Cecil the Lion articles

Article 1

Article 2

Why did Cecil the lion die? What you should know about trophy hunting?

In Zimbabwae, We Don't Cry for Lions

Cecil the Lion

Group Work Activity Articles!

Article 3

Article 4

For many in Zimbabwe, Cecil the lion tells only part of the story.

The Cecil Effect

Why did Cecil the lion die? What you should know about trophy hunting

BY Daniel Costa-Roberts August 1, 2015 at 5:18 PM EDT The killing of a beloved African lion named Cecil earlier this month has prompted outcry, spurred senators to propose an amendment to the Endangered Species Act and caused the government of Zimbabwe — where Cecil was shot — to call for the extradition of the Minnesota dentist who killed the lion. The story has prompted contentious debate between opponents of trophy hunting, who call the practice barbaric, and its supporters, who defend it as an ancient sport whose fans included Teddy Roosevelt and Ernest Hemingway. But what exactly is trophy hunting, is it legal, and why do proponents say the practice helps conservation efforts? Here’s what you should know. What is trophy hunting? Trophy hunting is the sport of hunting wild game, generally with the intent to collect “trophies” — either an entire carcass, or body parts like the head, hide and legs — which are then taxidermied. Hunters pay hefty sums for the chance to hunt some big game animals. Walter Palmer, the hunter who killed Cecil, reportedly paid around $50,000 for the privilege. Last year, the Dallas Safari Club auctioned off a coveted permit to kill a critically endangered black rhino to the tune of $350,000. These high prices generally pay for hunting guides, supplies and hunting permits. Hunters usually need permission from the government of the country concerned and a permit from The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), an international treaty that regulates the wild animal trade, allowing hunters to transport animal remains back to their home countries. African animals popular with trophy hunters include relatively scarce game like lions, rhinoceroses, leopards and elephants, as well as species that aren’t threatened, like warthogs and springbok. According to IFAW, a major conservation charity, Americans account for about half of the roughly 5,600 lion carcasses traded internationally for trophy hunting in the past decade. Is it legal? Trophy hunting is, by definition, legal. National governments often regulate the types of animals that may be hunted, where they can be hunted and the types of weapon that may be used in doing so. International agreements like CITES also apply.

A trophy of a wild animal is seen at the taxidermy studio in Pretoria, February 12, 2015. Photo by Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters

Home

Why did Cecil the lion die? What you should know about trophy hunting

Is it legal? Trophy hunting is, by definition, legal. National governments often regulate the types of animals that may be hunted, where they can be hunted and the types of weapon that may be used in doing so. International agreements like CITES also apply. Although the terms are sometimes used interchangeably by people opposed to hunting, trophy hunting is distinct from poaching, which refers to the illegal hunting of animals, often for the sake of harvesting valuable body parts like rhino horns or elephants tusks. While the terms are distinct, there are times when trophy hunting crosses the line into poaching, as may have happened in Cecil’s case. Palmer had the proper permits to hunt a lion, but he and his guides reportedly lured Cecil outside the boundaries of the protected Hwange National Park in order to shoot him, an action the government of Zimbabwe has described as illegal. In a July 28 statement, Palmer said he had thought the hunt was conducted in accordance with local laws, that he had been unaware that Cecil was famous or beloved, and that he regretted killing the lion. Can trophy hunting help conservation efforts? Trophy hunters often justify the practice by arguing that much of the money they spend on hunts goes to help conserve and study animals, and to benefit local communities. Unsurprisingly, answers to the question of whether trophy hunting contributes substantively to animal conservation are often highly politicized. A 2006 study examining the preferences of 150 hunters who either had hunted in Africa or planned to do so found that they “were generally unwilling to hunt under conditions whereby conservation issues were compromised,” including areas where hunting quotas were intentionally exceeded. 86 percent of hunters interviewed said they would prefer to hunt in an area if they knew a proportion of the proceeds would go to local communities, and nearly half indicated they would pay an equivalent price for a less desirable trophy that came from a problem animal that would have had to be killed regardless. These numbers may be affected by the fact that responses were self-reported, meaning hunters may have tried to portray themselves in a flattering light.

