Safari Diaries has moved!

Read our regular wildlife-related blogs and other interesting topics on  the Call of Africa Safaris web site 

Just to get a bit more objective perspective about this whole Melissa Bachman hunting hysteria, have a look at this. I dont believe in lion hunting either but maybe a little more thought is required here.

In defence of a lion killer.

Article from The Daily Maverick 29th November 2013

The outrage about an American hunter, Melissa Bachman, who bragged on Twitter about bagging a splendid male lion, was terrifying to watch. Terrifying, but also deeply troubling on many levels. Emotive outrage and smug judgmentalism are no substitute for rational thought and pragmatic policy.

Every year, game hunters travel to South Africa, pockets stuffed with dollars. Most of them are men, who quietly come and go, leaving behind them R6.2 billion in industry revenue, according to Environmental Affairs minister Edna Molewa.

But when one hunter, an American television host named Melissa Bachman, dared to boast about her wonderful African hunting safari, posing with a dead lion, she got more than she bargained for. Her Facebook page and Twitter feed were over-run with vicious hatemail. She was described as the most hated woman in South Africa. Ricky Gervais was scathing, though cleverly so: “Spot the typo”, he wrote, about her boast, “What a hunt!”

I don’t know Ms Bachman, so I can’t speak for her character. I’ve seen no suggestion that she failed to obtain a legitimate hunting permit, complete with the required CITES documentation. The Maroi Conservancy which hosted her seems legitimate too, although its website has also been barged offline by angry internetters.

I can’t say I’m a big fan of hunting either. I’ve been invited on hunting trips, but declined for two reasons: one, I prefer to avoid media junkets, lest I be accused of being a shill for Big Hunt; and two, I prefer to avoid killing animals personally, even though I happily eat meat.

It is quite reasonable to dislike sport hunting. It is an emotional subject. But is it not curious that a perfectly legal hunt justifies crudely insulting a woman in sexist terms?

Writer and artist Sarah Britten wondered if it would have had as much impact if it was a male hunter with a lioness. She says she doesn’t like hunting, but likes the reaction to Bachman’s lion photo even less.

The answer seems quite obvious. Loads of men shoot loads of lions all the time. None of them make it to that interminable aggregator of dodgy viral clickbait, Buzzfeed.com: “TV Presenter Melissa Bachman Angers Entire Internet After Shooting A Lion”. None of them get called sexist names by Ricky Gervais. (If you crave a glimpse at the vile misogyny that awaits women who offend the smug left-liberal elite, read Rebecca Davis’s pieceelsewhere on Daily Maverick. I agree with her, up to where she calls the hunt “canned”, and says the outrage is justified but ought to be directed at our government.)

But let’s stipulate, for the sake of argument, that we don’t like hunting, and we don’t like Ms Bachman. Does this justify the ugly, hypocritical anger? If her hunt was legal, what did she do wrong? Should it be made illegal?

In 1960, there were only three game farms in South Africa. There were onlyhalf a million head of game. Changes in the law to permit private ownership of game and commercialise big game hunting coincided with the sea change that we see today: 10,000 game farms, supporting 20 million head of game on as many hectares. By contrast, the government formally protects only 7.5 million hectares as national parks.

The game farm industry employs 100,000 people, which is reportedly three times more than employment in ordinary livestock farms. Income from game breeding stock sold at auction rose almost 15-fold in just six years, from R60 million in 2006 to R864 million in 2012.

Is that mere correlation, or is there some causation at work here?

The knee-jerk reaction of the chattering classes is that you don’t protect animals by killing them. That seems self-evident, but, as Mark Twain said, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

The notion that hunting harms the survival of species, or the environment more generally, happens to be false, and demonstrably so.

Commenting on Botswana’s recent decision to ban professional hunting in the hope that it would stop poaching, professor Melville Saayman of the North-West University observed: “...the problem is that it is going to have a reversed effect.”

Says Saayman: “Kenya followed the same path. They also banned hunting and currently have a huge game poaching problem, so much so that some of their species face total extinction. The strategy proposed by Botswana is short-sighted and is not going to work. Game numbers will decline and this will have a serious impact on the hunting and game farm industry in the country.”

In Kenya, hunting was banned in the late 1970s, but it has since lost 85% of its wildlife. Go figure.

“Case studies from South Africa,” says Saayman, “have shown that as soon as the hunting of a species is allowed, it leads to the breeding as well as conservation of the particular species. Botswana's policy is definitely going to lead to job losses.”

In the early 1990s, I was on a guided tour of the Pilanesberg Game Reserve. I looked around me at the devastated landscape, with nary a tree taller than a man. The ranger told me the park had sixty elephants too many, but that nobody wanted them, because they all had their own elephant problems, and transport was too expensive.

“So what are you doing about it?” I asked.

“We hunt them, from the north of the park, out of sight of the regular tourists, who tend to get terribly upset about it,” he replied. “The revenue helps, but we can only host one hunt a month, which isn’t enough.”

The upshot of the misinformed anti-hunting and anti-culling sentiment of the dinner party set was that an entire park ecosystem was put at risk, just to “save” a few elephants, of which there were plenty.

It is true that some lion populations in Africa are under pressure. However, a recent academic study undertaken by Peter Lindsey and others, finds that even in countries where the threat is severe, prohibiting hunting – instead of just issuing fewer permits – would prove counter-productive, by reducing habitat protection, reducing tolerance for lions among local populations, and reducing funds available to combat poaching.

Some time ago, I wrote about a story out of Texas, where hunting ranches host large herds of endangered antelope like addax and dama gazelle, which are extinct in the wild in their native Africa. The reason they’re there? They pay their keep, by supplying the hunting industry. What will happen if hunting these animals is banned? They will cease to exist. Entirely.

