Assholes in South Africa shooting wildlife

Calum, are you related to Hughie Green?
One of his bastard sons perhaps?

The current alternative:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/06/0616_030616_greenhunting.html#main

(eh)

Excuse me?

"So how was your hunting trip, Jim?"

"It was great. S.A. is so beautiful...and I bagged a lion!"

"Wow!"

"Yeah, it was penned in a small enclosure and I just wasted the fucker."

"Yeah, Jim...uh, I gotta go now , bye."

Lions hand-reared and bred especially to be shot with a gun or bow and arrow so a man may enjoy the thrill of the chase. This is perfectly legal in South Africa. And not just lions - leopards, cheetah, wild dogs, hyena, antelopes - all can be captive bred and turned into gun fodder.

The sorry stories of the leopards and hyena exposed in the Daily Express (29.9.03) are just the tip of the iceberg. Much worse situations are currently legal and will continue to be so if the proposed South African legislation goes ahead.

CANNED HUNTING - WHAT IS IT?

Canned hunting is, essentially, the hunting of captive animals that have little chance of escape. North America is the hunting capital of the world with 11 million hunters but South Africa has the dubious distinction of hunting the most lions and elephants. Hunters like to draw a distinction between trophy hunting and canned hunting. Trophy hunters claim their prey is free roaming. Canned hunting, which is still widespread in the USA and South Africa involves the hunting of captive-bred animals often into enclosed areas.

Two television programmes have been especially effective in drawing the world's attention to the excesses and cruelty involved in canned hunting in South Africa: Carte Blanche, a South African documentary programme, and the Cook Report shown on British television on 6th May 1997.

The Cook Report footage was horrific. We see a lioness pacing alongside a fence, frantic to get to the three cubs she had been separated from that morning. The professional hunter arrives with his client, a German tourist. We see a bullet slam into her side and her body twists in the air alongside the fence. She has made no attempt to run away - and why should she? Her cubs are on the other side of the fence and why should she fear humans, they had been feeding her up until two days ago.

We learnt that hunters are advised how to lame a lion by shooting it in the shoulder so no damage is done to the head, the "trophy". One procurer of lions explains that breaking a lion's limbs makes the killing of the maimed animal "easier on the dogs, easier on us." With sickening disregard for the animals the man goes on to say that lions are easy to maim, they are "soft-skinned, with a highly developed nervous system…..it hurts them…. 'smoke him and he'll bounce around."

The Cook Report researchers were even offered Bengal tigers and jaguars, big cats not indigenous to South Africa.

International outrage followed the screening of this programme, and the Born Free Foundation launched its "Ban the Can" campaign. Animal rights groups and sickened members of the public and the media have continued to highlight what goes on to provide the hunter with his trophy, but the animals keep on dying. For example, in 1997 there were 300 lions in South African breeding farms - the number has now grown to over 2,500.

CANNED HUNTING - A PROCESS NOT AN EVENT

It is not just the brutal death of the captive-bred animals that outrages its opponents, but the whole process involved.

In the case of lions, the breeders usually remove the cubs when they are three-four days old. This is extremely stressful for the lioness, with her deeply ingrained maternal instincts but it does induce her into another oestrus cycle making her more receptive to mating. In addition, hand-rearing the cubs makes future management easier and ensures the trophy hunters don't have to face a wild animal when it's time for the kill. There may also be a sex culling process at this stage - hunters like to kill male lions - their manes look more impressive in that final photo of the hunter standing beside the body, so most of the females will be killed.

PRO-HUNTING ARGUMENTS
"If it pays it stays" - the mantra of many conservationists and certainly the excuse used by hunters around the world. With habitats shrinking and agriculture and industry taking over the wild areas, humans insist that the remaining wild animals must pay their way if we humans are to grant them permission to remain on the planet.

Conservation gun-smoke screen - Captive lion breeders call themselves conservationists, and some allow day visitors who are blatantly misinformed that the lions are being bred for re-introduction to the wild. Not only is this not a recognised management policy for lion conservation, the reverse is happening - breeders have to take lions from the wild to add fresh blood to their in-bred captive populations. This adds an additional burden on the wild population which recent reports estimate has crashed to around 23,000 lions. It is well known that the large provincial reserves of Pilansberg and Madikwe in the North West Province and Phinda Privace Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal are the primary source of wild lions for re-introduction purposes, not the breeding farms.

Also the costs of lion-breeding make these conservation claims a nonsense. It takes large amounts of meat to feed all these lions. Last year Africa Geographic reported on the Mokwalo breeding farm in the Province of Limpopo. The farm had 110 animals behind wire and they eat approx. 144 tonnes of food a year. The meat costs about 40p / kilo which gives an annual food bill of about £57,000. So, with each lion costing the farmer about £500 per year to feed, and he is only selling about 20 a year, it is hard to imagine he would settle for the price these lions fetch at auction for conservation projects - on average £1,000.

Hunters from America, Germany, Spain, the UK and other European countries pay big money for the thrill of shooting a normal coloured lion - about £3,500.