Workers prepare animal skins in front of animal trophies at the taxidermy studio in Pretoria,February 12, 2015. Photo by Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters

Home

Why did Cecil the lion die? What you should know about trophy hunting

Conservation organizations are mixed on whether or not there can be net benefits to trophy hunting. A 2009 study by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, for instance, stated that: Regarding conservation, big game hunting shows mixed results. Some areas are geographically stable, and wildlife populations are significant, but this is not the norm. Large disparities are seen between areas. Where management levels are similar, the conservation results from big game hunting are lower than those of neighboring national parks or reserves. Hunting areas are less resistant to external pressures than national parks, and thus will play a lesser role in future conservation strategies. An undeniable positive result is that the conservation results that are obtained are entirely financed by the hunters, without support from donors and often without government commitment In response to a TIME story, Dr. Rosie Cooney of IUCN told the magazine: I’m afraid while it would be nice to be able to recommend alternative approaches for conservation that don’t involve killing animals (even those that will no longer contribute to population growth), we view trophy hunting as playing an important and generally effective role in conservation over large areas of Africa in particular, with important local livelihood benefits in some contexts, such as in Namibia. The U.K.-based charity Save the Rhinos offers a qualified endorsement of the practice: In an ideal world rhinos wouldn’t be under such extreme threat and there would be no need for trophy hunting. However, the reality is that rhino conservation is incredibly expensive and there are huge pressures for land and protective measures; field programs that use trophy hunting as a conservation tool, can use funds raised to provide a real difference for the protection of rhino populations. A report by the group Economists at Large found that trophy hunting did little to enrich the communities where hunting takes place. that hunting companies contribute only 3% of their revenue to communities living in hunting areas. The vast majority of their expenditure does not accrue to local people and businesses, but to firms, government agencies and individuals located internationally or in national capitals … expenditure accruing to government agencies rarely reaches local communities due to corruption and other spending requirements

Professional hunter Adri Kitshoff takes aim during a hunt for game at the Iwamanzi Game Reserve in Koster, in the North West Province of South Africa, June 6, 2015. Photo by Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters

Home

The New York Times In Zimbabwe, We Don’t Cry for Lions By GOODWELL NZOU August 4, 2015 Winston-Salem, N.C. — MY mind was absorbed by the biochemistry of gene editing when the text messages and Facebook posts distracted me. So sorry about Cecil. Did Cecil live near your place in Zimbabwe? Cecil who? I wondered. When I turned on the news and discovered that the messages were about a lion killed by an American dentist, the village boy inside me instinctively cheered: One lion fewer to menace families like mine. My excitement was doused when I realized that the lion killer was being painted as the villain. I faced the starkest cultural contradiction I’d experienced during my five years studying in the United States. Did all those Americans signing petitions understand that lions actually kill people? That all the talk about Cecil being “beloved” or a “local favorite” was media hype? Did Jimmy Kimmel choke up because Cecil was murdered or because he confused him with Simba from “The Lion King”? In my village in Zimbabwe, surrounded by wildlife conservation areas, no lion has ever been beloved, or granted an affectionate nickname. They are objects of terror. When I was 9 years old, a solitary lion prowled villages near my home. After it killed a few chickens, some goats and finally a cow, we were warned to walk to school in groups and stop playing outside. My sisters no longer went alone to the river to collect water or wash dishes; my mother waited for my father and older brothers, armed with machetes, axes and spears, to escort her into the bush to collect firewood.

Protesters have called for the death of the hunter who killed Cecil the lion. ERIC MILLER / REUTERS

A week later, my mother gathered me with nine of my siblings to explain that her uncle had been attacked but escaped with nothing more than an injured leg. The lion sucked the life out of the village: No one socialized by fires at night; no one dared stroll over to a neighbor’s homestead. When the lion was finally killed, no one cared whether its murderer was a local person or a white trophy hunter, whether it was poached or killed legally. We danced and sang about the vanquishing of the fearsome beast and our escape from serious harm.

Home

Recently, a 14-year-old boy in a village not far from mine wasn’t so lucky. Sleeping in his family’s fields, as villagers do to protect crops from the hippos, buffalo and elephants that trample them, he was mauled by a lion and died. The killing of Cecil hasn’t garnered much more sympathy from urban Zimbabweans, although they live with no such danger. Few have ever seen a lion, since game drives are a luxury residents of a country with an average monthly income below $150 cannot afford. Don’t misunderstand me: For Zimbabweans, wild animals have near-mystical significance. We belong to clans, and each clan claims an animal totem as its mythological ancestor. Mine is Nzou, elephant, and by tradition, I can’t eat elephant meat; it would be akin to eating a relative’s flesh. But our respect for these animals has never kept us from hunting them or allowing them to be hunted. (I’m familiar with dangerous animals; I lost my right leg to a snakebite when I was 11.) The American tendency to romanticize animals that have been given actual names and to jump onto a hashtag train has turned an ordinary situation — there were 800 lions legally killed over a decade by well-heeled foreigners who shelled out serious money to prove their prowess — into what seems to my Zimbabwean eyes an absurdist circus.