As it happens, that story also involved vile vitriol directed at a professional hunter, Corey Cogdell. That hunter was also female. Coincidence? I think not. It looks like Britten and Davis are right. Bachman’s big mistake was not the hunt itself, nor even bragging about it, but being female.

Let’s consider the story of the Maroi Conservancy, where the hunt in question occurred. It consists of a number of private properties along the Zimbabwean border in Limpopo Province, that have agreed to pull down the fences between them.

A profile of the conservancy is quite clear about the change that hunting has made: “In the past, parts of the conservancy were intensively farmed for citrus and other crops, and some landowners tried running cattle. None of them managed for game. Poaching was common, with people cutting the fences to trespass. Now, all the meat from animals that are hunted goes to the local community to encourage them not to poach.”

In other words, where there used to be a few crop farms with poaching problems, Maroi is now a fully-functional breeding game conservancy, supported by revenue from hunting.

Presumably, Maroi charged Bachman in the region of $30,000, which is the going rate for a full-maned lion. By comparison, most animals cost under $10,000. An elephant typically goes for $100,000, and a rhino – yes, hunting them for trophies is legal – fetches even more. And here’s one for the trivia buffs: What is the cheapest animal on a typical trophy price list? Even cheaper than an impala female, a jackal fetches just $100. Poor put-upon vermin!

In terms of their vulnerability, lions aren’t under nearly as much pressure as rhinos. What has hunting done for the rhino population? Extending full private property rights to the animals and legalising trophy hunting has arguably saved both the black and white rhino from going extinct decades ago, according to a detailed study conducted by environmental economist Michael ‘t Sas-Rolfes.

As we all know, rhino are not out of the woods, and the recent spike in poaching is a grave concern. However, the solution is not to continue the ban on trading in rhino products, which is failing, but to lift it, and to let rhino farmers like John Hume breed the animals for their horn. It is gratifying to see that minister Molewa thinks along the same lines, and will apply – against all odds – to CITES to lift the ban on the trade in rhino products.

As a child, on game viewing holidays, I remember learning how rare the roan antelope, bontebok, sable antelope and black wildebeest were. Today, they are relatively common, and the Professional Hunters’ Assocation of South Africa (PHASA) names them among the species that once were on the brink of being wiped out, but are today thriving on private game farms supported by hunting revenue.

“I am of the firm belief that the hunting industry and the game farming industry are important partners, who play a key role in terms of conservation, tourism, and economic development," Molewa told a hunting indaba in 2010.

Earlier this year, she reiterated the government’s policy to promote South Africa as “a destination of choice for hunting”.

David Mabunda, the CEO of SanParks, agrees: “As a developing country, it would be suicidal to want to make trade-offs between hunting and photographic ecotourism. We don’t have the luxury of choice. We need both.”

In light of all this, does the massive outcry about Melissa Bachman make sense? No, unless you’re a misogynist or simply dislike American braggarts. Her public boasts about her kills may be tacky, and decidely ill-advised, but frankly, see appears to be someone who is passionate about the hunt, and isn’t ashamed of her prowess.

This is not about her feelings. Anyone who dresses up like Lara Croft in Tomb Raider is probably tough enough to handle the hate directed at her by Internet trolls. If she’s at all typical of professional hunters, she can comfort herself with the knowledge that she is more in tune with nature and its conservation than most of the haters.

Her detractors might brag about “shooting” animals with cameras, but if my safari-company contacts are any guide, most of them are shallow tourists who demand to be driven about in air-conditioned luxury, to see all of the big five in one day, as if that is a more informed reflection of nature than a professional hunt.

South Africa officially considers Bachman a welcome and valued visitor, and rightly so. Even if you disagree, and you arrogantly think you have the moral authority to judge her arrogance, the real story is this. Your smug superiority risks depriving South Africa of tourism revenue and employment. It risks depriving the country of much-needed funding for conservation. It risks reducing the value of our wildlife, which reduces the incentive for private farm owners to breed and protect game. Hypocritical anger is a greater threat to conservation than Bachman’s rifle will ever be.

Think about that, the next time you pen a bullying comment, safely hidden behind your screen. Moral superiority cuts both ways. DM

Rescued from a poachers snare

Written by: Kelly Landen on behalf of Elephants Without Borders
A young bull elephant was sighted with a horrible snare wrapped around his front leg. After an initial assessment, a decision had been made that he would have to be put down. However, considering it was late in the evening and dark, the bull was spared another day. One of the onlookers decided to contact Elephants Without Borders (EWB) to see if there was anything they could do to possibly help the situation…

Young elephant bull with snare.

Although rescue and rehabilitation is not the conservation research organization’s forte, they already planned to have their wildlife vet, Dr. Larry Patterson from the Kalahari Game Services, on hand for field activities that week. EWB Program Manager, Kelly Landen, made a few phone calls to ensure that if the young bull was sighted again, they would be notified. That very same day, as the team was in Chobe National Park, they received the call that the young bull was sighted at Senyanti Campsite’s artificial waterhole. They knew they could not reach the calf within the hour so EWB researcher, Tempe Adams, was called to the scene to keep tabs on the unfortunate bull until the team could get there. Luckily, the bull did not move off and was found drinking near the pan and cooling his horrific injury.
The bull was quickly darted and in 10 minutes the immobilization drug took effect and he went down.

Young elephant bull is darted.

The elephant bull starts to go down as the drug takes effect.

