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Can legalised-hunting help conservation?
Can legalised-hunting help conservation?
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Can legalised-hunting help conservation?
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 (03-20-2017, 08:44 PM)Pckts Wrote: Unfortunately hunting is still used as an excuse for conservation, when I was in Tanzania, the three parks I went to were full of tourists, every lodge was full and animal sightings were plenty. I see no reason why they couldn't open the surrounding "hunting parks" to protected reserves and still generate the same revenue generated in the Serengeti, tarangire, ngorongoro, selous etc. I hate this trophy hunting stuff, because its the trophy hunters that originally killed off all the big lions right. So that then wipes out the gene pool of large cats, so it decreases the size over all, and I would think that would be the same for the tiger, these cats must of been larger years ago before the hunters wiped them out. 
Trophy hunting is very sensitive matter to discuss, Recently An African Elephant fall into Victim of this in Timbavati.
According to Trophy Hunters, They are producing necessary money to protect the remaining healthy species of animals by killing Old animals. They bring lot of money which tourism and local conservation program can never bring to the state, this money can be used to protect rest of species from poachers who kills animal brutally. To an extent this excuse can be justified but In reality, Trophy hunters motive is not this. The elephant they killed recently in Timbavati was a young bull and they took the permission of it from government by producing false report. Their mission is to make big money by killing any animal which their big fat customer demands. They do not promote or participate in conservation programs. So in my opinion this should be illegal and African countries shouls stop it
trophy hunters and poachers both need to be hunted and killed in like manner that they kill animals.
Let's talk about tigers & elephants (Wilc buffalo or rhino wont pose this challenge, they dont migrate & need little space)...Indian wildlife dept. is already struggling with funds!!!..
A lot of it actually goes to reimbursement of cattle kill...& rest of it to provide training/equipments to personnel for patrolling of new forest area they are reclaiming back. New buffers are being designated & as the numbers increase, this issue will recochet out of control... Especially in the corridors where the animals survive the journey primarily by CATTLELIFTING!!! The NTCA provides money for such in Tiger reserve areas but the tiger are moving out to occupy community managed & unprotected forests. That will require several times larger funds!!! Now, that will lead to conflict with th forest-dependent-communities...unless there are workshops & awareness drives & reaction/traquilising teams & fencing of the settlements & funds to provide them with stall-fed cattle, solar/LPV cookers to reduce their forest dependency & monitoring of speed along railways/highways throughout designated corridors. Then there will be the upsurge in Man-eating, as they move to more human dominated forests... Scope for ecotourism is pretty limited (Already those are monopolised by capitalists, local beniftt very little)..Maybe Betla, NorthBengal parks will show promise, BUT WHAT OF THE OTHER 90% AREA??!!! Where will funding to manage those come from..??? No govt. spends the same amount it does to protect borders, on protecting what's within those borders!!!!!!! After Indian tiger population crosses 5000, i guess we will have to consider entertaining the options of sustainable hunting!!!! The ousted & the old... the past-prime ones that won't live much longer & die a slow, painful death soon anyway...but before that might turn maneater or resort to full-on cattelifting & jeopardise the conservation efforts!!! (Not the maneaters...Too much is at stake in those cases & also doing so might show tendency to declare more Maneaters for shooting..under political pressure)
Ok.. ignore whatever i just said in my previous post!!!! ^^
I did some research..Turns out a lion hunt in Africa costs less than ₹50lakh. NTCA annual budget is about ₹50 Crores, that means we'll have to permit 100 tiger hunts a year to barely double the funds, at comparable costs!!! Now India govt. alotted ₹2800 Crores for Ganga-Yamuna pollution reduction!!!!!!!!!!! That mean A PETITION LETTER can achieve more than what a hundred tiger's life would!!!.. Also, the top ten Tiger Reserves average arround 150000 tourist each year (http://www.livemint.com/Politics/nyaRXo8...ml)...& the industry is growing at a rate of 15% per year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (http://www.conservationindia.org/article...evelations) Also this...  *This image is copyright of its original author
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.
The two big excuses: animal population control and money provided by sport hunters for the use of conservation.