PETA is calling for the hunter to be hanged. Zimbabwean politicians are accusing the United States of staging Cecil’s killing as a “ploy” to make our country look bad. And Americans who can’t find Zimbabwe on a map are applauding the nation’s demand for the extradition of the dentist, unaware that a baby elephant was reportedly slaughtered for our president’s most recent birthday banquet. We Zimbabweans are left shaking our heads, wondering why Americans care more about African animals than about African people. Don’t tell us what to do with our animals when you allowed your own mountain lions to be hunted to near extinction in the eastern United States. Don’t bemoan the clear-cutting of our forests when you turned yours into concrete jungles. And please, don’t offer me condolences about Cecil unless you’re also willing to offer me condolences for villagers killed or left hungry by his brethren, by political violence, or by hunger. Goodwell Nzou is a doctoral student in molecular and cellular biosciences at Wake Forest University.

Home

For many in Zimbabwe, Cecil the lion tells only part of the story

By Abby Reimer, Special to CNN Updated 8:43 PM ET, Mon August 3, 2015 (CNN) The killing of Cecil the lion by a U.S. dentist in Zimbabwe drew a swift and passionate backlash. A petition urging Walter Palmer's extradition to Zimbabwe garnered more than 220,000 signatures. TV host Jimmy Kimmel gave an emotional monologue condemning the killing. People sought to bring down Palmer's dental practice through negative Yelp reviews and protests. But some in Cecil's native Zimbabwe and in the United States criticized the massive outrage over Cecil's death and questioned why the loss of human lives didn't seem to bring the same response. When news of Cecil's death first came out, many in Zimbabwe had never heard of the lion, said Fungai Machirori, a Zimbabwe-based journalist and social commentator. "People expressed, 'Will I look like a dumb person if I admit to not knowing anything about Cecil?' " she said. "As time went on, the kind of international rhetoric that framed it as though the whole country was in mourning ... that's when the initial disconnect began for me." Cecil not particularly known in his homeland McDonald Lewanika, the director of Crisis Zimbabwe Coalition, a network of activist groups in Zimbabwe, said that while Cecil was a "tourist phenomenon," the vast majority of people in Zimbabwe did not know the lion existed. Charity Hodzi, a Zimbabwe-based human rights activist and lawyer, said she also had never heard of Cecil. She said that going to a game park was a "luxury most locals cannot afford." Machirori said that as a part of Zimbabwe's natural history and habitat, the death of a lion and the whole concept of "trophy killing" was still an important issue. Cecil was lured out of his habitat at the Hwange National Park and shot with crossbow, making his death especially brutal. But the sweeping outrage over Cecil left out other concerns in Zimbabwe that Machirori said deserve attention. "If we're going to talk about Cecil in a balanced manner, we need to talk about the environment that Cecil and Zimbabweans inhabit," Machirori said. "To be honest, Cecil, among most people who are highly read and highly knowledgeable about the context of Zimbabwe, was not a very topical issue until there was an international sort of perspective on it." A nation gripped by poverty As of 2012, 72.3% of Zimbabweans lived under the poverty line, according to the CIA World Factbook. As of 2014, GDP per capita was $2,000 -- 25 times less than what Palmer paid to kill Cecil the lion. Hyperinflation and alleged human rights violations by President Robert Mugabe's government have plagued the country for years. Lewanika said that while it was heartening to see the international concern over Cecil, it was "disquieting" that people seemed to care more about a lion than other "pressing issues including a failing economy, a repressive regime that has been abducting its opponents, stifling the press and arresting activists." Zimbabwe is on the verge of a "looming crisis" politically and economically, Lewanika said. He said international attention on human concerns in the country could help. Hodzi also said that Cecil was not a priority -- not when hunger, starvation, a high rate of maternal mortality and drought demand the attention of those in Zimbabwe. In a post titled, "Beyond Cecil: Issues the media needs to cover about Zimbabwe," Machirori highlighted other important stories in her country, including news about Itai Dzamara, a political activist and journalist who was abducted more than four months ago, crackdowns on unregulated street vendors by the police and the country's growing tech scene. "It is the deepest irony that in a time when the #BlackLivesMatter movement continues to gain traction in highlighting the differential scales used to value human lives, the world should cast its eye on Zimbabwe for its wildlife, with no thought or concern for its people," she wrote in her post.