The team jumped in to attend to his leg. The snare was not a simple wire, but a thick wire cable and had obviously not been set to capture big game, like an elephant. A bolt-cutter had to be used to cut if off. The injury was deep, however luckily not all the way to the bone, and infection had not set in. The wound was cleaned and the bull was given an injection of strong antibiotics before he was moved into position for him to get up.

Cleaning the wound.

A crowd of eager campers only had to wait a few minutes to watch as the bull easily stood up. The crowd cheered as he slowly moved off. An elephant saved from poacher snare is free to live another day – and hopefully for many more years to come!

He’s up!

Elephant walks away on his tender leg.

The management team at the campsite has been keeping a watchful eye out for the young bull and he has been regularly sighted returning to the pan. In one week, the swelling in his leg has gone down and his wound appears to be slowly healing. Although it is surely quite painful, this one young bull has been given a second chance.

A week after the snare was removed. The young bull is recovering well.

The wound after one week.

EWB would like to thank the management team at Senyanti Campsites (and Iris for the update photos), Mike Holding, Ian McMillan, Clive Millar for the original call, Guts from Pangolin for “phone watch” and the campers who eagerly rushed in to grab buckets of fresh water to help clean the wound.
Elephants Without Borders (EWB) is a charity organisation dedicated to conserving wildlife and natural resources through innovative research, education, and information sharing with all people. They encourage mankind to live in harmony with wildlife and the natural world. Considering wildlife don’t use passports, the notion of elephants and ‘conservation without borders’ is crucial for preserving biodiversity and a healthy landscape. Using African elephants as an inspiration, EWB strives to identify wildlife migratory corridors, secure wild habitats and elevate conservation of all wildlife. The largest mammal that walks the earth is now leading the way to help save vast areas of wild lands and the biodiversity they support.

BAOBAB

Its bark is fire resistant. Its fruit is edible. It scoffs at the driest droughts. It shrugs, and another decade has passed. It is the baobab, one of the longest-living, strangest looking trees in the world.

Several species exist in the genus Adansonia, mostly in the semi-deserts of Africa and southern Asia.

They can grow to be nearly 100 feet tall—but it’s the baobab’s bulk and stature that is so astonishing; many have trunks 30 feet in diameter.

Bizarre lion behaviour in the Okavango Delta

“We were on a game drive in the Okavango Delta when we heard lions fighting in the thickets. Upon investigation we came across four young male lions that had caught a young female lion from a nearby pride. The lioness was part of a small group of lions that had a kill too far into the other territory. They were surprised by the four males, the one lioness was caught whilst the rest fled. While the four had successfully subdued the female in what had been a vicious fight they began feeding on her while she was still alive. As the lioness took her last breaths, the four males were feeding on her as if it was a normal prey animal. More bizarre was when two lionesses from the four male lion’s pride joined them to feed and in a fairly short time cleaned up the carcass to only leave a few bones.
In 20 years of safari guiding, I have never come across such strange behavior of male lions towards a female and despite total submission, continued to kill her in an act of cannibalism partaken by all. This was more than a territorial dispute, it was totally abnormal lion behavior.”

© Ole Friede

© Ole Friede

A lesson learnt!

It was an uncharacteristically cold and rainy day in the Lowveld, and even though the weather resembled that of England rather than Africa, we went on a drive to look for some game, even bringing our cameras. The drive started slowly  (animals generally are not keen on the cold, wet weather either), but eventually we came across two young lions at the edge of a dam.

The two young lions exploring the edge of the dam

Many would think that a cold overcast day would be bad for photography,

 it’s actually quite the opposite, it makes metering and exposure much

 easier. So we started snapping away.

Whilst watching the youngsters we noticed something approaching on

 the opposite side of the dam. “Yes!” we all shared the same excitement. 

A cheetah, this was amazing, we had two big cats right in front of us.

The cheetah coming down for a drink

The lion takes a vantage point to see the cheetah more clearly

At the edge of the bush the cheetah notices the lions

Now we were  assuming that the cheetah would flee the scene in a cloud full
of dust, for fear of the adult lions being around but to prove us wrong he
 did the opposite and continued his course in a bold fashion. This sparks
 a reaction from the lions and we soon see a confrontation fast approaching
 “Get your cameras ready folks, this is going to be good!”

The lion decides this is a challenge and comes down

Things where fast becoming interesting as we watched the event unfold unsure
of what was going to happen. This is where our passion for wildlife really
comes peaks, seeing animals in unusual circumstances and watching it all
play out in front of your very eyes. We watched in anticipation…

The cheetah reaches the waters edge but crouches down as the smaller of the lions begins circling

The lion and cheetah soon get within a few meters of each other and the Cheetah
shows signs of submission, crouching he senses the danger of her younger, but
 much stronger stranger. The larger of the two lions makes the first move.
 She rushes in with a sudden burst of energy, showing her superior strength
 and gives the Cheetah (and us) quite a fright. From the ground the cheetah
 looks to be in trouble, but with a swift movement he swipes at the young
 female lion taking her by surprise and highlighting her inexperience in such
 conflicts.
Within a few clicks of the camera we spot the second, smaller lion who rushes
onto the scene to help his sister. Now the cheetah is outnumbered and
overpowered, seems like the only option here is to forget the fight and
 consider flight.

Suddenly the larger lion rushes in!

But the cheetah holds its ground and swipes at the inexperienced lion

Sensing an opportunity, the second lion joins in and they gang up on the cheetah

I am outta here! The cheetah makes a break for it

We are still silently watching the scene unfold in front of us with open mouths and white knuckles.

Defiantly the cheetah does not dash off but hisses and snarls at the cubs as they run parallel to him.

