Trophy Hunting

[Klipspringer]

That's true, Lisbeth (though some urban severage sites may have more conservation value than some hunting or breeding farms ), but the conservation claim of the hunting proponents is a different thing. For a protected area, the management authority must monitor the area against indicators set in terms of conservation performance aimed at ensuring the long-term survival of ecosystems and species in nature. PAs do monitor and report on progress and failure with such objectives. Hunting farms and informal ungazetted reserves usually don't and just claim they are working for conservation (the same applies to any eco tourism operation without hunting).

[Lisbeth]

Hunting farms and informal ungazetted reserves usually don't and just claim they are working for conservation (the same applies to any eco tourism operation without hunting).

and they claim it so loudly and continuously, that it is hard to believe

[Richprins]

The ranches are former cattle farms



No, that is a bit of a generalisation!

[Peter Betts]

What kind of development do the communities support with the money that they earn from trophy hunting? I.e if the whole community takes advantage of the hunting and not only few selected members

A FEW Well Connected Members benefit from Any tax, communal money that is earned but the population still votes the Corruption operators in election after election

[Lisbeth]

The Trophy Hunting Industry’s Latest Tone-Deaf Argument About Racial Inequality

BY JARED KAKURA - 11TH AUGUST 2020 - WILDTHINGSINITIATIVE

In their latest marketing ploy, the trophy hunting industry co-opted the Black Lives Matter movement to fight California’s proposed trophy hunting import ban. Apparently, discouraging rich white Americans from hunting African wildlife is racist against poor black communities (queue The Twilight Zone theme music).

Are we seriously expected to forget that the Barrack Obama, the first black president of the United States, passed legislation banning certain lion and elephant trophy hunting imports? Or that the administration under Donald Trump, the most racist president of the United States in recent years, reversed those bans?

We need to be honest here. Today’s version of African trophy hunting differs little from a century ago when colonial royalty would spend lavish holidays hunting native African wildlife with the help of black servants on land owned by white people.

And many Africans certainly do not support trophy hunting as a conservation or community-benefiting tool. Alfred Sihwa, of the Sibanye Animal Welfare and Conservancy Trust, believes Zimbabwe’s communities only receive crumbs from the trophy hunting industry while the people in power receive the bulk of the benefits.

Additionally, researchers are questioning the economic model of trophy hunting as a benefit and starting to view the practice through a social dynamics context where communities can be disenfranchised due to power relations. Research also shows that many Africans rightly view trophy hunting as a colonial relic.

To claim dismantling a system built on the oppression of Africans is racist towards Africans is completely backwards. What we are now seeing is a shift in how trophy hunting is being marketed from a necessary evil to a positive good. This was the same narrative pushed by pro-slavery advocates in the United States before abolition.

Up until the first few decades of the 19th century, slavery was widely regarded as a necessary evil for a healthy economy by southern states. But this narrative changed after abolitionists began arguing against slavery as a basic human rights problem that outweighed any positive economic benefits. From that point forward, pro-slavery advocates started describing slavery as a positive good.

It was argued that slaves in southern states were treated well by their white masters, receiving care far surpassing that of white workers in factories in northern states. Black slaves were detailed as being “lightly tasked, well clothed, well fed” in petitions against abolition. How dare those pesky Northerners try to take away such a wonderful life white Southerners provided for their black slaves?

Trophy hunting advocates will likely decry this is a false comparison because it is black African communities that are signing open letters and asking foreign governments to oppose trophy hunting import bans. This is technically true now that the hunting industry has changed its marketing tactics, but it certainly was not before.

When the UK looked to ban trophy hunting imports from Africa, many high-profile members of the scientific community, led by Amy Dickman, wrote an open letter in Science opposing blanket bans to trophy hunting. But this backfired. Dickman and other lead authors had conflicts of interest which caused controversy and resulted in updated disclosure practices and a series of rebuttals from researchers with contrary views.

Recently, Dickman appeared on Sky News where the news anchor prompted her with the topic of celebrities speaking out and influencing politics decisions to the detriment of conservation and rural communities. A few days later, an open letter surfaced directed towards the celebrity opposition of trophy hunting and was signed only by African community members. The next day, support for the open letter was posted on the Let Africa Live Facebook page.

Surely, this sequence of events is a coincidence and has nothing to do with an industry trying to capitalize on a racial equality movement after failing to establish scientific authority, right?