Wish lists - Of course, hunters prefer the more striking male animals in their photographs or as stuffed trophies. They also prefer unusual colours.
A black-maned lion can fetch around £17,000 and a rare white lion over £35,000. In January this year the UK's Sunday Express reported on how a black-maned lion at a lion auction was sold to a secret telephone bidder for £22,000. The owner later said how a European or American hunter will pay double that to shoot the lion as part of a hunting package.

As ever, there is talk about the loss of jobs and income if canned hunting is made illegal. However, most of the big hunting outfits are land owners and so have other options, such as eco-tourism, even if it is less lucrative in the short-term. And do we say the burglar can continue his trade because stopping it would reduce his income? Canned hunting is morally bankrupt and must be banned.

PLANNED LEGISLATION
In the USA, the legislation is on a state by state basis and although it is banned in some form in some states, canned hunting operations are sprouting up from Maine to Arkansas and Indiana to Texas. The Humane Society of the United States estimates there are more than 1,000 canned hunt operations in at least 25 different states. They are most common in Texas, but they are found throughout the continental United States and Hawaii. Safari Club International (SCI) has done its part to promote canned hunting by creating a hunting achievement award, "Introduced Trophy Game Animals of North America," which may support the operation of canned hunts.

So, in comparison, South Africa is to be congratulated on working on national legislation which will ban the worst excesses of canned hunting. However, there has been widespread criticism that the legislation has been drawn up in bureaucratic secrecy. The "National Norms and Standards for the Sustainable Use of Large Predators in South Africa" was conceived, framed and adopted in September 2002 and only now been made "gazetted" for the general information of the public but is still NOT open for public consultation. The Born Free Foundation and other opponents believe there are so many loopholes in this Policy document that it has becomes unenforceable. In addition it allows the hunting of captive predators to continue, providing they have been released into a free-roaming situation for six months.

For decades South African conservation officials have refused the rehabilitation of large predators by wildlife sanctuaries for the reason that "no large predator can ever be properly rehabbed back to the wild". Now these same conservation officials are being asked to sanction the "wildness" of captive-bred animals after being released for only six months.

At the Born Free' sanctuary for rescued lions and leopards within Shamwari Game Reserve in South Africa's Eastern Cape, we have three wild-born leopards, found motherless in the Sudan and hand-reared from the age of six-seven days, probably a few days older than those hand-reared by the lion-breeders. If released these young leopards, now two and a half years old, may well, with some practice and back-up feeding, be able to hunt for themselves after six months. However, it is unlikely they would lose their fear of humans, even though they are more secretive in nature than lions and cheetah. It is unthinkable that leopards such as these could be turned lose to face a hunter's gun or bow and arrow.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

1. Support calls for an amendment of the Policy document.
It is vital the serious loopholes in the Policy document are plugged before the norms and standards are effected as regulations within the new Biodiversity Bill. Please write to the Government of South Africa including the following issues:
- thank them for their bold initiative to prohibit the canned hunting of large predators;
- if you have seen any of the widespread international condemnation of this practice in the media point out the negative publicity South Africa has been receiving.
- Say you are disappointed that a public participation in the drafting of this new policy has not taken place and that interested and affected parties should be invited to advise on the policy, to help plug the serious loopholes in the policy.

Please write to

Mr. Valli Moosa
Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism
Private Bag X447
Pretoria 0001
South Africa

Or email: vmoosa@ozone.pwv.gov.za

x-post

Before you verbally tear him a new one C-man, consider that he's proabably referring to the Nat. Geo site.

I trust at least some of you have emailed the address in the story pasted above and expressed your concern over this matter?

P.S. Jeremy. Chill out. Being liberal is good y'know? I mean God forbid us lefty types actually want to save some of the world's great wildlife.

Jeremy rightfully takes umbrage.

You then tell him to "chill out". I hope you saved the receipt from the charm school they sent you to 'cause it wasn't even worth the 50 quid. If you really take this enviro stuff to heart then you'll want to be effective. Being an effective communicator does not, for the most part, consist of berating people.

*End of Sermon*

I'm a card carrying member, and payer, of the WWF too and sometimes donator to the BUAV. I'm glad to see compassion is alive and well.

But please, rail against tourism, you know, whatever floats your boat.

A major logging problem? Try other African countries.

I think you're getting confused.

I'm reading this right now. C-Man, you might enjoy this.

Blisteringly funny!! I'll have to memorize that for use at my next 5th grade reunion. Wait, did you see that? It's like he infected me with puerility!

The slogan for the South African board of tourism is "South Africa... It's possible."

Assholes in South Africa beating asshole to death

Shakey, go to town

It's on the rolling RIP thread because he doesn't deserve one of his own.

I'd argue he doesn't deserve to be associated with that particular acronym at all

rot in pieces

Was Eugene Terreblanche his real name? Or did he deliberately change it to something whose etymological stem is AFAICT 'good race, white earth'?

miss this guy already.

not au fait with the situation, but given the vows of revenge that are emanating from his organisation, what likely action can they take?

ha that's a good catch on his name.

be funny if his given name was Phil Schwartz

Mluleki Washington