Cecil the lion: The blood sport of African trophy hunters

The killing of Cecil the lion – one of Zimbabwe’s best known and most studied animals – has sparked a debate over big game “trophy” hunting.

Cecil was shot with a bow by an American dentist who paid $35,000 dollars for the privilege. The 13-year-old lion had been studied by scientists from Oxford University as part of a project that has run since 1999.

So what is big game trophy hunting and what affect is it having on Africa’s most famous wildlife?

What are the big five?

Buffalo, elephant, leopard, lion and rhino make up Africa’s “Big Five”. Some visitors to African countries want to see all five in the wild, others want to kill them as ‘trophies’.

Do trophy hunters kill anything else?

Yes. A whole host of animals – from hippos to wildebeest – are hunted.

Some game reserves are now breeding distinctive looking animals specifically to be hunted. One lodge in is breeding new types of animals with distinctive coats and charging a premium for hunters to kill them.

How much does it cost?

Some companies offer whole packages to big game hunters – photos and videos of the hunt and even taxidermy of the ‘trophies’.

Companies offer anything from a 14 day elephant hunt for £19,835 with a “trophy” of a dead elephant included in the price. It also offers “father and son” hunting trips.

Another offers a 21 day package costing upwards of £50,000, promising “1 lion, 1 cape buffalo, 1 elephant, 1 kudo, 1 blue wildebeest and 1 zebra” included in the price.

What do you get on a hunt holiday?

Most packages include transfers, luxury accommodation, meat-heavy luxury food, beer and wine, permits and the animal “trophies”. Taxidermy tends to cost extra.

Do you need a licence?

Yes. The number of animals that are allowed to be killed and exported is controlled by the UN-run Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

But campaign groups say that the system is flawed because policing is the responsibility of the individual governments who may lack the resources to see the quotas are kept to.

How many are killed each year?

We don’t know exactly but the licences granted for trophies each year runs into the thousands. A full list of the 2015 list is here.

Zimbabwe, where Cecil was killed, has national export quotas of 50 cheetas per year live and for trophies and 1000 African elephants. According to the latest Cites data it has no lion quota.

Are they wild?

Lions are hunted in the wild in Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Mozambique but an increasing number of captive-bred lions – known as “put and take” or “canned” – are hunted in South Africa. The majority of animals killed in South Africa are now bred and then hunted in small, fenced areas with no means of escape.

Some argue that the captive hunting of lions reduces the demand for hunting animals in the wild and encourages land owners to take care of the habitat but conservationists are sceptical of this is a justification.

Who goes game hunting?

Some of the best data is from South Africa where the destination of the exported “trophies” has been recorded and analysed.

According to Zimbabwe-born conservation biologist Peter Lindsey, the majority of lions killed in South Africa – 57.8% per cent – are sent to the Americas, primarily to the United States

Of the lion trophies sent to Europe 27.1 per cent were sent to Spain and 12.6 per cent to Russia.

So are they depleting lion populations?

It depends who you ask. Nearly a century ago an estimated 200,000 lions roamed across Africa. Now there are less than 30,000. However trophy hunting is not necessarily to blame for this decline.

According to one 2007 study private hunting operations 22 per cent more land than is protected by national parks and many game reserves see themselves as conservationists too – providing habitats that would otherwise not exist.

A 2005 paper in International Wildlife Law and Policy said that the legalisation of white rhinoceros hunting in South Africa motivated private landowners to reintroduce the species onto their lands substantially increasing the population.

However one thing is true – more lions are being killed for sport.

In 2009 and 2010, 833 and 682 lion trophies were exported from South Africa, respectively, more than double the combined export of 2009 and 2008 – but some experts say most hunts are limited to semi-captive lions, rather than increased hunting of the wild lion population.

Can it be ever a good thing?

According to Professor Peet van der Merwe, a professor of tourism at North West University, it can.

Trophy hunting contributes over £60 million a year to the South African economy with each big game hunter spending around £6,000 a trip, he says.

This, he adds not only creates jobs in areas where no other tourism would exist but also encourages landowners to breed and look after game, rather than deplete by hunting for subsistence hunting and farming.

Why do they do it?

What must’ve happened to you in your life to make you want to kill a beautiful animal & then lie next to it smiling? pic.twitter.com/DyYw1T5ck2

— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) April 13, 2015

Some game hunters argue that they are helping the ecosystem that the game exist in. Rebecca Francis, a hunter who was lambasted by comedian Ricky Gervais for a photograph posed with a dead giraffe she had killed, has said getting rid of the giraffe was key to keeping the “ecosystem” of the South Africa’s game reserve in balance.

She said: “Once an animal is past his prime or reproductive years, he is now taking habitat from the younger, healthier animals on the farm”.

By killing the giraffe, she added, she believed she was “preserving” the animal and providing locals with food and other means of survival.

Wildlife Ranching South Africa says that the industry protects game and provides employment for 120,000 South Africans.