After he made his point the thirsty cheetah takes off into the bush with lions close behind.

The Cheetah has a moment of confidence (or madness) and stands his ground against the male cub, snarling and hissing.

The stand off lasts a few moments before the Cheetah puts on his running shoes and exits the scene with the lion hot on his heels but soon realises the game is over. The cheetah flees into the bush leaving the lions and us in his dust.

This all happened so fast and looking through the camera eyepiece, we found it hard to comprehend what actually happened till we looked at the images. Relieved that the confrontation turned out with no injuries, a good lesson was learnt by both cats. This experience also taught us a good lesson - always pick up your camera no matter what the conditions.

Drones Will Soon Monitor Endangered Animals in Africa

Belgian research team says there are still kinks to work out before drones replace airplane surveillance

Elephants in Burkina Faso are photographed from a height of 300 meters using a drone.

Scientists recently completed one of the first unmanned aerial surveys of wildlife in Africa, which could one day lead to endangered animal protection and poacher prevention.

The survey was completed in Burkina Faso's Nazinga Game Ranch, one of the few areas of Africa where the African elephant population is growing, says Cedric Vermeulen, a researcher at Belgium's Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech.

Vermeulen says drone monitoring has several advantages over typical plane-based surveying: drones are cheaper and can be launched more easily than a plane. But the model the team used, the Gatewing x100 was only able to fly for 40 minutes at a time and its camera couldn't zoom in far enough to see any animals besides elephants.

"We were a little disappointed because we couldn't see antelopes or baboons, but it was good for counting elephants," he says. "But in order for this to be an effective alternative to planes, we have to be able to identify all three."

Drones also offer a security and logistics advantage over plane monitoring, Vermeulen says. In Burkina Faso, fuel used for airplanes is often siphoned out of the plane, and finding someone to fly one can be problematic.

"In this part of Africa, it's difficult to organize a plane," he says. "The idea with drones is that they are less expensive and less dangerous because if they crash, there's no one on them."

But in order for drones to be truly useful, Vermeulen says the team needs an aircraft that can cover hundreds of kilometers at a time.

Vermeulen's team isn't the only group looking into using unmanned aircraft to monitor endangered wildlife. In December, Google announced it was giving $5 million to the World Wildlife Fund for anti-poaching drones in Africa and Asia. Those drones will be able to track poachers more easily than park rangers located on the ground, according to the WWF.

Catastrophic Loss of Wildlife in Okavango (Botswana)

All is not well among the 50 000 islands, clear channels and countless creatures in one of the most bountiful wildlife areas on earth.

An aerial survey commissioned by the Department of Wildlife and National Parks, and undertaken by Michael Chase and Kelly Landen of Elephants Without Borders has found 11 species in serious decline in the delta. Comparing surveys going back to 1993, wildebeest numbers are shown to have shrunk by 90%; giraffe by 65%; tsessebe by 83%; lechwe by 58% and zebra by 53%. Also down about 80% are warthog, kudu, roan and ostrich. From 1999 to the present - only 10 years - the running average for total species decline is about 61%.

"There's a catastrophic loss of wildlife," said Chase”,and we cannot be certain about why. But one thing is clear from the survey -- the delta's wildlife is in trouble."

According to the report the species decline is the result of "a complex mixture of local causes", including human encroachment, game fences and poaching. Another factor could be fire.

Much of the area surveyed in the late dry season was burning, the report says. 

“The most potent factor, however, is seen to be drought. With torrential rain and flooding across the region this year, it's hard to imagine this being the cause. But using rainfall data from the 1920s, the survey found that the decline of animals coincided with the onset of a long, dry cycle starting in 1980 -- the most severe ever recorded -- which has only just broken.

During that time the Okavango River water flow rates were the lowest since records began,” says the report.

But elephants and hippos are bucking the downward trend. Hippos have increased steadily at 6% a year, and the elephant population is holding steady. "We found the number of elephants in northern Botswana has stabilized at about 130,000," Chase is quoted as saying. "One reason is that they're returning to Angola."

Jonas Savimbi's troops are thought to have slaughtered about 150,000 elephants for meat and to finance Angola's civil war by selling ivory. All the rhino went the same way. When Elephants Without Borders the surveyed strife-torn Luiana National Park in 2001 there were 38 elephants; in 2005 it had jumped to 3 000, and by 2008 the count was 8 000.

How did they know it was safe to return to Angola? "The country is remembered by a generation of elephants still alive today," said Chase. "They recognise the pathways to food and water and the timing of seasons. They remember where the hunters are. In a sense, they're Angolan refugees returning home.

"The bulls are the scouts, leaving the vicinity of Botswana's conservation areas on exploration journeys. They move from the delta up the Kwando River, streak across the Caprivi at night and into Angola. They find it’s pristine, with few people. There are thought to be millions of landmines in south-east Angola. I don't know how they avoid them -- probably by smell -- but they do. Then they return and fetch the family herds."

The distance elephants walk is staggering. Chase and Landen have tracked a collared elephant that covered 32,000km in two years, the greatest distance ever recorded for the species. "They look for food and water," said Chase. "But they're also searching for peaceful sanctuaries far from humans.

"For elephants to survive, we need to identify safe corridors, linkages between areas, networks, dispersal areas, Transfrontier Parks. We need to let their movement draw the lines which define wildlife ecosystems. There's not much time left. Their future is in our hands. We have to get it right and do it now, while we still have the opportunity."

The survey suggests that many of the threats to animals come from hunting, fence-related deaths, habitat fragmentation and poaching outside the reserves. It notes that if the current problems persist, the populations of large plains game in northern Botswana are likely to remain low, while the wildebeest and tsessebe populations could collapse altogether.

