Dear Bushdrummers,

Please read this very carefully and we kindly request for your full understanding and cooperation to start a unique event and a step towards an incredible Mile-Stone – lets make it all possible and respect each others personal opinions.

We are introducing you to a new topic and a new mile-stone on bushdrums.com that we are very proud of as we believe it has great potential for the protection of wildlife. It needs an introduction as it is a topic that started on a different forum and will be continued on bushdrums.com. A number, perhaps most if not all - of our members are against hunting and I know that some of us go as far as boycotting anything related to hunting. One of the endeavours of bushdrums is to get people from different sides together under one “roof” to discuss their point of view to try and create understanding and solutions that satisfy all. This is an extremely difficult task and if it works it is probably unique worldwide! I hope you all realise the significance of this MAJOR MILE-STONE and that by insulting each other or boycotting the website because of some member’s comments you give away this unique chance to make a change. I am sure we can all learn a lot from each other and even if the result is only some understanding that is being created, it is already a success for the protection of wildlife. The topic has great potential for “going over the top” and therefore we kindly ask you to stick to the facts and we will not tolerate any personal insults. Also, we remind you that statements made, do not necessarily reflect the opinion of bushdrums.com, but the member who posted it.

Thank you all for your understanding -

Michel, working for a hunting company in Tanzania, and I (Carsten) got into a discussion that derived from the reoccurring issue of wildlife causing damage or threatening human lives when leaving the boundaries of national parks and he kindly offered to provide his point of view and knowledge to bushdrums. Like every other member of bushdrums he donates his precious time in order to help the situation. This should be honoured and respected no matter weather you agree with his profession or not.

A summary of what has been said so far: Introduction by Carsten

I pointed out that before white settlers arrived in Africa, Africans were living happily with Wildlife for centuries. Of course animals were killed when they got too close, damaged their farm land or threatened humans, but because there was plenty of space, they managed to live side by side. Today wildlife AND tribes are restricted to very small areas to live in their traditional way. Hence we can not lean back and say "oh well, if the animal leaves it's dedicated area it is it's own problem and deserves to be killed if it takes something that already belongs to someone else."

If land was given back to wildlife, if there was no military troops playing war-games in Africa and if there were no Asians and middle Eastern buying Rhino horns as an aphrodisiac, wildlife would face much less cruelty although, as Michel pointed out correctly, the "western way" has already ingrained itself in the mind of the local and protecting wildlife is not in their list of priorities.

He explained further that an ever changing world requires wildlife management and conservation policies to be flexible and adaptable. There is as much wildlife roaming outside of protected areas (buffer zones and dispersal areas) as there is inside. These are areas where human settlements are increasing. The majority of these areas (Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, Botswana and others) are NOT suitable for photographic tourism. They are remote, harsh, densely vegetated where game is not easily seen and most of all, contain tse tse flies! Hunters are prepared to access these areas in pursuit of their sport. Photographic operators are not.

Gov are unable to fund the protection of such wildlife dipersal areas. Without hunters utilising these areas and earning the money it is needed to protect them, they would be doomed. If those areas did not have an economical value to Gov it would become farm land!

The discussion then went over to South Africa and Michel pointed out that wildlife there belongs to the people NOT the state. As a result, it has a value and hence is worth protecting. Conservation money in SA is private money from the game farmers themselves whereas, if wildlife has no value to the locals, they have no reason to protect it. Kenya’s conservation efforts are a shame and the best example on how NOT TO DO IT. The main reason for this IMO is that their agenda is dictated to Gov by the large donors most of which refuse to be open-minded. Michel is convinced, if you give wildlife ownership to the people and allow some - even just 50% - of the income it generates, back to them, you shall see drastic changes to the better.

In my opinion, animals bread by "farmers" cannot be considered wildlife anymore and if the only reason for doing so is to then shoot them, is not a solution either.

Michel admitted that neither he necessarily considers wildlife in SA ranches as true wild game, but one cannot fault them (the game farmers) too much. If it wasn’t for them and their game management policies, lot’s of game species would be on the brink of extinction. Best examples are white and black rhino. In this modern day and age - and even more so in the foreseeable future - their methods of conservation work. Michel added that in this day and age, consumptive utilisation of wildlife (AKA hunting) is an integral tool in wildlife managment and conservation. Without hunting, the wildlife populations in SA outside of National Parks would not exist. The same could be said for most other African countries.

I admitted that unfortunately he is right. "Unfortunately" because the system only works because there is lot's of money made from it. But is it so much to ask for to try and protect wildlife from it's extinction WITHOUT so much profit? Is it not possible for a government or safari venue to protect wildlife without making so much money? This is the frustrating thing for me. I am not expecting them to do it for free, but simply not to be so greedy.