Nature left unchecked provides its own population control. In nature's way, the biggest, strongest, healthiest animals are seldom the ones that perish. I would hate to think that myself and my family would be targets in an annual open season by sport hunters for the benefit of humanity. Any way I look at it, sport hunting is barbaric. (11-22-2018, 11:46 PM)tigerluver Wrote: Trophy hunting is a very controversial topic. Here we have a study that shows moratoriums on hunting can have a major beneficial effect in just 3 years: 
In France, hunters are calling themselves the best possible ecologists. More than 2 millions hunters in a country where domestic pheasants are released "in wild" for the hunting season. These fat-bellied Rambo of operetta, dressed as american soldiers of the Vietnam war, only deserve an everlasting contempt.
South Africa – how Timbavati funds itself with hunting and tourism
Autor: Keith Somerville
Managing a Private Nature Reserve[b]Timbavati (South Africa) Sustainability and the Funding of the Timbavati Private Nature Reserve November 17, 2018[/b] In 1956, a group of conservation minded landowners formed the Timbavati Association to restore and protect the landscape of a large wilderness area. Since then protected areas in the Kruger Lowveld have grown dramatically. With the dropping of fences in 1993 between the Timbavati, neighbouring private nature reserves, and the Kruger National Park, a large, thriving, unfenced protected space was created that now forms part of the Greater Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area (GLTFCA).
Today, the Timbavati conservation ideal persists, albeit under rapidly changing and unpredictable circumstances. The complexities of managing a large private nature reserve increase every day. A good example of this is the relentless challenge we face in dealing with rhino poaching. In our reserve alone, the costs for security and anti-poaching have escalated by a staggering 900% in the last 6 years, taking up 63% of our annual operating budget. And while we fight against organised crime and illegal wildlife trade, other serious challenges need to be faced – like integrating the Greater Kruger wilderness and surrounding communities in ways that are sustainable and that reduce the risk of protected area fragmentation.
Whilst private nature reserves are vital pieces of the Greater Kruger landscape puzzle, it is not commonly known that these private reserves receive no government funding. All funds have to be generated by the reserves themselves – funds to cover the costs of anti-poaching, salaries of wardens, ecologists and other staff, conducting expensive aerial censuses to monitor animal populations, monitoring vegetation conditions, controlling alien plants and maintaining roads, fire breaks and fences to name a few.
Finding a sustainable funding model (as a non-profit organisation), that does not compromise a reserves’ commitment to minimising ecological footprint and maximising conservation goals, is perhaps the ultimate test faced by many private nature reserves in the Greater Kruger today.
Sustainable Utilisation as a Funding Model
The Timbavati relies on income generated from two forms of sustainable utilisation – photographic tourism and trophy hunting. The latter has a much lighter landscape footprint and yields far more revenue per capita for the reserve than the former. To address imbalance, reserve management embarked on an analysis of the reserve’s financial model in 2016, revealing that the conservation levies paid by the ± 24 000 photographic tourists who visited the reserve that year was less than a third of the income earned from the 46 hunters visiting over the same period.
 *This image is copyright of its original author Consequently, in January 2018 the TPNR (Timbavati Private Nature Reserve) increased the conservation fee levied on photographic tourists to R328 per person per night. The practical result was increased revenue from photographic tourism without a need to increase bednight numbers, and hence human footprint. Our income budget has become better balanced in terms of the revenue that each sector brings to the reserve.
In fact, with a lower number of photographic tourists and a lower number of hunters visiting Timbavati in 2018, the revenues to the reserve have increased, supporting the Timbavati’s commitment to minimising ecological footprint whilst covering operational costs.  *This image is copyright of its original author Photographic tourism and trophy hunting rely on sound reserve management, enabling a healthy ecosystem, which supports stable plant and animal populations. The Timbavati monitors wildlife populations closely through annual aerial censuses, and conducts annual routine vegetation assessments to determine veld condition. The reserve is fortunate to have accurate data spanning more than two decades, and our data shows that the total animal population in Timbavati continues to grow. This includes elephant, whose numbers are declining in other areas around Africa.
