Pastoralists lose sheep while Britain debates ban on lion trophies

Category: big cats, conservation, East Africa, furadan, human wildlife conflict, hunting, Kenya, Lions, national parks, National Parks and protected areas, poaching, Poisoning wildlife, wildlife trade
Date: June 2nd 2011
By: Paula

In an attempt to save Africas fast declining lions, conservationists have proposed banning the trophy hunting of this charismatic species. A heated debate is raging in Europe and the USA, but it’s hardly being noticed back here in the Lion heartlands.

In Africa, lion populations are declining rapidly due to loss of prey and land, and as a direct result conflict with people. People are killing thousands of lions using spears and poisons like Furadan. Loss of habitat and the use of poison could easily drive Africa’s lions to extinction. With fewer than 2,000 lions left in Kenya, ours may be the first to go.

Thanks to Ross and Nathalie Samuels of Screaming Reels, we recorded this video last week when a lioness killed a ram in a homestead close to Nairobi National Park. We thank Nickson for informing us of the incident soon after it happened.

embedded by Embedded Video

YouTube Direkt

We hope that lion conservation groups like Born Free and Lionaid and others will support the work of local conservationists who are saving lions on the ground in Africa.

Our lion conservation work at WildilfeDirect is supported by the National Geographics Big Cat Initiative

Bookmark and Share
Tags:

One Comment

  1. sauwah
    Posted June 4, 2011 at 5:37 pm | Permalink

    loss of habitat and prey are definitely pushing lions to extinction in Kenya especially . but as for trophy hunting, we know those killers for their own enjoyment ( colonial in nature and history ) they take only the best which are lions or any animal that are in their prime, the best fighter, the alpha leaders, the leaders. in short the best are murdered and leave the weaker or less desirable ones pass their genes to the future. and as for the lions, each male lion ( in its prime, the biggest, the darkest mane and the strongest ) is killed, his cubs will be killed and will some old females, mothers of the cubs will be injured and pride will split; thus weakened. how well can a single female with cub survive and raise successfully while their rivals the hyenas are out compete them. and how many hyenas are killed by trophy killers compare to the male lions? so trophy lion hunters imbalance the natural situation between these 2 apex predators. thanks to these wealthy amercians and europeans, wonder why big males make up only about 1 percent of the whole lion population. i know about girl power; but lionesses and their cubs need males for their pride survive and bring up their cubs and keeping their kill.

Post a Comment

*
*
CAPTCHA Image
*