saving Cecil

[bojangles]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/12/21/obama-administration-enacts-protections-for-lions.html

 

 

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2016/02/01/huge-population-endangered-lions-found-in-ethiopia.html?intcmp=trending

 

 

 

absolute madness. I wonder how the natives feel about having a half a million lions floating around, munching on the locals.

 

I lived in Africa for a couple of summers, and it's funny how you never hear in the news when a lion eats a person, but you sure hear about when a person kills a lion. And lions still eat people on a regular basis.

 

imho, that's a criminal misplace of priorities.

[Guest 300ultramag.]

because trophy hunting are the only way these lions die off.if we didn't hunt them they would all live to be 100 years old

[mattys281]

So to get an animal listed as endangered requires no scientific evidence at all, just a bunch of crying and political pressure? Sounds legit to me.

[Red Sparky]

It is just starting. Compassion Works International is having a rally here at the state capitol to "educate" the public about an activity the group calls brutal and immoral practice and to also protest the trapping of mountain lions in NM. The Santa Fe event is part of the Worldwide Rally for Cecil, an anti-trophy hunting campaign.

 

This is going to get crazier than it is now.

[billrquimby]

This Cecil nonsense, is just that -- nonsense.

 

It began with a one-man "group" who calls himself "the Zimbabwe Conservation Force" who held a press conference in Harare, Zimbabwe, to announce that a Spaniard had illegally lured a lion out of a national park by baiting, wounded it with an illegal crossbow bolt, and allowed it to suffer for 48 hours before killing it.

 

Not only that, he said the lion was wearing a radio collar and it is illegal to kill a collared animal. He claimed the Spaniard and his professional hunter tried to destroy the collar to hide what they'd done.

 

To make matters worse, he claimed, the lion he called "Cecil" (after Cecil Rhodes, the founder of Rhodesia) was known and loved by everyone in Zimbabwe and the hunters had shown their lack of respect by decapitating this beloved animal.

 

A BBC reporter was among those attending the press conference, and within days the "news" went global.

 

A couple of days later, a minor Zimbabwe official announced that his country would ask the U.S. to send the dentist to Zimbabwe to face charges for his illegal and unethical actions.

 

What was never publicized were all the untruths and outright lies that were told about the incident.

 

1. It was an American dentist (and not a Spaniard) who shot the lion with a compound bow and not a crossbow.

 

2. Cecil was not "lured" or baited out of the park, he was shot as he fed on an elephant that had died of natural causes a couple of kilometers from the park's boundary. Even if he had been lured out of the park by baiting, baiting lions is perfectly legal in Zimbabwe and nearly everywhere else in Africa.

 

3. It is not illegal to shoot a collared lion in Zimbabwe. Even if it were, the old lion's mane was so long that it doesn't show in any photos I've seen of the animal.

 

4. The collar was cut off the lion and hung on a tree branch where biologists were able to find it. There was no attempt to destroy its transmitter.

 

5. The lion was not decapitated out of scorn by the hunters. It was skinned for a full-body mount, and the carcass minus its head was left for vultures and hyenas.

 

6. This was not a well-known or beloved lion. Most Zimbabweans had never heard of it before that press conference.

 

7. There never was any official move to have the dentist extradited to Africa. The government agreed the only law that was violated was broken by the indigenous "landowner," who had obtained the land after it was seized from its white owners. He and a neighbor illegally swapped a hunting permit for another animal (an elephant, I think) for a lion hunting permit. For this, he was fined $250 U.S.

 

The dentist became a pariah hated by anti-hunters around the world who are mounting campaigns and building war chests to end trophy hunting. He and his family received death threats, and he came close to losing his business even though he had done nothing wrong, legally or ethically.

 

It will be a disaster if trophy hunting ends in Africa. Except for Kenya, most national parks on that continent are mostly funded by the hunting concessions that surround them. When that revenue is gone and the concessions become subsistence farms, there not only will be few game animals outside of parks, there also will be fewer animals inside the protected areas.

 

There are sayings in Africa that go like this: "It stays if it pays," and "In Africa, wildlife must sing for its supper." For proof of this, one needs only look at Kenya, where wildlife populations outside of parks crashed within less than a decade after hunting ended.

 

Bill Quimby

[MULEPACKHUNTER]

Nice work bill digging up some facts, great to see that and not a bunch if opinions.

[Whitesheep]

Thank you Bill for the detail and clarification. Too bad your talking to the choir.

 

For those here who really care about hunting I suggest you join Safari Club International. SCI is a premier supporter of hunting rights in the world including the USA. SCI is not just for international hunters. I joined a year ago at the suggestion of a international hunter I know (not Bill Quimby) and I am glad I did. While it is doubtful I will ever get the opportunity to hunt internationally, SCI is a great organization I am proud to be a part of.