The only way to monitor the situation, it says, is to conduct regular aerial surveys; in this way wildlife managers will be able to track population dynamics, set priorities and focus on the species that is most in need of attention.

New report Finds Captive Lion Reintroduction Programmes in Africa Operate Under “Conservation Myth”

New York, NY

 A new report published in the international conservation journal Oryx concludes that commercial 'wildlife encounter' operations across Africa promoting the reintroduction of captive lions do little to further the conservation of African lions in the wild.

Released 'Early Online' on July 31, 'Walking with lions: Why there is no role for captive-origin lions (Panthera Leo) in species restoration,' was authored by a blue-ribbon panel of lion conservationists and wild cat biologists from Panthera, the IUCN Cat Specialist Group and a team of university-based lion researchers. Demonstrating that no lions have been successfully released as a result of this process, the report determines that commercial captive lion reintroduction programs operate largely under a 'conservation myth.'

The last two decades has seen a rapid growth of such operations especially across Southern Africa. Advertised as 'wildlife encounters,' the programs typically charge tourists and paying volunteers to pet, feed and walk with hand-raised and so-called tame lions. To the paying public, the stated objective is the eventual release to the wild of lions.

The Oryx paper assesses the potential of these programs to assist wild lion conservation by evaluating the role and suitability of captive lions for release. The report concludes that captive-bred lions are simply unnecessary for reintroduction projects. For more than two decades, wild lions have been translocated and rigorously monitored in over 40 parks across southern Africa with high success rates. Over 500 wild lions have been re-established by this process. More importantly, the evaluation shows that captive-bred lions and their offspring are poorly suited for survival and release compared to their wild-born counterparts.

The report's senior author and Panthera's President, Dr. Luke Hunter, explained, "The simple fact is, 'lion encounter' type programs do little to help conserve wild lions. We show that any sincere effort to re-establish lions simply has no reason to resort to captive animals; wild lions are already much better equipped to be wild. Releasing captive animals unnecessarily increases the costs, risks of failure and the danger - to both lions and humans."

A tourist was recently attacked at a lion encounter operation in Zimbabwe. She made a full recovery.

The report also claims that captive-lion enterprises divert critical resources and attention from projects making a real impact on declining wild lion populations. Dr Paula White, an author of the paper and Director of the Zambia Lion Project at the University of California notes, "These operations charge the public to spend time with tame lions claiming that it contributes meaningfully to lion conservation. Imagine if that funding, and the sincere interest of the people paying it, was devoted to addressing the real reasons that wild lions are declining and threatened. Spending money to breed lions behind fences is not helping."

While perhaps more than 200,000 wild lions lived in Africa over a century ago, their numbers are now thought to be fewer than 30,000. Listed as 'Vulnerable' by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and extirpated from over 80% of its natural range, the lion is now on track to share the fate of its distant cousin, the Endangered tiger.

Dr. Matthew Becker, CEO of the Zambian Carnivore Programme (and not an author on the report) notes “Certainly interacting with tame lions is a unique experience, but it's not conservation. We have such 'Walking with Lions' programs in Zambia and they require a continual stream of young imported lions, which live out their days in captivity because they are not suitable for release. Zambia doesn't need captive-bred lions versus increased protection of its wild populations and ecosystems. Help lions by supporting the classic walking safaris that occur in our magnificent protected areas - that's the real walking with lions."

Along with Panthera's team of lion experts and Paula White, the Oryx publication was co-authored by Cole Burton (University of Alberta), Andrew Loveridge (Oxford University), and Panthera's Cat Advisory Council Member's Laurence Frank, and Christine and Urs Breitenmoser, who additionally chair the International Union for the Conservation of Nature/Species Survival Commission's Cat Specialist Group.

Download the paper 'Walking with lions: Why there is no role for captive-origin lions (Panthera Leo) in species restoration'

One of my favourite South African safari camps.

Tanda Tula sits in the Timbavati Private Nature Reserve on the edge of Kruger National Park and captures the essence of the safari camp, transporting visitors back to an earlier age of wildlife vacations. 

The camp is small and the feel is intimate, with each staff member personally introducing themselves and joining you for meals, drinks or a game of Jenga in front of the fire. There are no TVs, neither in the tents nor the communal area – instead there’s a library of South African books, a big box of games and a permanently-manned bar well-stocked with two of the most important ingredients for any safari break – gin and tonic!

And then there is the wildlife.

There are now no fences between Timbavati and the Kruger so you stand an excellent  chance of seeing any one of the Big Five as well as plenty of other, equally interesting animals – and with the camp unfenced, it’s not unusual to see some of them wandering near your tent.

Naturally, animal sightings are always different, but camp guide, Scotch, ensures that he always has something to talk about, memorising the page numbers or every bird regularly sighted in the area to wow you with, in between glimpses of the mammals most people come to see.

Guests have tracked wild dogs on a hunt, spent time with litter of hyena pups sniffing at the  tyres, witnessed a leopard saving its kill from a marauding hyena and seen a two-month-old elephant attempting to see them off with a trumpet and an ear-flap that was more adorable than alarming.

Tanda Tula is a top destination – no wonder our clients keep coming back for more!

Zimbabwe to ask permission to sell ivory stocks

HARARE, Aug 22  - Zimbabwe has accumulated 50 tonnes of ivory and will ask the international body regulating its trade for permission to auction its stocks to fund conservation of the animals, the head of the country's wildlife agency said on Wednesday.
The ivory has been confiscated from poachers or recovered as a result of natural deaths or government-sanctioned elephant culls, officials said.
Zimbabwe says it needs to raise extra funds to deal with its burgeoning elephant population, which at about 100,000 is one of the largest in Africa.

