Lion Conservation Under Threat - Cecil the Lion The Facts

African Hunter ^ | July, 2015 | IJ Larivers

[marktwain]

As I read the reports of the killing of the famous Hwange National Park lion, Cecil, by an American client, hunting with a licensed professional hunter, I anticipated a rerun of the Musango Bull incident of a couple of years back. The bull elephant was another rock star of an attraction - in the Matusadona national park. He too was radio collared and he was shot by a sport hunter outside the park. There was within days the anticipated media frenzy over both the Bull and Cecil, but it turned out the two cases were markedly different.

One element that immediately leapt out was where Cecil was hunted. The concessions bordering on Hwange National Park have been a hotbed of controversy since the beginning of the new millennium. The former stomping grounds of the Big Bad himself, Dawie Groenewald of Out of Africa Adventurous Safaris, it seems that just about every corrupt politico and safari operator has been drawn to that area like a magnet over the last fifteen years. Alarm bells just went off from force of habit.

(snip)

There is a very real chance that sport hunting of lion could be dealt a death blow in the near future, and we all know what will happen then. All we have to do is look at Kenya, where the country on the one hand lauds itself for having banned all sport hunting in 1977, and then bemoans the fact that its lion population will be extinct within a decade - and that was half a decade ago. Its lions have no value to the rural villagers, and between habitat loss and their being killed off as stock predators - of course with no value - they have no chance.

[marktwain]

It looks like wild populations of lions in much of Africa are now at risk because of anti-sport hunting efforts.

The article contains some good information that is not favorable to the American hunter, Palmer. It also says quite a bit that is not favorable about Zimbabwe.

[Steely Tom]

Anything to keep us from hearing about the threat from the Kerry the Moron facts.

[backwoods-engineer]

One lion killed by a hunter = bad.

90,000 babies murdered, mangled, and sold off for blood money by Planned Demonhood = good.

Okay, I understand this society.

When God's wrath comes, America will get it good and hard. And deservedly.

[MediaMole]

It’s sad that a guy who couldn’t follow hunting laws in the US to the point where he got a FELONY conviction for a hunting violation in the US is going to ruin it for everyone else.

I know a guy who is dedicated to African game conservation and is a big game hunter. He has a full elephant mount, but every endangered animal he has taken was specifically flagged as a problem animal.

We’re going to lose a lot of interesting species because they aren’t valuable alive.

[piasa]

As part of the celebrations for his 91st birthday next Saturday, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe will be served a feast featuring five impala, two buffalo, two elephants, two sables, and one lion. ...----------- It's Surprisingly Legal to Eat Lion Meat VICE News ^ | 02/19/2015 | Mark Hay

It's unsportsmanlike to drag meat around a preserve and then drag it outside the preserve so as to lure the animal out but we don't know for a fact that the hunter knew that the guides did that without a hearing. That said, I wonder how Mugabe's birthday meat was killed?

[marktwain]

Well, he didn’t actually get a felony conviction, though it sounds as if it were close.

This outrage has strong parallels to leftists who demand free food for everyone, then are “surprised” when millions die of starvation, as a direct result of their policies.

Then they will wail that it is anyone’s fault except their own, because they had “good intentions”.

[Inyo-Mono]

It’s sad that a guy who couldn’t follow hunting laws in the US to the point where he got a FELONY conviction for a hunting violation in the US is going to ruin it for everyone else

Isn't that the way everything seems to workout?

[RummyChick]

There was a controversy over Trump’s kid doing big game hunting.

It is making the rounds again now.

[mrsmith]

Very solid informative article.

“Its lions have no value to the rural villagers, “
Planned Parenthood should get a grant to go and educate the villagers on the value of having a provider of free post-natal abortions.

[Lopeover]

Does God care about the aborted/murdered babies? Who will God punish for the aborted and murdered babies? The two people who concieved the baby, with premarital sex no doubt. The abortion clinic staff. The people who brought Roe v Wade to court, the justices who voted for it, the people who continue to support abortion, the leftist communities, politicians, and others who turn their backs on theses babies? This is their sin. They are the ones who will need to answer for this grave sin. These are the Marxists, democrats, liberals what ever you want to call them. These are their babies and they want them dead. It’s how the left controls entitlements to low income communities.

If the right wants to end abortion, do you want to expand welfare to cover the liberal babies? Pay more taxes to welfare mothers?

I believe harvesting body parts is profoundly wrong, but I am not against abortions. The country is already too much in debt. Nationally the abortion rate is down.

This is an issue, where people’s hearts must change.

Laws must change as well. Men who have more than “X” amount of children on welfare, by more than one woman must submit to sterilization. Why must the burden of contraception be the burden of the woman.

If you really want to stop this, we must think outside the box.

[marktwain]

“It’s unsportsmanlike to drag meat around a preserve and then drag it outside the preserve so as to lure the animal out but we don’t know for a fact that the hunter knew that the guides did that without a hearing. That said, I wonder how Mugabe’s birthday meat was killed?”

It does not sound as if that is actually what happened.

But more and more, it is sounding as though the hunt was not legal because the area where it occurred did not have a quota for a lion.

It all comes down to the criminal and corrupt situation that was created when the Western powers, including Jimmy Carter, forced Rhodesia to become Zimbabwe.