 *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author The Bigger Picture
The Timbavati has always stayed true to the principle that human footprint in the form of infrastructure development and visitor numbers is in conflict with sustainable management of wilderness areas. To support the low-density principles that Timbavati promotes, natural resources can and must be used sustainably. Sustainable utilisation includes all our activities that use nature as a resource, including photographic safari tourism and trophy hunting, our annual impala culling that is done to ease grazing pressure on the ecosystem, water resource use, and the harvesting of wood and sand from the natural landscape.
Both photographic tourism and hunting are compatible funding practices and we call on all our Greater Kruger partners to work together to govern these activities with integrity and careful oversight. We call on everyone with a stake in conservation to focus on the real, big-picture issues, such as benefitting local businesses within the wildlife economy, finding innovative ways to help local communities derive income from wildlife activities, the growing relevance of wilderness spaces and protected areas in the lives of people living in and around the Greater Kruger, and the collective pressure of bringing illegal practices in wilderness areas to a halt. We also call on the media and the public at large to take a landscape-level view when appraising the management practices of private reserves. Our relevance in the collective landscape leads to integration of wilderness spaces to the benefit of all animals and plants within the bigger system. We should take hands, put aside differences, and work together to prevent fragmentation of an integrated and sustainable Greater Kruger. Our 2019 Funding Model
With photographic tourism and hunting being two major components in the funding model of our reserve, our proposed approach for 2019 is as follows:
From 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2019, the Conservation Levies for photographic tourism will be R368 per person per night. This increase is in line with the increases applied by the Kruger National Park for its entrance fees, and will provide the necessary revenue for the reserve while keeping our tourism footprint at ecologically sustainable levels. The projected contribution to the Timbavati’s income budget from Conservation Levies for 2019 will be just over 50% with estimated photographic visitor numbers of just under 21 000 for the year. In addition to this, the tables below show the proposed hunting quotas for 2019 that Timbavati is submitting for approval by the authorities. Some important points are highlighted below with regards to the figures in these tables.  *This image is copyright of its original author The table above shows the animals allocated to be sold as trophy hunts to raise revenue for the reserve. Revenue earned from two of the buffalo bulls, will be donated to our local neighbouring communities. In this way, closer links are forged with the reserve’s neighbours who share the Greater Kruger landscape.
 *This image is copyright of its original author Those animals allocated for non-commercial hunts, as shown above in Table 2, do not raise revenue for the reserve. In the case of impala, hunting is used for population control.
 *This image is copyright of its original author The 1 600 impala to be hunted, shown in Table 3 above, form part of the reserve’s management programme deemed necessary to reduce the impact impala have on the availability of grazing and hence on that available to other herbivores.
The culling programme represents over 96% of the reserve’s hunting quota request and includes animals to be removed by Timbavati management (1 600 animals – Table 3), as well as those to be removed by landowners within the reserve (390 animals – Table 2). Culling programmes are costly and time-consuming, but are essential for the continued health of the reserve, and culling decisions are informed by annual vegetation condition studies.
The above figures represent around 28 trophy hunters visiting the Timbavati during 2019, with less than 0.5% of the Timbavati’s total animal population allocated for trophy hunts. In 2019, the budgeted income from hunting will represent approximately 30% of the reserve’s total income. Protocols and Best Practice in the Greater Kruger In 2018, the protocols that govern sustainable hunting in the open system were revised and standardised. As a member of the Greater Kruger, Timbavati participated in this process, together with other private reserves, industry representatives, Kruger National Park, Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks Agency (MTPA), Limpopo Department of Economic Development, Environment and Tourism (LEDET), and various specialists. This revised protocol covers all provincial and national legislation, as well as TOPS (Threatened or Protected Species) requirements, and places more responsibility on the hunting outfitter and professional hunter, with a penalty system in place to fine non-compliance. The protocol further dictates that should the outfitter or professional hunter routinely transgress, then s/he will be banned from the reserves in addition to being fined. Not a single hunt takes place without the scrutiny of census data and other ecological specialist studies. Our reserve managers, representatives from other reserves in the open system, MTPA, LEDET, SANParks and other scientific experts, attend pre-off-take meetings. Our hunting application is scrutinised and conservation authorities consider ecological sustainability, the contribution that hunting will make to the running-costs of our reserve, and importantly, how the hunting revenue will support conservation in the open system, beyond the boundaries of just our own reserve. In parallel with the revised hunting protocol, an initiative is well underway to implement a “Responsible Tourism Best Practice Toolkit for the Greater Kruger”. This toolkit, the development of which is a joint effort between Kruger National Park, the various private reserves adjoining the national park, the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA), and tourism stakeholders, will lay down minimum standards and rules for tourism operators to adhere to within the Greater Kruger open system. The toolkit will also set aspirational goals of best practice, with guidelines on how to achieve these. This initiative recognises the need to regulate, monitor and control photographic tourism activities within the Greater Kruger, to ensure that these practices are sustainable, in much the same way as hunting activities are governed by protocols to ensure their sustainability.