Adult elephants consume about 100 to 300 kgs (220 to 660 pounds) of food a day, studies have shown, and officials say their growing numbers are straining the impoverished country's resources and posing a threat to plant life.
Some $30 million is required each year for conservation of the animals and anti-poaching in Zimbabwe, but Vitalis Chadenga, director-general of the Parks and Wildlife Management Authority,
told Reuters the current budget was "very far from there".

"There is a point where our elephant population can get so much to a point where they self destruct and this is happening in some of the parks," he said.

In 2008, Zimbabwe was allowed to conduct a one-off sale of 3.9 tonnes of ivory by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the international group that governs trade in plants and animals.
Plagued by corruption, Zimbabwe provided detailed documents to CITES showing how the money raised from the sale went directly into conservation.
Zimbabwe faces an October deadline to make its request to CITES if it wants to quickly sell the tusks.
However, conservationists worry the sale could fuel demand for ivory, especially in the fast-growing emerging economic powers of Asia where it is often used in carved ornaments.
Although elephants are prolific in Zimbabwe, poaching and a loss of habitat have made them a threatened species in large parts of Africa.
A global ban on the ivory trade was imposed in 1989 and was widely credited with stemming the relentless slaughter of African elephants in countries such as Kenya.
Occasional auctions from African government stockpiles have since been sanctioned. Chadenga said the global ban was not working. We have not had a legitimate sale of ivory now but we continue to have an upsurge in poaching," he said.

Extract from a Zambezi Society special bulletin

"We believe that there should be NO MINING (prospecting or exploration included) in this area because of potential impacts on its biodiversity, wildlife and sensitive eco-systems, which are globally important, and on its wilderness areas which are valuable to international tourism.

Furthermore, World Heritage status is not awarded lightly. There are less than 200 sites worldwide on UNESCO’s ‘natural sites’ listing; and in the Society’s view, Zimbabwe’s national interests will be best served by maintaining the integrity of the area, and prohibiting activities such as mining that will result in its degradation and possible loss of its World Heritage status.

A media statement in early July 2012 issued by a Zimbabwe-based mining company, Habbard Investments (affiliated to Geo Associates) announced its intention to carry out an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for prospecting for Heavy Mineral Sand Deposits (HMSD) in the Ruckomechi and Chewore Rivers in northern Zimbabwe. It called for comments to be sent to an EIA consultancy company IMPACO by a deadline of 17th July 2012.
The Ruckomechi River lies within the Mana Pools National Park and the Chewore River forms the boundary between the Sapi & Chewore Safari Areas. Both rivers are within the UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Biosphere Reserve and the Important Bird Area (IBA)boundaries (see BACKGROUND NOTES 2, 3 & 4 attached to this statement).

Prior to submitting an objection by the required date, The Zambezi Society met with Mr Paul Chimbodza, CEO of Geo Associates, the proponent of the project, who explained that in September 2011 his company had been issued two licences to undertake exploration activities for HMSDs in these rivers, covering an area from the escarpment to the Zambezi River (45km for Ruckomechi and 65km for Chewore). The licences are due to expire in September 2012, but are renewable (see BACKGROUND NOTE 5 attached to this statement).

The HMSDs covered in the prospecting licence include copper, lead, zinc, manganese, tungsten, magnetite, tantalum, and titanium group minerals. If exploration was successful, the subsequent mining methods to extract these minerals from the riverbeds would include dredging and earth moving on a large scale, with sands being transported away in heavy machinery for processing at a nearby urban centre. The Zambezi Society questions why such heavy impact operations need to target ecologically-sensitive protected areas like the Zambezi Valley when there are alternative sources elsewhere, in less vulnerable areas.

The Zambezi Society’s investigations in July 2012 showed that the company, IMPACO , was not listed by Zimbabwe’s Environmental Management Agency as an “approved” consultancy to conduct EIAs.

The Zambezi Society has drawn the attention of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee to this issue. This Committee has the power to list a World Heritage property as being “In Danger” if it is considered to be threatened by any of the following criteria: depletion of wildlife resources through poaching, deterioration of natural beauty through mining impacts, threats to its integrity through increased human encroachment, lack of an adequate or implemented management plan. In the opinion of The Zambezi Society, all of these apply. (For a more detailed list of the “World Heritage In Danger” criteria, see BACKGROUND NOTE 6 attached to this statement).

The Society has also expressed its concern about this situation to its international contacts. Media reports and petitions against the threat are appearing in the local and international media. The international tourism industry is issuing statements of alarm. These could well impact upon next year’s meeting of the UNWTO being hosted by Zimbabwe and Zambia in Victoria Falls in August 2013.

A social media Facebook community page called SAVE MANA POOLS has been launched to campaign against the mining threat at http://www.facebook.com/SaveMana  It is fast gaining momentum.

If you are on Facebook, please go to the page and "Like" it.

The message is clear for Mana Pools/Sapi/Chewore:

NO COMPROMISE. NO MINING IN A WORLD HERITAGE SITE!"

Zambezi Society

Elephants and rhinos in Australia 'could control damaging wild grasses'

Elephants and rhinoceros should be introduced to the Australian outback to control the impact of damaging wild grasses, according to an Australian professor of environmental change biology. But other Australian academics warned the proposal risked its own set of problems.

Prof David Bowman of the University of Tasmania says the giant African gamba grass, introduced as food for livestock in the 1930s, wreaks havoc on the landscape and provides dangerous fuel for wildfires across northern and central Australia.

