Lions in South-Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia

[BA0701]

(05-20-2021, 12:06 PM)Duco Ndona Wrote: I can get the desire to help an animal in need. Its very commendable. 
Though I wonder if it really helps those animals. 


Were these animals ever in danger? Mothers and cubs are perfectly capable to finding eachother on their own. Sometimes the mothers even abandon their cubs for a little bit to distract predators from them.
Just like its recommended to leave young puppies or kittens alone for a few hours after finding them. The same probably counts for their bigger cousins. 

It also raises the question of who gets saved and who doesnt. Can we set up criteria for this? Or will the lion fandom just demand to save every doomed runt regardless of circumstance?
Is it moral to save a struggling young coalition of lions. When its this struggling that learns them to shape up or eliminates the surplus weaker males in a territory? 
If we see two lions attacking eachother, how do we determine who should win? Wouldnt the excess amount of lions also cause more takeovers and cubkillings by rival males and prides? 

And lets say we do help the lions and their numbers explode. Lions are still vicious carnivores. What about all the cheetah and leopards they will kill? Will we then intervene in favor of those and cull lions? Will people stand up for the much less popular hyena or will it become survival of the cutest? What about the prey animals? Or the lions fleeing the overpopulation into populated areas? 

I think we ultimately would just raise issues that nature has solved eons ago. So let nature deal with the individuals and us focus on giving nature the space it needs for that. 
The money and energy is much better spend on anti poaching. Increasing the size of the reserves or education anyway.

Very good points @"Duco Ndona", every one is valid, and a great thoughtful response.

To your first question, as to if these cheetah were in danger, I cannot speak to that, as Phinda did not provide those details. But, you are entirely correct, mothers and their offspring have been finding each other forever, long before we ever took our first steps.

Your second question regarding who gets saved or where do we drawn the line, I believe is one of ethics, and perhaps the most interesting, and one that I believe causes more of us to pause and contemplate than any of the others. Personally, I wish we could help any animal we can, especially when you are profitting from the mere existence of these creatures, but I don't know if that is necessarily the correct decision. Using your analogy, if you see a young puppy on the side of the road injured, do you leave it or assist it, what about a bear cub, or an alligator? As you mentioned where do we draw the line? While I feel we should help where we can, I completely understand that I am injecting emotion into a situation where it shouldn't be, and I am not sure my way of thinking is the right or ethical choice. Say those injuries, or the fact that an baby animal is separated from it mother is the result of human actions and not nature, perhaps the bear cub was hit by a car, do we then intervene? The causation wasn't natural, which returns us the that invisible, yet no less important, line. I personally witnessed park rangers in Cades Cove in the Smoky Mountains, preparing to euthanize 4 uninjured bears (a mother and 3 cubs), a direct result of human carelessness. So, to answer your question, at a minimum, I believe intervention is warranted when humans are the cause of a particular issue. If some person drives off into the brush in Kruger, and runs over a lion, and that lion can be saved by verterinary care, then personally I believe such intervention is justified. I understand nature is cruel (just ask any given prey animal), and do not neccessarlity believe we should intervene with nature taking it's course (though my more compassionate side might argue differently, thus creating this internal conflict that I believe most of us can understand), but I do if the ocurrence is an unnatural one. Do we take the fishing net off of a whale, or the snare from around a lion's neck? Reply