It is important to mention the support by Let Africa Live because it is run by wealthy American hunters and funded by prominent American hunting organizations like Safari Club International. Let Africa Live’s operators take words from the Safari Club International website and present them through a native African voice.

There is certainly a precedent for the trophy hunting industry trying to manipulate public opinion to demonstrate support from African communities. It should also come as no surprise that Let Africa Live posts content claiming Africa wants the same hunting practices as the United States (quite the generalization).

Also posted by Let Africa Live is a quote by Dickman saying, “People here don’t care if they never see a lion again – they are worried about where their next meal is coming from; lions are just another threat.” This quote can easily be construed as a sweeping generalization of Africans and hardly a glowing recommendation for the possibility of sustainable hunting practices.





Ironically, Westerners opposing African trophy hunting are accused of generalizing the many cultures and countries on the African continent and implying Africans are too corrupt or incompetent to maintain sustainable trophy hunting.

Dickman asked why Westerners believe Africans are incapable of creating a well-regulated system of hunting, a system she believes exists in the United States. She points to the elk as an example of how well-regulated hunting can help species recover.

However, Dickman fails to grasp the fundamentals of American hunting on multiple levels. She neglects the fact that after elk were hunted to extirpation, reintroduction to native landscapes was successful because hunters and trappers exterminated predators like wolves and grizzlies.

Predators were largely wiped out in the 20th century but brought back from the brink thanks to the Endangered Species Act, legislation preventing threatened species from being hunted. If Dickman wants similar hunting practices in Africa, she better be prepared for the predators she studies to disappear.

As well, Dickman conflates domestic sport hunting with foreign trophy hunting, an accusation that has been made before. If Dickman and African communities wanted the same “well-regulated” hunting practices found in the United States, they would ask to ban foreign hunters and give hunting rights back to locals.

While it can be argued that many American hunters indirectly practice trophy hunting in the United States by targeting large and mature animals, there is hardly a precedent for wealthy foreigners coming and displacing local hunters. That is unless you count white Europeans supplanting Indigenous Americans centuries ago.

In fact, this battle still rages today with Safari Club International fighting against Indigenous Americans in the Supreme Court to break centuries old hunting treaties. Safari Club International argued that allowing Indigenous Americans to hunt on public lands would threaten wildlife populations and put restrictions on non-native (white) hunters to account for the negative ecological impacts. Who would have guessed the hunting industry is full of hypocrites only pretending to care about indigenous rights when it benefits their primarily white constituents?

It seems the only way to fairly continue trophy hunting from a racial equality standpoint is to bring the same practice to the United States. Hunting rights of poor white Americans should be restricted so wealthy black Africans can pay for the privilege of hunting elk to fill their trophy rooms. After all, many rural American cities lack infrastructure and services that trophy hunting can help fund.

Interestingly, this was parodied by one of the biggest Black Lives Matter advocates, South African Trevor Noah.

https://youtu.be/z48HiV6qKGc

Original article: https://wildthingsinitiative.com/the-tr ... nequality/

[Richprins]

Now slavery and American Indians brought into the debate...what next?!

[Lisbeth]

Trophy hunters threaten endangered animals

BY JANE GOODHALL - 6TH AUGUST 2020 - THE ECOLOGIST.ORG

How can anyone be proud of killing such magnificent creatures, asks leading primatologist Jane Goodall.

The natural world is becoming increasingly threatened as we move into the twenty-first century. Yet some of the most endangered animals on the planet continue to be relentlessly persecuted by trophy hunters.

Scientific studies have demonstrated the links between trophy hunting and population decline. They also point to how wildlife populations have recovered when local moratoria on trophy hunting have been implemented. Yet the exports of hunting trophies continue to increase.

- Dr Jane Goodall will be speaking at this year’s online Festival of Wellbeing on Saturday 31 October 2020. Tickets now available online.

Walter Palmer, a Minnesota dentist, made international news in 2015 when he killed a lion called Cecil for ‘sport’. Unfortunately for Palmer, Cecil was part of a long term study and fitted with a radio collar, and subsequent investigations revealed the horrible truth about his death.

Killing

Cecil had been shot and wounded with an arrow from Palmer’s bow at around 11 o’clock at night. He suffered for at least ten hours before he was followed the short distance he had been able to travel and despatched with another arrow the next morning.