"Australia has a deeply troubled ecology and current land management approaches are failing," he said.

Because of its height, gamba grass almost completely replaces native vegetation. Its fuel load is up to eight times greater than that of native grasses meaning it burns with greater intensity and produces substantial greenhouse gases.

Bowman estimates that at least 5% of the Australian continent was burnt in massive fires last year, an area three times the size of England. He says, if unchecked, the gamba grass has the potential to grow to cover an equivalent area of the country.

In an article for Nature magazine, Bowman proposes introducing large herbivores like elephants and rhinoceroses as a way of containing Gamba grass which can grow to four meters in height.

"It is too big for marsupial grazers (kangaroos) and for cattle or buffalo, the largest feral mammals," he said.

"I'm talking about using elephants as a machine or ecological tool to manage this grass," he said in an interview for the Guardian, acknowledging that his proposal is radical and has major risks associated with it.

"You'd use all the sophisticated technology available to manage and husband the elephants, containing and tracking them with GPS collars and tracking their fertility," he said.

Scientists at Charles Darwin University in Darwin acknowledge the urgent need to tackle the spread of gamba grass, which has been declared a pest by the government, but say conventional methods will work.

"There is an urgent need for action but we need to pursue the problem in a conventional, strategic and well-resourced way," according to Dr Samantha Setterfield, associate professor of environmental management and ecology at the university.

"Introducing elephants is a very extreme proposal that would have very significant social and environmental impacts," she said.

"It suggests that we've exhausted the conventional options like the use of common herbicides like roundup which work on gamba grass," she said.

Ricky Spencer, senior lecturer with the Native and Pest Animal unit at the University of Western Sydney says introducing elephants would pose significant problems.

"If we did go down the road of introducing elephants to Australia, we had better develop the technology to clone saber-tooth tigers to eventually control the elephants," he said in a statement.

The biggest opposition to Bowman's suggestion though is likely to come from Australian quarantine authorities which impose some of the world's strictest requirements on the importation of animals. Currently the importation of both rhinos and elephants is prohibited under the Quarantine Act, according to a spokesperson for the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Animals destined for zoos may only be imported under special provisions.

Saharan Cheetah

The Saharan Cheetah




The Saharan Cheetah (also known as the Northwest African Cheetah Acinonyx jubatus hecki. These majestic and sleek animals differ from sub-Saharan cheetahs in the several ways. They're smaller, with coats that are shorter, whiter and have spots that fade from black (around the spine) to brown (around the legs). Their faces have fewer spots, and sometimes lack tear stripes. They have also adapted their behaviour to the incredibly arid and hot Sahara Desert by becoming more nocturnal than their sub-Saharan counterparts.

Their total population is believed to number 250 individuals, and they are classified by the IUCN as Critically Endangered. However, this is – at best – a guestimate, and remarkably little is known about these elusive animals. In an attempt to improve knowledge of the numbers, whereabouts and conservation concerns of Saharan Cheetahs, researchers from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and the Office du Parc National de l’Ahaggar (OPNA) set out a 2800 km2 camera trap survey of the central Sahara. The images that these camera traps have taken have been nothing short of remarkable, and demonstrate how exceptionally useful camera traps can be.

























________________________________________

Going Ape

It’s a great pity that once highly respected National Geographic channel has degenerated into a purveyor of low brow entertainment with sensationalist programmes with titles like “Africa’s Most Dangerous Killers” and "Cat Wars".

Why, I wonder, do they find it necessary to trivialize our wonderful natural world and to pump up the drama of the various animal interactions. Is it to drum up viewership?
What’s happened to the excellent educational and informative communicator that National Geographic used to be?
It’s sadly been my experience that film-makers and researchers, generally, seem to hell bent on getting the shot or collecting the data and care little for how this is achieved. They seem not to be bothered about the well being of the wildlife they are researching or photographing. So, I’m really not surprised that National Geographic are being accused of a big set-up here in Pringle Bay to get dramatic footage of baboons raiding a house and to anthropomorphise the whole sequence..
Baboons that raid houses are an ever escalating problem here and it’s naïve or disingenuous for National Geographic to claim they were only attempting to get to portray how and when the baboons raid houses. The bottom line is that they have successfully reinforced the perception amongst the baboon troops here that a house that is not heavily fortified is an open invitation for a free lunch. 
Cape Times Editorial 5th July :- “ ……….….it is clear that the film-makers deliberately made food available to a troop of wild baboons to lure them into a house so they could film their behaviour”. “ We join CapeNature in voicing our disgust at this anthropomorphic and unscientific series that violates almost every established principle of ethical wildlife film-making”.

Shame on you National Geographic. You’ve become part of the problem instead of becoming part of the solution!

Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary, Lake Victoria, Uganda

 I’m a little nervous of chimps. Personally, I think it’s because their actions and personalities remind me far too much of us humans. This is also why I am absolutely fascinated by them. When I was in Kampala, Uganda, I took the opportunity to visit the orphaned chimpanzees at the Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary.

I had heard mixed reports about the sanctuary; some had said that it was a must see, while others left me thinking that it could be a waste of time. But after some consideration I took a chance. And I was so glad I did. After a quick breakfast in Kampala, I was taken on an eventful taxi ride through the capital to Entebbe. It was a small matter of a 45-minute boat ride on the largest inland lake in Africa, Lake Victoria, to Ngamba Island.

