wild animal and watching it thrash out its last breaths in agony is a pastime shared by relatively few, mainly white men.

Who, exactly, are these people depleting the African gene pool of the best-looking and often endangered creatures so essential to the survival of their species? Does their cash, as they claim, really go to the protection of those animals that survive their guns? Is it really sustainable to kill one wild animal to protect another?

The sport incorporates the possibility of losing. But with trophy hunting, the deck is stacked. The industry of death-delivering instruments – a division of the military complex – is vast. It offers beautifully crafted, high-powered rifles with sophisticated telescopic sights so hunters can stay far from their “dangerous” quarry. In some instances, helicopters, microlights, drones and GPS will be used to track target animals.

There’s a wide choice of ordnance designed to penetrate deep or explode into lethal fragments on hitting bone. There are high-performance compound bows and flesh-penetrating arrows from modern iterations of ancient crossbows.

On 26 April 2019 in Midrand, Gauteng, the firearm show HuntEx will, according to its marketing, offer “the latest in hunting, sports, tactical and defensive firearms, ammunition, gear, accessories, shooting and reloading equipment, optics, hunting, outdoor and tactical garments, footwear, knives, archery, taxidermy, hunting and fishing destinations”.

Weapons will, as usual, be displayed alongside stuffed animals and outfitters offering exclusive safaris to foreign countries, thrilling hunts, first-rate taxidermists and safe passage of trophies to the doorstep. In this brand of hunting, is there really a chance of losing the game?

Those who frequent such shows are most often members of hunt clubs, a number in Southern Africa and, to the north, mostly the United States, though the tradition is spreading in the Middle and Far East (China is about to host a large hunt show in Beijing).

In Africa, membership of these clubs has a very colonial-looking social demographic. In South Africa – using surnames as a rough guide – the Professional Hunters Association of SA has 453 Afrikaans speakers, 232 English, German or Portuguese speakers and eight who speak an African language.

Membership of the newer Custodians of Professional Hunting and Conservation is 65 Afrikaans, 47 English, seven African and one woman.

Further north, the racial bias continues. The Zimbabwean Professional Hunters and Guides Association has 112 white members (65 Afrikaans) and seven black members, the Tanzanian Hunting Operations Association has 72 white members and 11 black members (one woman) and the Uganda Association of Wildlife Concessionaires and Hunting Professionals has 16 white and 11 black members.

Hunters are supported by powerful lobby groups such as Safari Club International (SCI) which promotes prestigious awards for excess. To get on the African Big Five Grand Slam list, a hunter needs to kill an elephant, a rhino, a lion, a leopard and a buffalo. The African 29 award demands a minimum of 29 African wildlife kills.

It lists the biggest and the best trophies for bragging rights and has helped to erode the principles of fair chase. This is because some clients don’t care how their trophy is obtained as long as it gets into the SCI record book. Trophy hunters are therefore dis-incentivised from killing weak and ageing animals, an ecosystem service that is often promoted as justification.

Hunters also get preferential treatment from the United Nations through its Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites) which deals with wildlife trade. A loophole allows trophy hunters to kill even Appendix 1 species, the most critically endangered wildlife. A poacher may not kill an elephant to sell its tusks. But a trophy hunter can legally kill the same elephant and export the same tusks.

Notorious hunters from the colonial era, who described their hunting expeditions in a minute and bloodthirsty detail, are idolised in modern hunting publications, which carry similar stories of modern-day hunting trips.

One self-proclaimed modern hunting hero is responsible for thousands of killings. Former Zimbabwe ranger Ron Thomson claims to have shot 5,000 elephants as well as 800 buffalo, 50 to 60 lions, 30 to 40 leopards and around 50 hippos. He is urging Botswana to lift its ban on elephant trophy hunting and personally presented President Mokgweetsi Masisi with a copy of one of his books. His book God Created Man the Hunter says it all.

He told The Times he has no conscience about killing animals, saying Africa has too many elephants.

“I didn’t have any sentiment. I’m totally unrepentant, a hundred – ten thousand – times over for any of the hunting I’ve done because that’s not the problem.”’ He previously told The Guardian: “It was a great thrill to me, to be very honest.” Trophy hunters may think him a hero, but he should be tried for crimes against nature. Future generations will not judge him well.

What about the impact of trophy hunting on the animals themselves? Hunters claim that they kill “humanely”. But according to a report by the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting released in April 2019, the demand for “perfect trophies” increases the likelihood of pain and suffering. This is not simply because many hunters are bad shots, but because they avoid head shots most likely to result in instant death as this ruins a trophy destined for mounting. This is simply cruel.

A 2016 report on commercial hunting in South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Tanzania by the US House Committee on Natural Resources concluded that “significant questions remain about whether or not trophy hunting is sustainable”.

It found that it was directly responsible for population declines of big cats, particularly lions. The report found trophy hunting and poaching were outpacing the reproductive rate of elephants.

The killing of wild animals by hunters is considerable. According to the CBTH report, elephant trophy hunting has soared since Cites came into force in 1975, despite the ivory trade ban in 1989. In 1985, trophy hunters from 19 countries shot 929 elephants carrying 645kg of ivory. By 2015 this had jumped to 3,699 trophies plus 7,591kg of ivory taken by hunters from 47 countries. This represents a four-fold increase in numbers of trophies and a 1,200% jump in the amount of ivory.

The report named Austria, Britain, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, Spain and the US as the “Deadly Dozen”, countries from which the most trophy hunters originate, with the US topping the list.

Biologists have often claimed that hunting the biggest and best animals within a species dilutes the gene pool. According to former Namibian professional hunter Johannes Haasbroek, “when you hunt for a trophy, you look for the biggest and best animal you can find for your client. It is very likely to be an animal in his breeding prime… trophy hunting manipulates the genetic stock over time by eradicating the carriers of the largest horns and tusks”.

An alarming new study – A century of decline: Loss of genetic diversity – has proved this. It found that lions shot by colonial hunters more than 100 years ago were 17% more genetically diverse than the ones that now populate Africa.

According to the researchers, the discovery is worrying because it indicates that the species’ fight to survive – especially as the climate changes – may be even more difficult than had been previously thought.

Comparing DNA from late 19th century museum exhibits and present-day lions in Southern Africa, the study noted that “the rapid decline observed in allelic richness and the highest levels of genetic differentiation coincide with the arrival of the first western settlers in 1890 and the subsequent rise of the colonial presence in the region after the end of the Matabele Wars in 1897”.

Reducing lion populations to islands within a sea of humanity further reduces the gene pool and increases inbreeding.

Trophy hunting in Africa has deep colonial roots with tendrils in the present. They should have been pruned back. But mainly white male hunters, backed by wealthy lobby organisations, rifle manufacturers and strategic marketing, are turning those roots into a tree whose fruit is weaponry, mounted trophies, hubris and death.

Hunting is, of course, not solely to blame for the world’s wildlife crisis. Poaching and human encroachment do more damage. But in the face of such catastrophic levels of biological collapse, can we really permit rich white men to kill iconic wild animals and deplete the gene pool … for sport?

We really need to stop hunting Africa’s iconic animals. They become trophies of nothing more than human ignorance and cruelty. Fortunately, the writing is on the wall for the industry, which will be explored in Part 2: End of the game.

To quote Michele Pickover: “The time is overdue for individuals, civil society and governments to recognise animals as complex, living beings, rather than as tools, objects and trophies.” DM

Don Pinnock is a freelance environmental writer who works with the Conservation Action Trust.

[Richprins]

I am tired of Pinnock now. It appears he works for a certain lobby, and is running an agenda.