At least 600 trophy hunters kill lions each year. There are estimated to be only about 3,500 adult male lions left in the wild across Africa. Less than half inhabit protected areas.

The annual lion hunting quota is equivalent to one third of the males that can be hunted. It is thought that the loss of just 5 percent of healthy adult males may push the species past the point of no return.

The hunter will go after the most impressive males who will often be those who would have been chosen by the females of the pride. The lure for the trophy hunter of “bagging” a lion, and the pursuit of the most impressive animals, has led to the species’ gene pool ‘shrinking’ by 15 percent in the space of 100 years.

Elephant populations are in an even worse state because of the value of their tusks. The great herds that once roamed across Africa have largely gone. The number of elephants shot each year by trophy hunters and poachers is now greater than the number of calves born.

Tusks

Most heart-breaking of all has been the systematic seeking out and killing of those with the biggest tusks – those known as the ‘Big Tuskers’ – whose ivory is so magnificent it touches the ground.

There are just 40 “Big Tuskers” left. Yet there are trophy hunters who would pay enormous sums of money for the ‘privilege’ of shooting one. And even if this is impossible, they still want to seek out and kill the ones with the biggest tusks available.

The 200-plus years of murdering elephants with big tusks has had a noticeable effect – the tusks of elephants are getting smaller and tuskless elephants more common. This leaves them vulnerable: in a drought, having shorter or non-existent tusks will make it difficult or impossible to dig down to water from under dry river-beds.

Rhinos are among the most endangered large terrestrial mammals. As is the case with elephants, they are also cursed with a part of their anatomy that has great value – their horns.

Despite their precarious status, there are those who are desperate to kill them, to add them to their macabre collection of trophies and secure the admiration of their like-minded friends. Just recently an American paid $350,000 to shoot a black rhino In Namibia.

Baboons

Polar bears are even more endangered than white rhinos, yet the Canadian government still issues licences for non-Indigenous people to kill them. When one considers that they are also threatened by climate change that has led to the melting of sea ice, both the selling of and desire to buy a permit seem equally shocking.

During the years when I studied chimpanzees in Gombe national park I spent a great deal of time also observing baboons. They are fascinating animals with a highly complex social structure and great individuality.

Unfortunately, they have a bad reputation for crop raiding. While I can sympathize with an impoverished farmer who shoots a few of the thieves who have devastated his precious maize crop, I have nothing but scorn for a wealthy British trophy hunter who killed a male, female and a couple of young ones and then posed, smiling proudly, beside their limp bodies.

There are ranches which breed baboons and monkeys in order to provide hunters with easy to get trophies for their collections.

CITES has provided import and export permits for 40 different species of primates, our closest relatives, to provide individuals with opportunities to kill.

Emotion

The first animal I encountered close up in Africa was a giraffe. Watching a group silhouetted against a red African sunset is one of the most glorious sights. Giraffe populations are plummeting – and one reason is that hunters want to shoot them for ‘sport’.

One American woman, Sabrina Corgatelli, boastfully posted pictures of herself grinning from ear to ear as she posed with the animals she had killed on her hunting safari. The photo I found most distressing showed her gloating over the dead body of a big male giraffe. She writes: “Such an amazing animal!! I couldn’t be any happier!! My emotion after getting him was a feeling I will never forget!!!”

I have tried to understand such an emotion, but I simply cannot put myself into the mind of a person who pays thousands of pounds to go and kill beautiful animals simply to boast about their skill as a hunter. In the very early days of the “White Hunter” there was sometimes an element of danger. But today, when animals can be shot from a distance with a high powered rifle, things are very different.

How can anyone be proud of killing these magnificent creatures? Magnificent in life, that is: in death they are merely the sad victims of a sadistic desire to attract admiration from their friends. When the hunter is overcome with joy after the killing, and shares that emotion on Facebook, then surely this must be the joy of a diseased mind?

This Author

Dr Jane Goodall is founder of the Jane Goodall Institute & UN Messenger of Peace. She will be speaking at this year’s online Festival of Wellbeing on Saturday 31 October 2020. Tickets now available online.