Home

'Cecil Effect' dangerous for lions, guides

By Cody Derespina Published February 25, 2016 FoxNews.com The international backlash against big game hunters triggered by last year's killing of a beloved lion named “Cecil” could spell doom for hundreds of the beasts who now roam a Zimbabwe preserve. The deafening criticism after Cecil’s death in July has created a chilling effect among many in the industry, leading to more hunters staying home, animal populations growing out of control and a more dangerous environment for guides, say experts. The death of a lion named Cecil sparked international outrage. (AP) “Far fewer hunters are going to Zimbabwe,” said Steve Taylor, a former game ranger and current guide in Zimbabwe who is also associate director for International Safety and Security at Harvard University. “Directly after the Cecil situation numbers declined precipitously.” One Zimbabwean conservancy floated the idea of culling nearly 200 of its lions to fight overpopulation. That notion – since tabled – has drawn condemnation, but it highlights the desperation some conservancies face as lion and other animal populations go unchecked, say some conservationists. Efforts to move some of the more than 500 lions living in the confines of the Bubye Valley Conservancy have so far been derailed. But the issue of overpopulation received little attention – until the cull proposal was mentioned. “We were all talking about it: If you shoot a lion, your career’s over.” - Steve Taylor “I think this is their way of saying to the naysayers who have denigrated the whole concept of a conservancy, ‘Somebody needs to step up to the plate,’” Taylor told FoxNews.com. “Hunters will not do it anymore. Somebody needs to step up to the plate and finance the translocation of those lions. It’s a great way to grab the media attention. A map of Zimbabwe showing the location of the Hwange National Park where Cecil was shot and the Bubye Valley Conservancy. Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer faced global scorn after he shot and killed Cecil with a compound bow. Palmer was lambasted on social media, had demonstrators protest outside of his office and even faced death threats. But he was never charged with a crime because authorities said he had obtained the legal authority to hunt Cecil. Bubye, located about 300 miles southeast of the Hwange National Refuge where Cecil was shot, relies on trophy hunting to support its operating costs. But since Cecil’s death – and the outrage that followed – there has been a slowdown of hunters willing to travel to Zimbabwe to bag big game. In addition to negative public opinion impacting decisions, hunters have also been hampered by several major airlines refusing to fly exotic animal trophies and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service listing species of African lions as endangered. Some have referred to the trend as the “Cecil Effect.”

Home

'Cecil Effect' dangerous for lions, guides

Brent Stapelkamp, a researcher who works at Hwange and studied Cecil, also said he’s heard “many, many hunters” have cancelled trips since Cecil’s death. “Now, whether that has to do with an awareness that things in the Zimbabwe hunting industry are not right, fear of being exposed on social media, restrictions on getting trophies home or what, we can’t say,” Stapelkamp told FoxNews.com. “But I am sure that there has been a massive cancellation of hunts and the industry is suffering.” Byron du Preez, the project leader at Bubye, said in an email that linking declining hunts to Cecil’s demise may be an overreach. “In my opinion, the ‘Cecil Effect’ doesn’t even exist,” he said. “Hunters are not coming because there is a massive recession [in the U.S.].” But criticism has certainly reached Bubye’s fences, and not only for the cull suggestion. A professional hunter familiar with Bubye attempted to set up a hunting raffle for the conservancy, with 100 tickets each selling for $1,500. The raffle would have provided economic benefits for Bubye as well as helped to thin the lion population. But advocacy groups quickly sounded the alarm and the raffle was cancelled. And there’s another face of the so-called effect – one that’s far more dangerous for humans. Less than two months after Cecil’s death, an experienced guide was leading a tour group in Hwange when he was confronted by an aggressive lion named Nxaha and was mauled to death. Taylor speculates the criticism stemming from Cecil’s shooting may have caused the guide to hesitate in defending himself.

“We were all talking about it: If you shoot a lion, your career’s over,” said Taylor, who believes Swales may have been reluctant to shoot the beast for fear of public reprisal. “This guy was a really successful guide, and he died by a lion. And I think that’s the Cecil Effect. Guides in Zimbabwe are petrified of having the world turn on them.” Taylor said he used to hunt, but hasn’t for more than a decade. Still, he understands the benefits of controlled hunting for the environment. But even Taylor – born in Kenya, raised in Zimbabwe, experienced in the industry – isn’t sure how the nation can change the West’s perception of hunting following Cecil’s death. “Hunters in America now are even afraid to post photographs on Facebook and social media,” he said. “And with the groundswell of public opinion – how do you combat ignorance?”

Home