Anti-hunting activists have petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the African lion as a threatened or endangered species and a decision is expected any day.
Dallas Safari Club officials are hoping for a ruling that favors science, not petitions.
“Political pandering in Washington D.C. won’t help lions,” said Ben Carter, executive director of DSC. “Lions need science-based, practical strategies that fit on-the-ground realities in Africa.”
Any listing under the Endangered Species Act could restrict or ban importations of African lion taxidermy, essentially stopping American hunters — and their money.
Carter says hunting gives game species real, monetary value in third-world countries. If lions are no longer valuable, then landowners, villagers and cattlemen will simply kill them off. Hunting also funds law enforcement needed to check poachers and black-market traffickers.
Carter said, “The precedent is clear: In Africa, when hunting goes away, so does the wildlife.”
Science shows that overharvest of young male lions could reduce long-term populations. In response, DSC in early 2013 began advising lion hunters to self-impose harvest restrictions. DSC defined the ideal huntable male lion as “at least six years of age and not known to head a pride or be part of a coalition heading a pride with dependent cubs.”
Science shows that hunting older male lions has no negative, long-term effect on populations.
More than 70 major safari operators, hunting industry leaders and top conservationists pledged support, and the International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation in April 2013 adopted a position modeled after the DSC policy.
Over time, Carter says, more-selective harvest will help conserve lion populations while keeping the overall conservation and economic benefits of hunting.
12 comments
While you’re waiting for the Lion decision heres some reality on Lions you should think about.
http://bit.ly/1dw018N
Very true, Candy. But what that map doesn’t show is the reason lion habitat is shrinking. When you remove hunters, who provide a massive economic incentive to local countries to keep huge swaths of wild areas open, the wild areas become overrun with goats, cattle and people. Those areas quickly become deserts because of overgrazing. Habitat is gone. Wildlife is gone. If viewing lions nowhere but national parks is the goal, remove the hunters and the economic incentive they provide. (Look at Kenya’s wildlife numbers before they closed hunting in 1978 and what happened after the hunters, who were the true stewards of wildlife, left)
And yet you are perfectly content to eliminate all the wolves,But the reality is hunters only wish to preserve hunting. If a hunter was so caring about nature and animals they would donate money and take nothing.
There is nothing to be proud of over causing death, laughing and disrepecting shows lack of character and quite frankly shows the level of depravity that a lot of hunters have. Hunters your deeds betrays your words of loving animals.
The only “economic” incentive is the corrupt a perverse guise of benevolence. The ones that benefit are the outfitters and gun manfacturers.
@ Conor And yet when it comes to wolves, not a peep. Your words contradict themselves. What you hunter want is to preserve hunting that is it.
There is no glory to be had celebrating taking of a life, but you hunters gloat and disrespect the life of the animal you kill. You don’t respect life your deeds betray your words.
Your lack of humanity shows, anything for a buck shows a lack of ethics as well.
@Conor – Actually in Africa, many countries are considering banning canned hunting and trophy hunting period because of its creating a poaching market for the lion bone trade in Asia, such as the Rhino hunting has done with Rhino horn. There are only 4000 wild lions left, 102 desert lions, and when males are shot, the new male kills all the cubs, doing nothing for conservation. Shooting a partially domesticate lion, is not hunting it cowardice and borders on animal cruelty. The real big money is in the volunteers, and the lion carcass that is worth up to $70 000 on the Asian market, volunteers are a steady 2 weekly income of around R200 000 for these places, making the Trophy and canned industry a misleading one with ulterior motives. You need to go do some serious research, because this needs to stop, its destructive, and hunter use baiting, another cowardice method. No mate, if you eat what you hunt no problem, but lions are not on the menu and we want the protected.
QUOTE: Carter said, “The precedent is clear: In Africa, when hunting goes away, so does the wildlife.”
What the heck is this guy smoking?
Removing the predators is why you have no vegetation, only most of you hunters are too stupid to realize this you just want a massive trophy. When you kill a male lion who has cubs, the next male that takes over the pride will kill all the cubs that are not his so not only do you kill the big trophy, you kill all the cubs. Just as you go bear hunting etc,you have no care that the life you snuffed may have had babies, so again you snuff out more than 1 life,but why should you care you selfishly got your trophy.
Stop killing our wildlife!!!
Isn’t the problem precisely that hunters kill healthy adult males? The sick, weak and starving lions don’t look good in the trophy picture, and so the hunters kill the healthy ones. If the father of a pride is killed, the cubs of that pride will get killed as well because of rival males who take over the pride. It is a huge loss to the lion population every time a hunter kills a healthy male lion. But money rules in this world, and trophy hunters are not willing to pay for just ‘culling the weak’. They want the strongest, the biggest and the best. And that’s why trophy hunting is so costly to the wild population of lions.
Anti- hunters? That’s like saying that the canned lion killers in SCI are” hunters”. They are bloodthirsty opportunistic fake sportsmen. Look at the rape of all the wildlife in South Africa as an example of conservation. SCI told us that allowing canned lion hunting in SA that that would take the pressure off wild lion populations. That has turned into a free for all with wild lions poached. Don’t believe safari club…..read the book dominion by Matthew scully….he exposes SCI for what they are….FRAUDS
Most lion hunting is canned anyway. Does anyone know how this will effect the canned hunting industry? It would be a shame if all that science and conservation were lost because a bunch of tree huggers think killing for fun and collecting corpses is psychotic.
If humans left nature alone it would regulate itself. As usual, man finds someway to interfere in the established code of life that has been around for millions of years. Hunters want to hunt and the native peoples want to expand. Take those two parts out of the equation and the lions will be just fine. I have a suggestion for both parties — learn a new “hobby” and practice better birth control.
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