The real Killers

[grewal]

I would like to bring this to the notice of the so called " Trophy Hunters" who preach us the benefits of paid hunting and how this money paid by hunters is really benefiting the wildlife in its extinction
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ction.html
http://blog.arkive.org/2011/03/african- ... er-threat/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/ ... 2011-03-01

[Katana]

I don't quite believe these articles ought to be taken at face value. There is immense politics amid the conservation lobby and this seems more like a fallout or a 'plant' in the media. Unless certain numbers are culled, the habitat would not be able to support them. Of course, paying money to bag a trophy would obviously gain the shooter an older dominant lion. AFAIK, legal shooting in Africa involves 'marking' an animal before it is shot and not random selection.

A complete ban on shooting lions in Gir has now led them to venture almost 100 kms away from their home and it is not uncommon to hear reports of lions attacking farmers in Kathiawar. This itself was unheard of some years ago. Why? No poaching, no official culling, the area of habitat has been static, and better monitoring by the authorities. But the prey base is shrinking and the habitat area remains the same.

[prashantsingh]

There is so much I would like to write here .....but I would only be repeating what has already been said earlier on IFG.
"The Real Killers" as the first article points out in the second para is "habitat loss" and "man / animal " conflict and NOT the Trophy Hunter.
A trophy lion is expensive. Not very many can afford it. The money earned by shooting a Trophy lion goes back into conservation.
A poacher pays nothing to poison a lion or trap and kill it . The rotting carcass of a dead lion (shown in the second article) is NOT the job of a Trophy Hunter but more likely,that of a poacher.
Lord Curzon who was himself a keen Shikari was the man behind saving the Asiatic Lion (the lions Katana has mentioned). He was the man who refused the Nawab of Junagarh's invitation to hunt the last few (remaining) lions in the Gir and asked him (the Nawab) to make all efforts to save the species.
His wife Lady Curzon was instrumental in saving the One Horned Rhino by asking her husband to put a ban on Rhino Hunting as well.
If there are ethics in hunting. The "Trophy Hunter" follows them to the max.
India has banned hunting for so many decades now.
Why has our wildlife still not recovered ?

[Vikram]

I cannot add much to what Katana and Prashant said. Both are spot on.

Best-
Vikram

[dr.jayakumar]

irony...the trophy seekers are from US and the warning is given by US endangered species act.who should be blamed here.?

[hamiclar01]

The Daily Mail also claims immigrants have a hidden agenda of spreading STD in the British isles. I'm surprised it has not implicated Eastern Europeans or Asians behind this "expose" on dwindling predator numbers.

One of my many reasons for staying away from that particular brand of toilet paper

[xl_target]

As Prashantsingh points out, one of the articles says:

The single biggest threat to the African lion is conflict with humans, with many lions shot or poisoned by farmers trying to protect livestock. The spread of agriculture and development has also reduced the lion’s habitat and decreased the availability of its prey. The African lion is now becoming increasingly rare outside of protected areas, and its populations are becoming more isolated and fragmented within its shrinking range.

Please remember that with the increasing competition for finite natural resources, the only way to protect wildlife is to manage them with sound management policies. Wildlife management is not a deep dark secret known to only a few. Any accredited institution of higher learning that teaches wildlife management will teach it to any pupil willing to pay its fees. Generally, hunters are blamed for a poor implementation of wildlife management policy. Often because they are the most visible and don't hide their activities. In many countries, politics, greed and graft tend to dilute any attempts to implement a sound wildlife management policy.

Let me just close by posting a photo that shows what is possible when sound and scientific wildlife management policies are implemented.



Also one must keep in mind that most periodicals today seem to have an agenda of their own which is usually anti-"anything to do with guns" .
Anyway, here is a New York times article about the decline of the Lion population in Kenya. Keep in mind that hunting has been banned in Kenya for many years so it is not possible to blame hunters here.

Kenya has lost an average of 100 lions in each of the last 7 years and its lion population could disappear altogether in the next 20 years, the Kenya Wildlife Service said Monday. The lion population fell to about 2,000 animals, from 2,749 in 2002, because of climate change, habitat destruction, disease and conflict with people,

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/18/world ... Kenya.html

[dr.jayakumar]

The Daily Mail also claims immigrants have a hidden agenda of spreading STD in the British isles. I'm surprised it has not implicated Eastern Europeans or Asians behind this "expose" on dwindling predator numbers.

One of my many reasons for staying away from that particular brand of toilet paper

what does this mean?

[xl_target]

He means the information printed by that newspaper is so biased, irrelevant, often deliberately falsified and useless that it might as well be used as toilet paper. An affliction common to many of the rags in publication today ...and they wonder why their readership is declining. A phenomenon that we see in the western world is that more and more periodicals are coming under the ownership of a few, very wealthy elites, and they tend to reflect a point of view that is out of touch with what the common man knows and sees.

[goodboy_mentor]

Also one must keep in mind that most periodicals today seem to have an agenda of their own which is usually anti-"anything to do with guns" .

This is the real fact. These anti gun bigots infiltrate/influence/tie up with various organizations and carry out this propaganda to brainwash minds of people in a clever manner that is not understood by most people.

[dr.jayakumar]

thanks friend.can't trust anything these days.