Timbavati is already implementing the new Greater Kruger Hunting Protocol and is actively participating on the steering committee for the development of the Responsible Tourism Best Practice Toolkit for the Greater Kruger. We are proud to be part of these multi-sector initiatives to ensure that both photographic tourism and hunting are sustainable, ethical and beneficial to a wide range of stakeholders. What’s Next for the Timbavati? Making History. Very soon, Timbavati will be a signatory to the historic Greater Kruger/GLTFCA Cooperative Agreement (to be signed between reserves in the open system) to ensure coherent and transparent governance of all aspects of protected area management. This is not just focussed on the regulation of hunting and responsible tourism practices, but also includes critical themes such as safety and security management and social investment imperatives. We remain sensitive to local conservation challenges and global trends and continue to look at ways to improve and diversify our revenue model. As a citizen of the Greater Kruger, Timbavati is committed to the big picture where multiple land-uses co-exist and common ethical norms regulate how we protect, utilise and benefit from nature. Related Posts
For many years, humans have had an intolerance for fellow hunters, for reasons including reducing competition for "their game" and to try to reduce predation on livestock.
But is all the killing necessary? Does killing them really help save livestock? Does it really help the environment? What are all your thoughts? 
After reading @Matias , one thinks that trophy hunting can be beneficial if done in certain way but mostly it isn't.
Also there are so many cases where the data is manipulated to incline the views of readers in one direction (not referring to @Matias post). I won't go in depth but would summarize my view:- 1. If there are successful cases of conservation via trophy hunting, then there cases without it. 2. Conditions like "If well done" are 90% times cover ups and one wrong kill can change the demographics of the particular species or park, like killing of pride lions having baby cubs or killing of leader lady Elly. Unfortunately, it is well known fact that trophy hunters target prime/alpha/leader animals only, like alpha bull buffalo or lions in their peak. 3. It beats me to think that we can't come up with alternatives to generate money for conservation. Movies can be made and shown all over the world in different languages, movies like African cats 2011 & The last lions 2011 - money generated should be used for conservation. They not only help in generating revenue but influence the coming generations for conservational programs (kids love these kinds of films and often schools promote these). Another move that can be beneficial is commercialization of the parks, like giving bid to the private that fulfills the employees payments at parks, minimum conservation requirements and is provided with the guidelines, in this particular scenario I'm concerned about the local people - in and around the parks. 4. If at any cost trophy hunting is to be allowed, let be as mentioned by @Matias, check with scientists and authorities numbers possible without disturbing the balance of park, animal selected should be taken out of the park, in an enclosure so that others aren't harmed (don't see the hunt) and hunt is made publicly known. This hunting should be awarded to maximum paying bidders, generating maximum revenue. (I'm totally against it, as @Pckts said never, never can it be a solution). @sanjay you have rightly pointed out that many people talk about conservation or what to join conservational programs but never do. One of the main reasons is that they don't have clear roadmap, low pay scale is a big factor but people need to have right roadmaps. As for the fund collection, again most don't know where to donate and even if they do donate, they aren't sure if it's going to used for actual conservation. May be forest or park authorities should make it public - how much donation is received and it's source, and how & where it is used.
