Threats to Lions & Lion Conservation

[nan]

[Klipspringer]

https://www.iol.co.za/saturday-star/new ... s-30261499


Urgent race to save embattled lions
NEWS / 3 AUGUST 2019, 4:45PM / SHEREE BEGA

Johannesburg - In the fading afternoon sunlight, the two male lions lay stretched out regally alongside each other on a bed of burnt, blackened grass in the Pilanseberg National Park.
Holding up a pair of binoculars, Samantha Page-Nicholson watched the brothers closely. For hours, park rangers had been scouring the park for any signs of lions in the dense thicket.


The co-ordinator of the African Lion Database, run by the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT), looked pleased.

“I always get excited when I see lions,” she smiled.

“But as charismatic as they are and as much as everyone loves them, lions are among some of our carnivore species that are most in trouble.”

In South Africa, wild lions are listed as a conservation species of “least concern” - the country is home to around 2000 wild lions.

“We’re doing very well with lion conservation and our populations are increasing. We’re actually running out of space for lions,” she explains.

But in many regions across the continent, the picture is far bleaker: the iconic species is quietly slipping into extinction.

Today, there are more wild rhinos than wild lions and 14 times more African elephants and wild gorillas than lions. There’s one lion for every 350 000 people on earth.

Consider that since the The Lion King first premiered 25 years ago, lion numbers have halved.

“We estimate there are fewer than 60 wild lion populations left, and nearly half of those have fewer than 50 lions so lions are extremely vulnerable to disappearing,” explains Dr Amy Dickman, a research fellow at the Oxford Wildlife Conservation Research Unit and the co-author of a new draft report, “State of the Lion 2019: Fragility of a Flagship Species”. (see left)

African lion populations, even in protected areas, are hugely under-funded and face a plethora of ecological and socio-political challenges, Dickman says.

“We will need far more funding, considered thinking and political will to secure remaining lion populations and to do it in a way that is equitable both for wildlife and the people in lion range countries.”

Habitat loss and degradation, bushmeat snaring, which leads to prey loss as well as lion killings, human-lion conflict, targeted poaching for body parts and excessive trophy hunting in some instances are pushing lions to the brink, experts say.

“This is one of the most globally iconic species, which has immense economic, ecological and cultural value at an international scale,” says Dickman.

“However, at a local scale, lions often incur major costs on rural people who see virtually none of those wider benefits. We have to develop better mechanisms to translate that global value down to a local level.”

Developed countries need to pay far more than they do presently to help safeguard lions both within and outside protected areas.

“But, despite the great interest in these species in the West in particular, currently there seems to be little political will to invest at the scale we need to maintain lions and improve the status of communities co-existing with them.”

Dr Paul Funston, lion programme senior director and southern Africa regional director for Panthera, the global wild cat conservation organisation, says in pre-colonial times Africa might have supported 500000 to a million lions.

“Today the figure of about 20000 is perhaps the most universally accepted, although it could be lower In Africa lions no longer occur over 95% of their former range and are largely restricted to protected areas.”

Panthera’s work seeks to increase the species to at least 30000 individuals across Africa. “The latest release of The Lion King and all of the fanfare around it is helping put a much-needed spotlight on the threat to embattled lions and why, now more than ever, we need the support of the global community, international corporations, nation states and others to move the line forward for lions.”

But Funston wonders if the film is largely “preaching to the converted” and whether the global hype can be used as a “defining moment” to attract global attention and resources to lion conservation.

“The $3 million (R44m) that Disney has committed helps, but it’s going to take far, far more than that to save the species. Africa’s governments need to be sensitised and financial support for landscape scale conservation efforts is desperately needed in most areas.”

To adequately protect the savanna protected areas of Africa to support sufficient prey for lions and keep lions and other high value species safe will cost $1 billion a year, Funston says.

“Across most of Africa’s protected areas, lions are not faring well and are in decline, as they are outside of protected areas in landscapes where they co-exist with people. There are examples of success - protection and tolerance here and there - but largely across the continent lions are in steep decline.”

In a handful of protected areas - Kruger, Etosha, Moremi, Chobe, Gorongosa and Serengeti National Parks - lions are thriving, are common and can be readily viewed by tourists. These “must be held onto at all costs”, he believes.

“Lions are likely to persist a long time in these protected areas, even with challenges of poaching and human-lion conflict.”

