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Like with all hunting - liberal emotion has eroded logic even amongst hunters and conservationists
Recently the worldwide respected South African Professional Hunting Association (SAPHA) split in two due to a motion that was voted on and accepted that hunting lion on fenced properties was acceptable practice. Safari Club International (SCI) immediately withdrew its support for SAPHA, and the splinter group that broke away from SAPHA has since then lobbied all world hunting organisations to do the same.
None of the sides presented the true and factual logical picture. SCI demonstrated unusually emotional bias and refused to accept or even understand the facts - something which was already evident in this organisation a few years ago when the now famous US dentist wounded a lion with his crossbow in Zimbabwe and his South Africa PH tracked it for 40 hours and killed it. During the cape removal a collared tracking device was found under the big mane of the lion and the Hwange National Park nearby was informed - something which happens regularly as many lion carry tracking devices for study of their existential dynamics. Collared male lion often travel long distances out of the unfenced "Park" and get shot almost on a monthly basis often by park rangers themselves when they become threats to rural settlements.
This report aims to:
Explain lion family and procreation dynamics.
Explore the ethics of traditional (the SCI demanded) lion hunting over bait.
Explain the dynamics of dangerous game hunting on private (by law fenced) properties.
Relate the facts regarding the SAPHA Chairman's motion for allowing lion hunting on private property.
Explain the logical middle-road (between SCI and PHASA) policies and ethics and style that our (my pardners' and my) new non profit organisation and world wide safari club promotes regarding not only lion but all dangerous game and non-dangerous game hunting.
Any questions in the mean time are welcomed.
Lion Family And Procreation Dynamics
Male lion who are actively breeding are inveterate walkabouts looking for sign of an adulterous female who will seduce him into a fight with either her present spouse which she is losing confidence in or another suitor who also happened to have found her signals of availability. She will display such obvious promising interest in both males that either will be ready to kill for her.
Lionesses on heat have an insatiable sexual demand on her new pardner and such is her adoration for the able male that she will kill prey simply out of gratification - even if the pride is not hungry, just so that he can exercise his command over it, which is his gratification. He will also immediately kill all the sub-adult cubs of her previous spouse to remove all traces of that gene.
Whenever a male lion is seen at a carcass there is a better than 90% chance that he is in the prime of his breeding life - a situation that any hunter who has an understanding of nature dynamics must respect and not kill it. To do searching and tracking and finding lion in un-fenced wilderness is an impossible task so the 100 year old Africa style of getting a reasonably quick kill for visiting hunters has been to shoot two or three zebra in different parts of open wilderness to entice lion to come and feed. This invariably is the way to kill the best genes by taking the most active breeding male out of the system - and also is the way demanded of Africa outfitters by SCI and every other safari institution despite not even being based in Africa.
Locals do not hunt lion - only when cattle had been killed will there be a retribution follow up and killing of the culprit. This killed most free ranging lion in South Africa. Because of the cattle killing affinity by lionesses as an easy way to display her gratification to her present spouse land owners who have lion on their properties are by law required to have fences af a minimum security standard around such properties.
No matter the size of these properties (many are in excess of 30,000 acres and some as big as 70,000 acres) SCI incorrectly termed the lion inside these properties as being "captive". The cubs born inside such fenced properties are termed by SCI as being "captive bred" lion, no matter that they are not captive, not fed but hunt their own prey, and that the property size is much larger than their natural roaming areas (which is dependent on the availability of food).
To go after lion on foot in a find and track and stalk true hunt on a 30,000 acre property - with fences somewhere - is a great deal more ethical and challenging than the SCI demanded way of assassinating an almost certainly breeding lion from a blind over bait. However, to engage in real hunting Denver SCI snowflakes will melt in indignation, calling it "canned hunting". Such has become the SCI compulsion to control even South African landowners and hunting outfitters on a continent halfway around the planet - while not having the slightest understanding of lion and their genetic and family dynamics.
Male lion fighting. Look at the size of that paw. Photo credit: James Tyrrel at Londolozi.
Next: The dynamics of dangerous game hunting on private (by law fenced) properties.