Trophy hunting could be lion’s saviour, says zoologist
BRITAIN: Trophy hunting can help lion conservation, according to a government-commissioned report that has angered wildlife charities.
The report by an Oxford University zoologist was ordered after the international outcry over the killing last year of Cecil the lion by an American dentist.
Walter Palmer is said to have paid about NZ$65,000 to use a bow and arrow to kill Cecil, a 13-yearold black-maned lion who lived in Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park.
Cecil was hit just outside the park, apparently after being lured out of it. Zimbabwean officials said that Palmer had broken no laws but they seized Cecil’s head.
African lions have declined from about 200,000 a century ago to 20,000 today.
Trophy hunting is permitted by a dozen African countries, which charge hunters up to NZ$100,000 to kill a lion.
About 4500 lion trophies have been exported since 2006, according to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites).
Britain’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs commissioned David Macdonald, director of Oxford’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU), to review trophy hunting and consider how conditions on importing trophies to Britain might be tightened.
Macdonald’s report concludes: ‘‘Where trophy hunting is well regulated, transparent and devolves sufficient authority to the land managers, it has the potential to contribute to lion conservation.
‘‘The most fundamental benefit of trophy hunting to lion conservation is that it provides a financial incentive to maintain lion habitat that might otherwise be converted to non-wildlife land uses.’’
He quotes estimates that trophy hunting areas cover 1.4 million sq km in Africa - 22 per cent more land than its national parks. ‘‘How much of that area could viably be converted to phototourism is unknown, but this certainly could not be accomplished everywhere.’’
Macdonald also found there was little evidence that trophy hunting had substantial negative effects on lion populations. He recommends that the UK should only permit trophy imports from areas where the lion population is ‘‘demonstrably well managed’’.
- The Times