The results speak for themselves. They were foretold with considerable accuracy by conservatives, and now the left, in typical fashion, lies about it all and blames someone else.

[grey_whiskers]

#Don'tLikeLionHunts?Don'tShootOne

#LionLivesMatter

#MoreThanBabies

[LucyT]

Four takeaway items about the unethical dentist:

1. (Walter J. Palmer and the professional hunter used food to lure the animal out of the game preserve.)

2. After the botched shot, hunter Walter J. Palmer and the professional hunter tracked the wounded lion and found him some forty hours later, whence they dispatched him with a rifle.

3. When the hunters found that he was fitted with a GPS collar because he was being studied by Hwange Lion Research, funded by Oxford University; they allegedly tried to destroy the collar but failed.

4. On 22 April, 2008, Walter J Palmer, age 48, of Eden Prairie, Minnesota pleaded guilty to making a false statement to a federal agent in connection with the poaching of a black bear in the state of Wisconsin. Palmer had been issued a license to hunt a black bear in Subzone A1 in northern Wisconsin.

Walter J. Palmer subsequently killed one some forty miles outside of Subzone A1 and then repeatedly lied to US Fish and Wildlife investigators about the bear’s origin. He was looking at a maximum of five years’ imprisonment for that, but in the end was fined $2,939 and put on probation for one year.

Walter J. Palmer was spared the felony conviction chiefly because he was a dentist and it might have impacted negatively on his ability to prescribe medications and his license to practice. Not to mention owning a firearm.

Check out article for more info.

[TurboZamboni]

Thanks to our wonderful, tenacious reporters, we now know more about some dentist than anyone currently president or running for president and learned Jimmy Kimmel really is more of a woman than Caitlyn Jenner.

[ExpatGator]

What list am I on that I am getting posts about some lion being hunted? Please remove me from said list. Thank you.

[marktwain]

Baiting lions is not illegal in Zimbabwe, or in most places lions are hunted.

I have not seen *any* reports that bait was used inside the preserve.

It appears the hunt was illegal, because there was no quota for a lion in the area, but baiting is a legal and ethical way to hunt lions.

[LucyT]

From the article:

The remains of Cecil, the 13-year-old dark-maned lion who had become a sort of rock star in Hwange national park were found in July of 2015.

He was allegedly baited out of the park so that he could be killed legally.

Legally, if, of course the land-owner, one Honest Ndlovu and the PH - Theo Bronkhurst - had a lion on quota or on licence.

(If they didn’t - which was the case - there is an unsavoury practice known as a “quota transfer” where an animal shot in an area without a quota is recorded as having been shot elsewhere and needless to say this is illegal and unethical in the extreme.)

[grey_whiskers]

Wondering Where The Lions Are

Cheers!

[FJB]

To “take” wild animals that are accustomed to a wildlife preserve in which humans are trusted is rather like shooting fish in a barrel. It is among the least sportsmanlike conduct imaginable. Trophy hunting is undoubtedly a holdover from more primitive circumstances in which there were legitimate needs to control predators and kill animals for their meat, fat, fur, bones, teeth, etc. However, in the year 2015, especially for a properous westerner living in the USA, I would suspect that the past and present compulsive trophy hunting exhibited by this individual is a form of psychopathology. It is even more sadistic to use a crossbow that foreseeably could leave the animal fleeing in pain and panic (in this case, reportedly for 40 hours!) before it collapses or is finally killed. This “person” really should be prosecuted for his reprehensible behavior. The thought of him working in my mouth performing dental procedures is downright creepy, and I would imagine that many of his patients now feel the same way.

[Smokin' Joe]

The whole idea of permits to hunt lions and other species is to raise money for the conservation of those species, including game management and enforcing laws. That makes those species a valuable resource to be managed, and keeps them from being hunted into extinction instead.

If this particular lion had not been a photogenic dandy at the Park, I wonder if there would be such an outcry. If it had been known instead to raid livestock now and then and maybe nab an errant toddler, this would be a non-story. Instead the lion has been anthropomorphized, much like Bambi and thus, the dentist is being dragged over the coals.

As for game violations, that seems to be indicated, but no more so than for any other lion which was to be considered off limits to hunters. He did not go into the refuge and hunt the lion, the lion (for whatever reason) came to him.

In this case, the people I consider most culpable are the guides (or those in their employ) who lured the lion with bait, (although bait is hardly lion specific--it is designed to attract a lion, any lion, and would have to have been very craftily used to lure one specific lion.

In addition, the guides, who should be aware of local law, should have ascertained the lion was not collared, a task which may be made more difficult by the lion's mane.

The dentist should have made a better shot or not taken the shot which resulted in only wounding the animal.

I am not aware of how collared animals are tracked, but it should have been noted rather quickly that this particular lion was missing, especially if it is a favorite with the locals and tourists. The collar should have been tracked to make sure the lion was still in the preserve.

The guides were likely the ones who tried to destroy the collar, as it'd be their butts for guiding the dentist to hunt a collared animal.

As for the bear incident, the regulations have changed, and the current ones are available here

That incident tends to make one think the dentist might have been less likely to protest unscrupulous behaviour on the part of his guides, but I would think the onus of making sure their client did not break game laws would lie with them (they are the professionals on their home turf), and not the other way around.