Poaching is a significant new threat, linked to South Africa’s legal export of lion body parts from captive breeding farms to feed a growing market in the Far East.

“Now lions both in South Africa and in Mozambique (and other countries) are being poisoned and snared by poachers at unprecedented rates with faces and feet hacked off just in the same way as the grizzly images we have seen of rhinos and elephants,” says Funston.

“Indeed, our work in Limpopo National Park in Mozambique suggested that the same poaching syndicates that target rhinos and elephants are responsible for the rise in lion killings. There the lion population has declined from 70 individuals to about 17 individuals within the last five years due mostly to targeted poaching for lion body parts.”

This threat is huge and rising, he warns. “(It) will no doubt wipe out many of the smaller remaining lion populations in parks not adequately funded to defend their lions, just as what we saw happen decades ago already to rhinos. Lions will soon be gone from all but the bigger and better financed protected areas, or the few communal areas where co-existence with lions can be fostered.”

To save lions, Funston believes protected areas need to be better-resourced and government awareness of lions and wilderness areas must be improved.

Better science is needed to link the value of protected areas with lions to human well-being while all forms of trade in lion body parts and all forms of petting tourism and captive breeding of lions must be stopped.

The future survival of lions hinges on their co-existence with humans.

“Lions are dangerous animals and will always impose some costs on people living alongside them,” says Dickman.

“There are many effective ways of reducing those costs, such as protecting livestock in fortified enclosures or by using specialised guarding dogs. However, the aim is to move towards a situation where tangible benefits substantially outweigh any such costs, and where those benefits are directly linked to wildlife presence.”

For Page-Nicholson, the unfolding work of the 10-month-old African Lion Database, offers hope.

This is a first of its kind platform, supported by National Geographic and the Lion Recovery Fund, that seeks to consolidate lion population and distribution data from across the continent. It’s being undertaken for the conservation community and IUCN Cat Specialist Group.

Though lions are the big cat species most researched, there is still uncertainty about how many animals there are and where they occur, she says. Data is often “siloed” in various institutions with little conservation impact.

“Once we know more know about lions, we’ll be better able to protect them and guide conservation that is effective.” In recent months, Page-Nicholson has gleaned new out of range records for lions in Cameroon, Malawi and Angola. “Populations may be higher than what we have thought so this is really positive.”

[Lisbeth]

"But, despite the great interest in these species in the West in particular, currently there seems to be little political will to invest at the scale we need to maintain lions and improve the status of communities co-existing with them.”

There is no return gain of any kind, economical or political and 97% of the world population couldn't care less

[Richprins]

Today, there are more wild rhinos than wild lions

[Lisbeth]

[Klipspringer]

https://oxpeckers.org/2013/12/officials ... d-lions-2/

Officials turn a blind eye to the smuggling of wild lions
Posted at 12:08h in Botswana poaching links, Canned hunting investigations by Oxpeckers Reporters

South African farmers are using cattle-rustling routes to smuggle wild lions out of Botswana to supply a growing demand for lion-bone potions in the Far East. Investigation by Fiona Macleod

Conservationists said the illicit trade by organised cartels was adding to the pressures that could see the extinction of big cats in the wild within 10 to 12 years. They denounced Environment Minister Edna Molewa’s response to parliamentary questions that a moratorium on lion-bone exports from South Africa was unnecessary because they do not pose a threat to the survival of the species in the wild.

Dereck Joubert, leader of National Geographic’s Big Cats Initiative, said the lion-bone market was adding to the “emergency situation” facing Africa’s wild lions — the population has crashed from about 200 000 in the 1970s to less than 20 000 today.

“The bone trade out of South Africa is stimulating the market in Asia, which is far bigger than the supply will ever be. Selling lion bones on the market is also putting more pressure on tiger populations and there are fewer than 3 000 of them left in the wild,” he said.

Joubert, who has researched and filmed predators in Botswana for more than 25 years, as well as other conservationists said they noticed that the tempo of lion smuggling across the border had picked up around 2007 when former environment minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk was clamping down on “canned” hunting in South Africa.

Alternative outlets
Captive breeders looking for alternative outlets started setting up business in neighbouring countries and several South Africans were allocated land in communal farming areas in southern Botswana. Some of them also owned farms on the South African side of the border in the Northern Cape.