On the way we passed men on their fishing boats. Pied kingfishers became so common they were like seagulls around a fish- -and-chip shop. I had never seen them so far from shore. Surprises like these became commonplace for me in Uganda and my curiosity for birds grew more and more each day. In my mind, I had already made the right decision.
When we arrived on the island the friendly Ngamba Island staff greeted us. Again birds, this time breeding weavers, on the island immediately distracted me before I was politely asked to join the group for a brief talk. The orientation presentation was a great introduction to the island and its resident chimpanzees. Most of the chimps have come from horrific backgrounds involving either poaching, wildlife trade or habitat destruction and were rescued by the Uganda Wildlife Authority.

But what I found liberating was that the saved chimps had managed to construct an active and reproductive social group on the 40-hectare forest island. So they were as free as they could be and were living as naturally as possible.
What a dream.

Feeding time was a frenzy of excitement. From the advantage of the raised platform you could see the group emerge from the forest. I found it fascinating as the staff told me who was who and what primates’ gestures and actions meant. You could also read the background stories of individual chimps.
The trip was an awesome way to spend a day; not only did I get a boat trip on Lake Victoria and see happy chimps, but my ticket helped towards the conservation of these magnificent great apes.

 

The black-maned lioness of the Okavango

There is a small pride of lions at Mombo Camp in the Okavango called the Western Pride. One particular female within this pride – known by the locals as Mmamoriri – is very special. She has a dark, full mane, making her appear to be a male!

Mombo Camp is situated on the north-western tip of Chiefs Island in the Okavango Delta. Due to the isolation of this area, surrounded on three sides by the permanent swamp, some strange anomalies crop up in the environment.

During the late 1990s, a lioness by the name of Martina was a regular feature on the landscape. She also sported a beautiful, blonde mane – so the current lioness is widely considered to be a descendant this individual. It is unlikely that animals with this condition are able to breed, however, so other genetic factors must be at play here in order for this to occur.

How this aberration comes about is unclear, but Dr. Luke Hunter of Panthera feels that this condition most likely originates either at conception or during fetal development in the womb, resulting in a female offspring having certain male characteristics, or vice-versa.

The disappearance of the elephant caused the rise of modern man 400,000 years ago

Elephants have long been known to be part of the Homo erectus diet. But the significance of this specific food source, in relation to both the survival of Homo erectus and the evolution of modern humans, has never been understood — until now.
When Tel Aviv University researchers Dr. Ran Barkai, Miki Ben-Dor, and Prof. Avi Gopher of TAU's Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies examined the published data describing animal bones associated with Homo erectus at the Acheulian site of Gesher Benot Ya'aqov in Israel, they found that elephant bones made up only two to three percent the total. But these low numbers are misleading, they say. While the six-ton animal may have only been represented by a tiny percentage of bones at the site, it actually provided as much as 60 percent of animal-sourced calories.
The elephant, a huge package of food that is easy to hunt, disappeared from the Middle East 400,000 years ago — an event that must have imposed considerable nutritional stress on Homo erectus. Working with Prof. Israel Hershkovitz of TAU's Sackler Faculty of Medicine, the researchers connected this evidence about diet with other cultural and anatomical clues and concluded that the new hominids recently discovered at Qesem Cave in Israel — who had to be more agile and knowledgeable to satisfy their dietary needs with smaller and faster prey — took over the Middle Eastern landscape and eventually replaced Homo erectus.
The findings, which have been reported in the journal PLoS One, suggest that the disappearance of elephants 400,000 years ago was the reason that modern humans first appeared in the Middle East. In Africa, elephants disappeared from archaeological sites and Homo sapiens emerged much later — only 200,000 years ago.
The perfect food package
Unlike other primates, humans' ability to extract energy from plant fiber and convert protein to energy is limited. So in the absence of fire for cooking, the Homo erectus diet could only consist of a finite amount of plant and protein and would have needed to be supplemented by animal fat. For this reason, elephants were the ultimate prize in hunting — slower than other sources of prey and large enough to feed groups, the giant animals had an ideal fat-to-protein ratio that remained constant regardless of the season. In short, says Ben-Dor, they were the ideal food package for Homo erectus.
When elephants began to die out, Homo erectus "needed to hunt many smaller, more evasive animals. Energy requirements increased, but with plant and protein intake limited, the source had to come from fat. He had to become calculated about hunting," Ben-Dor says, noting that this change is evident in the physical appearance of modern humans, lighter than Homo erectus and with larger brains.
To confirm these findings, the researchers compared archaeological evidence from two sites in Israel: Gesher B'not Yaakov, dating back nearly 800,000 years and associated with Homo erectus; and Qesem Cave, dated 400,000 to 200,000 years ago. Gesher B'not Yaakov contains elephant bones, but at Qesem Cave, which is bereft of elephant bones, the researchers discovered signs of post-erectus hominins, with blades and sophisticated behaviors such as food sharing and the habitual use of fire.
Evolution in the Middle East
Modern humans evolved in Africa 200,000 years ago, says Dr. Barkai, and the ruling paradigm is that this was their first worldwide appearance. Archaeological records tell us that elephants in Africa disappeared alongside the Acheulian culture with the emergence of modern humans there. Though elephants can be found today in Africa, few species survived and no evidence of the animal can be found in archaeological sites after 200,000 years ago. The similarity to the circumstances of the Middle East 400,000 years ago is no coincidence, claim the researchers. Not only do their findings on elephants and the Homo erectus diet give a long-awaited explanation for the evolution of modern humans, but they also call what scientists know about the "birth-place" of modern man into question.
Evidence from the Qesem Cave corroborates this revolutionary timeline. Findings from the site dated from as long as 400,000 years ago, clearly indicate the presence of new and innovative human behavior and a new human type. This sets the stage for a new understanding of the human story, says Prof. Gopher.