Original article: https://theecologist.org/2020/aug/06/tr ... ed-animals

[Lisbeth]

"My distaste for the trophy hunting of free-ranging wild animals is no secret. Firstly, this industry is defined by a proven track record of corruption, bullying, cruelty and criminal activity. Add to the recipe for ecological disaster the proven UNSUSTAINABLE offtakes, lack of transparency and a point-blank refusal to abide by scientific governance - and you have an industry that will never sit comfortably with most objective analysts. Those trophy hunting operations that do escape the above criticism do not define this industry - their shady colleagues do. Note at this point that I am referring specifically to trophy hunting – the pursuit of certain individuals based on some genetic trait such as large tusks, body size, or black manes - or simply because they are rare. Trophy hunting is about the surgical removal of robust individuals - the opposite of how nature behaves. Other forms of hunting do play a positive role in maintaining biodiversity in the face of rapidly advancing human expansion, as unpalatable as that may be for some of us who cannot conceive that killing animals for fun and ego is a thing - a 'sport', even. These other forms of hunting are not my focus in this comment.

Speaking of the evils of trophy hunting, our first story below is an interview with Dr Craig Packer – a man who knows more about this topic than most. I read his book 'LIONS IN THE BALANCE - Man-Eaters, Manes, and Men with Guns' a few months ago and could not put it down. For those who feel that my criticism of the trophy hunting industry is uneducated or unfair, take note. Here you have a man who was determined to prove that the trophy hunting of wild lions in Tanzania could be sustainable if well-managed using scientific guidelines. He dedicated much of his life to this cause. Read the interview below, then read the book."

Keep the passion.

Simon Espley – CEO

Lion trophy hunting – we interview Craig Packer

Posted on August 21, 2020 by Team Africa Geographic



Dr Craig Packer is an American biologist, zoologist, and ecologist chiefly known for his research on lions in Tanzania. He worked hard to convince the trophy hunting industry and government departments to adopt a transparent, scientifically-based strategy in order to ensure the sustainability of lion populations and of the industry. Although his research and efforts resulted in a greater understanding of the impact of trophy hunting on lion populations, he was ultimately exiled from the country after rattling too many cages.

We interview Dr Packer:

Numbers: Current estimates put the African lion population at 20,000 to 30,000 – a 96% reduction from 450,000 in the 1940s. They occupy 8% of their historical range, and populations declined by 60% during 1994-2014 in all but four African countries. Is the current lion population stable?
- C.P.: I’ve never been comfortable with the estimated percentage-lost-since-whatever-date people use; there were no reasonable estimates until recently. However, if we just talk about habitat loss, yes, there has been an enormous reduction in lion habitat since, say, the 1890s.

Factors: The primary causes of lion population reductions are widely believed to be the loss of habitat, loss of prey base and human-lion conflict. To that trio of causes, US Fish and Wildlife Services adds trophy hunting when it is not managed correctly. Although your book does cover the three primary causes mentioned above, the main focus is on the impact of trophy hunting and your engagement with that industry. Does that focus reflect a personal belief that trophy hunting is a significant factor contributing to lion population reductions?

- C.P.: We published a paper in 2011 showing that trophy hunting had been poorly managed in Tanzania, and, thus, had likely contributed to an overall reduction in lion numbers in the country up to that point. The Tanzanian government had vigorously encouraged hunters to shoot as many lions as possible in their respective hunting blocks, and most of the blocks were clearly overhunted. These were in areas that were not dramatically affected by habitat loss, and, if human-lion conflict was also a factor, the hunting operators had patently failed to provide the necessary incentives for people to “live with lions.”

Trophy hunting then and now: In your book ‘Lions in the Balance‘ you refer to trophy hunting quotas in Tanzania and offtakes that were too high and of the shooting of young (three-year-old) males as contributing to the significant drop in Tanzania lion populations. Could you provide information supporting the above statement and do you believe that much has changed in that country in the last several years?

- C.P.: For many years, Tanzanian hunting operators routinely posted photographs of their “trophy” lions, so it was clear that many companies filled their quotas by allowing clients to shoot males as young as two years of age. Male lions in Tanzania don’t reach maturity until they are about four, and they then need two years residency in a pride of females to be able to produce a surviving cohort of offspring — younger animals are either killed or forced to leave home by replacement males. However, even if hunters shoot immature animals, their impacts won’t necessarily affect the entire population unless they have shot out too manyof the older males. Given the absence of any sort of age minimum, we looked at the impacts of differing levels of offtake, and we found that hunting was harmful wherever more than one lion was shot per thousand square kilometres in the Selous Game Reserve (which holds one of the richest lion habitats in all of Africa) or more than one lion per 2,000 km2 in the rest of Tanzania’s hunting blocks. We had previously developed simulation models that mimicked the impacts of trophy hunting on lion populations and found that a quota wouldn’t be necessary if hunters only removed males that were at least 6 yrs of age. Tanzania claims to have adopted the recommended 6-yr minimum, but they have not been transparent in showing evidence of compliance. They point to the very low number of lion trophies that have been exported the past years, but these numbers are pretty much what we would have expected from the long-term trends since the 1980s. Unless they were to provide concrete evidence that they are no longer allowing the shooting of under-aged males, I would suspect they have largely been conducting business as usual.