The smuggling routes they set up around the McCarthy’s Rest border post, about 200km north of Kuruman, are now being used to supply live animals to captive breeding facilities in South Africa, which are making a killing from selling lion bones as a substitute for tiger bones in traditional Asian potions.

Investigators discovered that the farmers used cattle-rustling routes to “launder” the live predators “on an industrial scale” across the border. Often they are cubs taken from lactating females, who are lured out of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park to watering points in the arid region and killed.

“Most are caught by a number of specialised capture teams who are supplied with vehicles and other equipment by the buyers in South Africa,” said an investigator who did not want to be named.

Cheetahs, leopards, hyenas and ivory are also part of the cross-border contraband.

The investigator said the trade was being conducted by organised syndicates, which use cellphones and motorcycles to round up livestock and herd them into temporary kraals. Hundreds of cattle will then be loaded on to double-decker trucks using a portable ramp and taken to the border crossing points.

“The two businesses are linked in that, in most cases, the same people who are involved in the theft, smuggling and trading in [mostly stolen] livestock are also involved in the illegal capture, smuggling and trading of predators,” he said.

Details of the smuggling had been supplied to police and conservation officials on both sides of the border, he said. But although a few arrests have been made, there has been little follow-through because local politicians and authorities in both countries are implicated. There is little interest even in stopping the cattle smuggling, which poses a serious threat of foot-and-mouth disease, which could affect beef exports.

Oxpeckers has seen the details and names of the syndicates allegedly involved in the trade, but cannot reveal them without risking the sources. Questions about the trade sent to the department of environmental affairs and Botswana’s department of wildlife and national parks were not answered.

An investigator on the South African side of the border said the cartels were supplying breeders of big cats in North West, Limpopo and the Free State, where most of South Africa’s 200 lion breeders are based.


Underground
Tales about attempted interventions border on the farcical, including lion cubs being thrown out of vehicle windows when they are being tailed and cheetahs found in car boots.

“There are no permits or paperwork involved in this smuggling business. We even went underground and tracked some evidence as far as China, but nothing was done about it,” the investigator said.

“The government says the captive lion-breeding industry doesn’t affect wild populations, but it does. Asian consumers are prepared to pay more for bones from free-ranging lions because they believe the effects are more potent.”

A complete lion skeleton can sell for up to R80,000. Official records at the environmental affairs department show there has been a 150% growth in exports of lion products since 2009. In 2010, 153 live lions were exported in 2010 as well as 46 lion skins, 235 carcasses, 592 trophies, 43 bodies and 41 skulls.

In May 2012, Molewa said in response to parliamentary questions from the Democratic Alliance that the main export countries were Laos, Vietnam, the United States and Spain. The lion bones exported were “a by-product of the captive-bred lions that are legally hunted”.

A moratorium in terms of national environmental management could be put in place only “if the activity is of a nature that may negatively impact on the survival of the species in the wild. The department does not consider the trade in lion bones as posing [such] a threat,” she said.

Joubert said Botswana’s ecotourism industry attracts the type of visitors who want to see big cats in the wild, not in “zoo situations”.

Botswana’s lion population has recovered to about 3,000 since hunting of the cats was banned in 2007. Most of them are concentrated in the north of the country and there are between 500 and 700 in the south.

“We don’t know how far up the smuggling is happening, but there is evidence it could be reaching as far north as Chobe,” Joubert said.

International trade records released in July 2012 show that South Africa exported 131 live tigers over the past 11 years. Conservationists said the export of 28 live tigers to Botswana was particularly surprising because the near-extinct big cats do not occur naturally in either country.

Pieter Kat, director of LionAid, a conservation organisation based in the United Kingdom, said Botswana had sent back 11 of the 28 tigers, either because they were refused entry or were confiscated by authorities.

“Still, 17 live tigers were exported by South Africa to Botswana and seem to have stayed there. The figures indicate that South African breeders are using Botswana as a laundering point for their wildlife trade.”

There are an estimated 3,000 wild tigers left in the world. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species identifies them as near ­extinction and sets strict ­conditions for their export and import. Captive-bred tigers are listed under different Cites ­regulations to wild tigers and only need export permits. Kat said big-cat breeders in South Africa were exploiting this loophole to trade in tigers.

Of the 131 tigers exported between 2000 and 2010, 54 went to the Emirates and 16 to Vietnam. “The Arab Emirates is a well-known staging point for the illegal trade of wildlife from Africa, and any live tiger sent to Vietnam will end up in an Asian traditional medicine pot to be stewed up for some tonic,” Kat said.

