The pictures above show
some of the tools of the trade of the poacher and his snares. We took this suspected
poacher into custody and transported him to officials during a recent hunt in Tanzania.
This is what we as hunters
constantly strive to stop. We do so through our conservation dollars, personal
participation during poaching patrols, as well as funding independent poaching
patrols and community awareness efforts. Those of us who have been to Africa
more than a few times have found and removed snares. We have seen these sights
and many others that are just as troubling.
The anti-hunters would like
the world to believe that managed hunting is the problem. In reality, hunters are
conservationists who work to support through funding dollars and personal
involvement the species that we off-take. Organized poaching and habitat loss
are the real problem. One need only visit our Twitter feed
to see the many hundreds of tweets about poaching issues.
The graphic photos contained in the
link below are from a recent article written by Lucy Laing about poaching snares
that appeared in the 5-21-12 edition of the MailOnline. The article provides
some accurate information for the uninformed. Unfortunately, it also omits
information about other lion mortality factors. The article also contains information
provided by an organization recognized by many on-line as an anti-hunting
group. This is unfortunate as managed hunting is a crucial component to
properly managing lion populations. Many conservation organizations have
publicly noted this and have printed this in their research.
One need only look to Kenya
where hunting was banned in 1977 and their game numbers have fallen by 80%. Hunting,
as National Geographic put it, is benefiting Africa's wildlife. Using elephant
as an example, if you compare Kenya with Zimbabwe you can see a stark contrast
in the benefits realized from elephant hunting. Since managed sport hunting was
organized in Zim the elephant populations have more than doubled. Numbers went
from some 37,000 animals to now over 97,000. The population is expanding at an
approximate rate of 5% per annum.
If one looks at managed
hunting in South Africa, the white rhino has come back from near extinction to sustainable
populations. Syndicated poaching is where the problem exists. The facts clearly
show that managed hunting preserves and increases wildlife populations. In
1900, of the five rhino species, the white rhino was the most endangered. Less
than 20 existed on a single preserve. When policy toward hunting was changed,
private ownership, breeding, and limited managed hunting was instituted. The change
resulted in population increases of over 20,000 animals by 2010.
Organized poaching is a
problem that we should all work toward solving both personally with monetary donations and through our hunting
organizations. It is important to educate non-hunters about how managed hunting
is integral in assuring value to and the survival of the wild lion in Africa.
While the article touches on the difficulty of patrolling the parks for
poachers it fails to mention how the hunting industry plays a much larger role
in poaching reduction in the wild areas that are not within a park's
boundaries.
The emotional appeal to
stop hunting is presented by anti-hunting groups as the solution to preserving lion and other dangerous game populations. The opposite will occur in Africa if lion and other dangerous game hunting ceases to
continue. Lions and other game must have value to communities affected by them or they will be
poached and poisoned until they no longer exist.