@Charan Singh
The general view of my opinion is in Post 14. The information that comes to us is vital to building a thought on any subject. With regard to hunting trophy there are two road models: one with single traffic and one with forked traffic - both lead to the same place. Inside of bifurcated traffic there are two streams of thought, one notoriously linked to animal rights and welfare and the other linked to those who have "skin in the game". In the construction of the points of view, when we started "conservation studies" with Internet searches, we are always faced first with the Westernized and directed visions of the entities that are little focused on the earth, , or good projects that are aimed at the conservation of certain species in huge areas with good tourist visitation. The vast majority of NGO's that focus on wildlife rescue do not buy a hectare of land or any animal for conservation purposes, surviving from philanthropic donations. There is no point that wildlife is, in itself, self-sustaining. No animal rights NGO wants to be connected to sustainable practices. For example, the management of pastures and landscapes in which the slaughter of some species is necessary, since its funding will be directed to another NGO that does not advocate such practices. They are connected to the currents of social media opinions. When I see ivory and horns being burned in marketing events, whose message remains the same for the last 30 years: "We do not tolerate hunting and we will fight this crime to the end" is a sign that many elements feed on the permanence of this situation . The issue of funding the hundreds of NGO's (their mantras against the consumptive use of wildlife and their aggressive marketing in social networks) is rendering a dubious service to wildlife conservation, especially when it relies on doubtful opinions. If you want to train a more realistic view, search for articles by conservation practitioners, those who step on the ground, develop projects, invest time, money and dreams, and have lodges, camps, or work directly in national parks and protected areas public or private areas). From this knowledge, you can actually make your choices of what works and what does not, what it serves, and what it does not do for management and conservation of species and habitats. Beware of arguments that condemn the trophy hunting but do not propose any other solid economic model of wildlife use.
In a BLOG, I answered in this way to the questions that the trophy hunting does not serve the conservation, it can be useful to you.
Analyzing the impact of trophy hunting in Africa from the point of view of animal welfare is counter-productive. The narrow and distorted visions of this conservation tool that allows the maintenance of habitat and wildlife on thousands of hectares results lack of knowledge of the facts. Everything is a matter of funding (who will pay and how will you pay for the conservation of those millions of hectares that are outside of national parks / protected areas). The day these visions discover how to replace the funding of this activity with another "ethically appropriately" the Columbus egg will appear. For now... This group that made the article should know how to replace trophy hunting with another conservation economics project (NGO's, philanthropy and all other means of financing that are far from the reality of African communities is doomed to failure). For African communities trophy hunting is not a problem. The absence of money and other benefits is what they are. Westernized views that rely on issues of ethics and well-being do a great disservice to the yearnings of those who have "skin in the game."
Ethics and animal welfare are praiseworthy and deserve an appropriate place in welfare policies. Connecting them or using them to promote conservation policies (whether public or private) would further reduce funding capacity. Imposing the moral issue on practical conservation measures for species and ecosystems is not the best path to sustainability. The land issue is very complex, and regardless of the geographical location of any community adjacent to protected areas, the interest is only one: to have income and access to goods and services that promote qualitative improvements in life. Even famous NGO's like African Parks are underfunded in their projects. Each protected area needs a variable value ($$$) for each km² of area to be effectively conserved. Kruger has a cumulative deficit of somewhere around $ 100 million, all in spite of more than two million annual visitors and fees received from dozens of adjacent private reserves. I know it is not pleasant to see smiling people carrying rifles beside a dead animal, but as long as the money does not show up and effective public policies are not implemented by local governments that currently do not have any conservation priority, these regulated hunters provide a continuous income and useful for the maintenance of wilderness areas, especially those that are far from the infrastructure needed for large-scale tourist visitation. Bad with them, much worse without them. The goal of conservation is to save populations rather than individuals. For reading, I present these four links. There are many more sources of information, including association hunting and hunting, and I did not need much time to find them, follow their instinct and just stop when you're sure you have elements to form a solid opinion. https://africageographic.com/blog/opinion-high-road-greater-kruger-national-park/ RhinoAlive.com is an awareness campaign in support of legal trade in rhino horn. It is salutary to see that conservationists globally recognized for their work on earth, are together in search of a viable and responsible solution for the survival of the rhinos.
Enjoy reading, it's a good start ...
"Get close to the earth, people and animals" 
Trophy hunting is a contributing factor to the decimation of lions across west africa
https://lionaid.org/news/2014/09/slaughter-part-2.htm?password=reset |
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