“The South African government and the Free State province in particular, where most of the lions are going, are doing the world a disservice by encouraging this lion-bone trade.” – oxpeckers.org, 13 July 2012

[Richprins]

Whatever one's opinions, Oxpeckers are by far the most reliable wildlife journalists.

[Lisbeth]

They are investigative journalists and do not count on information from other sources

[Lisbeth]

To read it black on white makes me sick

[Klipspringer]

https://link.springer.com/article/10.10 ... 19-01866-w

Lion poaching for claws and teeth a new trend

From this article: Evidence of a further emerging threat to lion conservation; targeted poaching for body parts

Discussion
This study presents data indicating the emergence of a further threat to lion conservation - the targeted poaching of lions for body parts. This threat has the potential to have devastating impacts on lion populations mirroring the effects similar pressures have had on wild tiger populations (Chapron et al. 2008; Dinerstein et al. 2007; Goodrich et al. 2008) and may be having on jaguar populations (Verheij 2019).

In our study area, the targeted poaching of lions for body parts has likely contributed unsustainable rates of mortality and has become a direct threat to the viability of lions. These data clearly describe an important yet lesser known, additive threat to the conservation of wild lions and presents a novel contribution to the science of ecological responses of apex predators to changing anthropogenic pressures.

We estimated that the lion population of Limpopo National Park has declined by approximately 66% over 5 years. We acknowledge that due to low responses to call-up surveys the possible influence of stochastic variation cannot be dismissed as explanatory for the differences in the estimates of lion abundance in LNP between 2012 and 2017. However, we believe the additional data collected during the same period from the monitoring of focal study prides including a documented (i) 50% decline in the average minimum pride size, (ii) 89% decline in the minimum number of adult females per pride and (iii) change in the pride’s average sex ratios from 1.8 to 0.3 females per male in addition to the number of lions we documented killed within these pride’s home ranges, all provide additional evidence of a catastrophic decline in the abundance of lions in LNP.

The targeted poaching of lions accounted for 35% of known human caused mortalities across the landscape and 61% of lion mortalities in and immediately adjoining Limpopo National Park, far surpassing the combined effects of retaliatory killings of lions following livestock conflict events and deaths associated with by-catch from bushmeat poaching. We did not find a correlation between the targeted poaching of lions for body parts and retaliatory killings where body parts were harvested, suggesting body parts are taken opportunistically during the later. However, a new or rising demand for lion body parts could exacerbate motives to kill lions in the vicinity of communities and livestock, irrespective of livestock losses or a perceived threat of losses. Incentivizing the killing of lions by a demand for body parts could seriously undermine conflict mitigation efforts.

The impacts of these deaths on the lion population would extend beyond a simple decrease in abundance depending on the demographics of the lions killed. For instance, we recorded that in at least one case, and likely two cases, the entire pride of lions was killed, and six adult females were killed from the three focal study prides. The loss of adult pride members can disrupt pride structure and social cohesion, negatively impacting territorial defence and cub recruitment reducing population’s ability to withstand possible population disturbances (Loveridge et al. 2007, 2016). The loss of an entire pride or the loss of several or all of the breeding females from a pride can therefore have disproportionate impact on the viability of the sub-population compared to the loss of young dispersing males or females. As cooperative breeders, the reproductive success of a pride increases when three to ten lionesses are present, while female survival is reduced within prides containing only one to two lionesses (Packer et al. 1988). By the end of 2018 two of our three focal study prides had lost all of their adult lionesses. During 2017 and 2018 we documented the last surviving adult lioness from either of the three focal prides twice attempt to raise cubs. Both attempts were unsuccessful. The death of adult pride males also can have cascading effects by resulting in a more rapid turnover of pride males and consequent infanticide of cubs (Whitman et al. 2004), with greater detrimental effects to the population.

The cause of the increase in targeted poaching of lions for body parts is still poorly understood. A local demand for traditional medicinal or ceremonial use of lion parts has likely been present in the area for some time. Skin, meat and possibly fat were the only body parts known to be harvested from lions killed from 2011 to 2013, (Fig. 4). These particular killings were non-targeted poaching incidents (Fig. 2) and therefore the harvesting of body parts may have been opportunistic. Fat has been documented as the most prevalent lion derivative in some known muti markets in southern Africa (Williams et al. 2015). The harvesting of heads or faces and paws was first recorded with the emergence of targeted poaching of lions in 2014 and all subsequent targeted poaching victims have had these body parts removed. The same body parts were also harvested from several retaliatory killings, post 2014. This increase in the removal of heads or faces and paws from lions in and around Limpopo National Park, along with the confiscations of lions’ teeth and claws at the Mozambique airport indicates a recent demand specifically for lion canine teeth and claws.