By the way, later work has suggested that an 8-year minimum might be more appropriate in Zambia where the lions are additionally subject to high levels of poaching via wire snares and in South Africa where males take longer to reach maturity (6 yrs instead of the 4 yrs in East Africa).

Why did you leave Tanzania? The evolution of your journey as a lion conservationist in Tanzania is well mapped in your book. You started out as being very supportive of the notion that well-managed trophy hunting of lions could help maintain stable lion populations, and your engagement of the Tanzanian authorities and the trophy hunting industry was through that lens. And yet, the book chronicles your conversion over the years to a somewhat sceptical critic of the industry – based mainly on continued non-sustainable offtakes and practises, refusal to change based on scientific input, lack of transparency, rampant corruption and the bullying tactics by some members of the industry. It is clear that your continued presence in Tanzania became less secure, but the book did not go into detail about why you left Tanzania. Was there a deciding moment or factor that caused you to move back to the United States?

- C.P.: The Tanzanian Government revoked my research clearance, so I was unable to continue working in the country. I was also informed that I was no longer allowed to enter the country even as a tourist. I was exiled because I attempted to reform the Tanzanian hunting industry.

Cecil: The exposé about the killing of Cecil the Lion near Hwange (Zimbabwe) by American dentist and trophy hunter Walter Palmer galvanised discussion, albeit heated and ideological, about the trophy hunting of wild free-roaming lions. Many ‘sustainable use’ protagonists claim that this particular discussion is not conducive to constructive debate about lion conservation, whereas others argue that shining a spotlight into the secretive trophy hunting industry is precisely what is needed. Did any good come of this watershed moment in the conversation about lion conservation?

- C.P.: The Cecil controversy certainly galvanised public opinion to the extent that US Fisheries & Wildlife banned imports of lion trophies from Zimbabwe and Tanzania. I don’t think this would have happened otherwise. In their ruling, USFWS also set out a new policy requiring range states to provide evidence that sport hunting is a net positive for conservation. I have yet to see any clear evidence on this point from either country. Under the current administration, imports are being decided on a “case by case basis” – I haven’t heard how many lion trophies have been imported from Tanzania or Zimbabwe in the past two years.

Success stories: Can you state unequivocally that trophy hunting of wild, free-roaming (unfenced) lions has ever helped to maintain or increase lion populations in any area/region? If so, please provide examples.

- C.P.: Bubye Valley Conservancy and Save Valley Conservancy in Zimbabwe both exist thanks to the funding generated by sport hunting. In both conservancies, lion numbers grew rapidly after they were adequately gazetted, and numbers remained close to the potential carrying capacity for lions in those habitats. It’s possible that a few other conservancies/hunting blocks have been similarly successful in other countries, but I haven’t seen clear evidence outside of these two sites.

One-product industry: It seems as if the trophy hunting industry in Tanzania has modelled and priced itself primarily based on the killing of wild lions and that the extirpation of their main commodity is leading to the collapse of the industry. Is that a fair reflection of the industry?

- C.P.: Lion hunting offtakes don’t have to be so excessive as we found in Tanzania. With a well-enforced age minimum, the lions would be OK; Bubye and Save both show that it’s possible. The problem is one of economics. Most African governments have only received in the order of $10,000 per dead lion. This is ridiculously low. In the US, hunters may pay $100,000 to shoot a bighorn sheep. One would have thought that a lion would be worth at least ten times as much as a sheep. If hunters were to pay closer to a million dollars per lion, the industry would generate the funding necessary to protect lion habitat – which various other authors and I have estimated to be roughly $1,000/km2/year. A lion pride needs a lot of land, and the current pricing structure is far too low. The question, of course, then arises as to why lion trophies are so cheap — especially now that there may be fewer lions left in Africa than rhinos.

