Can legalised-hunting help conservation?

[Rishi]

Can trophy hunting ever be a useful tool in the conservationist’s toolbox? 

On the surface, the answer would appear obvious. It seems as if the killing of an animal – especially an endangered one – for sport is directly contradictory to the goal of ensuring the survival of a species.
And the answer, as usual, is more complicated.

By one estimate, African sport hunting generates approximately $200 million annually!!!

A 2000 report from TRAFFIC, an organization that works with the WWF, IUCN, and CITES to track the international trade of wildlife, describes how Namibia alone was the site of almost 15,000 trophy hunts each year. Those 15,000 animals represent a wide variety of species – birds, reptiles, mammals, and even primates – both endangered and not.
) The hunters brought eleven million US dollars with them to spend in the Namibian economy. And that doesn’t include revenue from non-trophy recreational hunting activities, which are limited to four species classified as of “least concern” by the IUCN: Greater Kudu, Gemsbok, Springbok and Warthog.

So shouldn't Legal hunting conserve the hell out of lions??..
The issues here are complex and highly politicized. There are several questions that science can’t help address, primary of which is whether or not the money raised from the sale of hunting permits is used for conservation, something often promised by hunting tour operators. But empirical research can help to elucidate several other questions, such as whether hunting can ever help drive conservation efforts.

On one hand, conservation groups claim the revenues earned by the sport hunting industry are wasted and go directly into politicians’ pockets.  On the other hand, pro-sport hunting groups claim that their expenditures directly fund conservation and promote the livelihood of
the species they are killing. 
Both sides cite studies and statistics to prove their claims, and it is difficult as a third unbiased party to determine which arguments hold the most weight.

In 2006, researcher Peter A. Lindsey of Kenya’s Mpala Research Centre and colleagues interviewed 150 people who either had already hunted in Africa, or who planned to do so within the following three years. Their findings were published in the journal Animal Conservation. A majority of hunters – eighty-six percent! – told the researchers they preferred hunting in an area where they knew that a portion of the proceeds went back into local communities. Nearly half of the hunters they interviewed also indicated that they’d be willing to pay an equivalent price for a poorer trophy if it was a problem animal that would have had to be killed anyway.
Lindsey’s team also discovered that hunters were more sensitive to conservation concerns than was perhaps expected. For example, they were less willing to hunt in areas where wild dogs or cheetahs are illegally shot, in countries that intentionally surpass their quotas, or with operators who practice “put-and-take hunting,” which is where trophy animals are released onto a fenced-in property just before a hunt.

745 rhinos were killed due to illegal poaching in 2012 in Africa, which amounts to approximately two rhinos each day, mostly for their horns. The five non-breeding rhinos that Namibia allows to be hunted each year seem paltry in comparison, especially since they are older males who can no longer contribute to population growth.

Also, In a 2011 letter to Science magazine, Leader-Williams also pointed out that the implementation of controlled, legalized hunting was also beneficial for Zimbabwe’s elephants. “Implementing trophy hunting has doubled the area of the country under wildlife management relative to the 13% in state protected areas,” thanks to the inclusion of private lands, he says. “As a result, the area of suitable land available to elephants and other wildlife has increased, reversing the problem of habitat loss and helping to maintain a sustained population increase in Zimbabwe’s already large elephant population.” 


BUT.........
It's important to note, however, the detrimental consequences on the youngsters on loss of the older elephants means leaving male or female youngsters without guidance - which can actually lead to so-called teenage delinquents who are more likely to have negative interactions with humans, and therefore be killed.


Hunters say trophy hunting help animals. Let's check the stats.

• Big game hunters say they help support local communities and conservation efforts by paying for big game hunts. However, while hunters pay roughly $200 million each year for big game hunts in Africa, only around 3 percent of those funds go to local communities, and the amount dedicated to conservation efforts is nearly negligible. The overwhelming majority of hunting fees ends up lining the pockets of middlemen, large companies and local governments.
  

• Big game hunters argue that killing can help a species by removing older animals from the population, or say that they trust governments to set sustainable hunting quotas. Unfortunately, in practice these arguments don't hold up. For one, some governments are more interested in how much a dead lion can bring them than in establishing sustainable hunting limits. For example, there are around 20,000 to 35,000 wild lions left in Africa, depending on whom you ask, and big game hunters legally kill around 600 each year. That's an annual population loss of 2 to 3 percent, which is entirely unsustainable, even if you don't add in the deaths due to poaching & livestock protection.
  

• And while nature likes to pick off the weakest members of a population, big game hunters target the largest, strongest members of a population. For lions, that means the male pride leader; for elephants, the oldest elephant with the biggest tusks. Killing these animals, who play a crucial role in their societies, puts the rest of their families at risk.
  Needless to say the damage done to natural selection & the genepool is far, far higher.
  

• The final one is here...( http://www.lionaid.org/news/2016/02/how-...africa.htm )
  

Reply