While the findings we present here are among the few quantitative descriptions of targeted poaching of lions for body parts, they do confer with the previous finding of Hazzah and Gudka (2010) who documented a trade in lion parts sold as trinkets to tourists in Kenya. There, predominantly Chinese tourists were fuelling a demand for lion teeth and claws, supplied with lions often killed in conflict situations by Masai herdsmen, while other body parts such as pieces of skin, were sought for local demand. The situation we present from Mozambique may have similarities to the situation documented in Kenya, however the main source of the demand is still speculative. During 2017 there has also been reported increases in the poaching of lions for teeth and claws in the Niassa reserve in northern Mozambique (C. Beggs Niassa Lion Project pers coms) and captive lions in the Limpopo province of South Africa (K. Marnewick Endangered Wildlife Trust pers coms) as well as cases where lions killed for conflict in the Caprivi region of Namibia now also had teeth and claws removed (L. Hansen Kwando Carnivore Project pers coms).

Our findings indicate an apparent preference for teeth and claws, which confer with the Williams et al. (2017b) continental meta-analysis of trade in lion parts. Williams et al. (2017b) concluded that the domestic trade in teeth and claws was high across the continent and likely poses a greater threat to wild lions than an international demand, though the impact of which was generally unknown. However, our findings have indicated a possible international demand from Vietnam impacting this wild population and calls for further detailed investigation. The sudden emergence of this preference around 2014 in the study area may also warrant further examination of IWT and legal trade trends at both a domestic and international level and related socio-economic variables of Mozambique around this time. The role and widespread use of the Internet, and in particular social media, is reported to be further facilitating IWT (Lavorgna 2014) whereby a demand for, or use of, a specific species and / or body part may be shared instantly across a large platform signalling a sudden preference.

The legal export of lion parts from captive lion breeders in South Africa may also fuel an illegal trade in lion body parts to be used within Traditional Chinese Medicine markets or curios (Williams et al. 2017a). While direct evidence linking the legal trade in captive sourced lion parts from South Africa to the targeted poaching of wild lion populations has to date been scant (Williams et al. 2015), there is reasonable concern of a link (CITES 2016; Parliamentary hearings). Lion teeth and claws have the highest monetary value in South Africa’s legal market (Williams et al. 2019). In all of the lion poaching incidences we documented where only teeth and claws were taken, the poachers involved were working on foot and under at least a nominal threat of being arrested. In such a situation it is likely that poacher’s selection for teeth and claws over removing full skeletons is a way of optimizing their return while reducing the costs. It is also possible that established rhino and elephant poaching syndicates and traders already operating in the region have simply added lion parts to their list of illegal wildlife products. This hypothesis is supported by interactions we documented between lion and elephant poaching which included the use of poached elephants as bait to kill lions and a seized shipment containing a mix of elephant ivory with numerous lion teeth and claws destined for Vietnam.

Conclusion
The illegal wildlife trade poses an unprecedented threat to global wildlife (Rosen and Smith 2010) and poaching is a major threat to many of the world’s large carnivores (Ripple et al. 2014). The loss of apex predators can have cascading impacts through lower trophic levels leading to ecological state shifts and ecological collapse (Estes et al. 2011). The loss of charismatic megafauna from protected areas can also result in substantial loss of potential revenue from tourism (Naidoo et al. 2016).

We acknowledge that this study is reporting on small data sets, however we believe they are worthy of reporting and consideration in light of this threat’s sudden emergence in the system, the potential impact it may have had on an already limited lion population (Everatt et al. 2014, 2019), and the devastating impact it could have on other lion populations across Africa.

We strongly recommend that African governments, protected area managers, conservation organizations, researchers and the global conservation community be vigilant of and quick acting towards addressing this emergent and serious threat to wild African lions, and other big cats. Stakeholders should adopt holistic and collaborative approaches to preventing and halting the poaching of and trade in the body parts of imperilled cats.