Fences: In your book, you touch on the need for fences in Tanzania, to keep humans and their livelihoods safe from animals, and vice versa. In South Africa, this is old news, of course, and the topic would not meet with much resistance. But in East Africa the concept of fencing in animals is controversial. Could you elaborate on that sensitive subject?

- C.P.: Suffice it to say that fencing is now being used in far more countries than in the past. The need for fencing will continue to grow as the human population in Africa is expected to quadruple in the coming years. Rapid economic development in Africa will further lead to exploding demand for ever more livestock. Lions won’t have a chance over most of the continent if they aren’t safely separated from the growing human footprint. East African conservationists tend to be more idealistic than their South African counterparts, but local people are increasingly demanding to be heard — and they want to be safe from lions and protect their livestock. Of course, not every landscape can be fenced. As we saw decades ago in Botswana, poorly positioned fencing can destroy large-scale animal migrations. However, human activities are already so intensive in many parts of Africa that the wildlife is mostly already blocked off. Imagine having wildebeest pass through Nairobi or elephants in Kampala. So it would be a good idea if the conservationists started working with local authorities to decide how best to partition the land, and that will inevitably include fencing.

Nature versus commerce: ‘Nature’ tends to weed out weaker individuals, if only because those individuals are less likely to escape predators and more likely to die from disease. And yet, trophy hunting practises the opposite strategy – it removes the big and robust individuals. How can practising the opposite of what nature does ever be ‘sustainable’?

- C.P.: With an age-minimum, hunters are not necessarily removing the best genes from the population; and every mature male gets to breed before being shot. I would recommend an age minimum for antelope, buffalo, elephant, and all carnivore species. In fact, South Africa also has an age minimum for leopards.

Where to now, for lion conservation? So many trophy hunting blocks in Tanzania have now been abandoned over the years by the industry, often with the excuse that trophy import bans have killed the industry, and so poachers have moved in to strip bare. Our observation is that most bans are relatively recent, and that over-exploitation over many years and lack of investment into conservation and community are the primary reasons for these vast areas being no longer attractive to the trophy hunting industry. Your thoughts on that topic, and suggestion about what to do with those former hunting areas?

- C.P.: It’s very convenient for the hunting industry to blame restrictions that were, in fact, imposed because of the impacts of their past practices rather than to accept that they have long been part of the problem. Not only did they overhunt in much of Tanzania, but they also failed to generate the funding to protect the areas they were claiming to conserve. They were given dominion over the land at cut-rate prices, and they didn’t give back to some of the poorest countries and communities in the world. On the other hand, there’s still the problem of what to do with all those abandoned hunting blocks. The anti-hunting lobby has never found a way to pay for the conservation of those areas either. So if people are philosophically opposed to hunting, I ask you: how would you pay for it? Tanzania has something like 300,000 km2 of hunting blocks — can you raise the $300 million every single year that will be needed to protect this land? If you’ve got any good ideas, I’d love to hear from you.
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Craig Packer’s book: LIONS IN THE BALANCE: Man-Eaters, Manes, and Men with Guns



Monsters take many forms: from man-eating lions to the people who hunt them, from armed robbers to that midnight knock at the door of a cheap hotel room in Dar es Salaam. And celebrated biologist Craig Packer has faced them all.

With Lions in the Balance, Packer takes us back into the complex, tooth-and-claw world of the African lion, offering revealing insights into both the lives of one of the most iconic and dangerous animals on earth and the very real risks of protecting them. Packer is sure to infuriate millionaires, politicians, aid agencies, and conservationists alike as he minces no words about the problems he encounters. But with a narrative stretching from far flung parts of Africa to the corridors of power in Washington, DC, and marked by Packer’s signature humor and incredible candor, Lions in the Balance is a tale of courage against impossible odds, a masterly blend of science, adventure, and storytelling, and an urgent call to action that will captivate a new generation of readers.

[Richprins]

A bit more nuanced, this interview. The speaker seems to realise the role that corruption plays, and that it differs from country to country. The shooting of young lions is generally not on in SA, as far as I know, but on the other hand they get killed by the older ones anyway unless they make a plan. Complicated!

[Peter Betts]

Tanzania ...is a Basket case since Indepedance and Trophy Hunting is an UNCONTROLLED mess