I explained to Michel that I have absolutely no problem with any human killing any animal as long as he/she eats it, but if it is for the pure joy of killing, the desire in me arises to organize events for other sick minded to kill hunters. I would love to see the faces of those tourist hunters if all of a sudden they are being shot at by some others that come there for the joy of shooting humans. And it would be just fair !

Michel explained to me that an ever changing world requires wildlife management and conservation policies to be flexible and adaptable. There is as much wildlife roaming outside of protected areas (buffer zones and dispersal areas) as there is inside. These are areas where human settlements are increasing. The majority of these areas (Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, Botswana and others) are NOT suitable for photographic tourism or other forms of land use like agriculture. They are remote, inaccessible for long times of the year, harsh, densely vegetated where game is not easily seen and most of all, contain Tse-Tse flies! Hunters are prepared to access these areas in pursuit of their sport. Photographic operators are not. Governments are unable to fund the protection of such wildlife dispersal areas, he says, and without hunters utilising these areas and earning the money needed to protect them, they would be doomed. If those areas did not have an economical value to the government, it would become farm land! If it pays, it stays goes a well known saying.

Kenyan wildlife outside National Parks has declined by 60% since the close of hunting. Countries that allow hunting in dispersal areas maintain healthy, viable wildlife populations. Habitat eradication for farming, human encroachment in wildlife corridors, poaching, PAC and human-wildlife conflict have decimated wildlife populations where they are not protected. Give wildlife outside a protected area a value and it will be protected. Hunting does just that. Michel could not understand this concept until he started researching it and becoming a part of it. Sure, if all the money generated by hunting would be poured back 100% into conservation efforts, wildlife would be better off. But that little that trickles down is often equivalent to what the non hunting community is bringing to the conservation table. He’d rather have that then none at all.

I admitted that I support the control of wildlife stock to some extend. As mentioned before, the land has been restricted by "us" therefore we now need to make sure it stays in balance. Weather the KWS shoots animals to control stock or a rich tourist that pays a fortune to the benefit of wildlife conservation makes no difference to the animal but a big one to conservation, but why do cheetahs, leopards, lions, elephants and rhinos need to be hunted?
Do we need to kill cheetahs to receive money for the protection of cheetahs??? Sorry, but this is beyond my comprehension.

Michel explained that each one of the species I mentioned, i.e. cheetah, lion, leopard, elephant and rhino deserve separate explanations.

1st example; the elephant.

In brief, it is the most destructive animal if concentrations per square kilometer of land reaches its maximum carrying capacity. In other words, if too many elephants live in a small area, they will totally destroy the ecosystem. The reality is that numerous wildlife areas have reached or are close to reaching this maximum carrying capacity (Botswana, Zimbabwe all have very good examples of this situation). So there are 4 solutions:

1- Allow nature to take its course and risk loosing 1000's of other plant and animal life as a result earning no revenue in the process. Ele populations would also crash as seen in some parks across Africa

2- Translocate 100's of animals to other areas at prohibitive costs earning very little revenue. costs are just too high and eventually you would end up having a similar scenario as 1 above.

3- Culling the excess number of animals earning no revenue in the process.

4- Allow tourist hunters to pay big bucks to control populations earning huge revenue.

Number 1 and 3 also have a further effect in that ivory stock piles would increase. The fact that legal ivory stock piles cannot be sold is a travesty in itself as the money so raised could be ploughed back into conservation efforts. It would also lower demand for illegal ivory so by default slow down poaching of ivory.

2nd example Cheetah:

Namibia's major export earner is beef and mutton. As a result, most farmers there are ranchers. Cheetah numbers in Namibia are the highest in the world and far from endangered. Ranch owners are either beef/mutton ranchers or wildlife ranchers. Where they are cattle ranchers, then cheetah (and other predators like jackal, leopard, etc) are considered vermin. They are killed on site and persecuted. They have no value to the land owner because they are in the business of growing beef, etc and cheetah's kill their "crop" (i.e. calves). By law, they are allowed to destroy them on their land. There is no danger to the species as populations are healthy. Hence, there is no need to control this activity. In wildlife ranches where hunting occurs as a main business, cheetah hunting is very well controlled as is the hunting of any other specie. You need a license, paperwork, etc. You break the law and punishement is severe. Controlling authority is able to keep order. In actual fact, many cattle farmers are in touch with hunting operators all the time in case they have a "problem" cheetah that they can sell to the hunting operator on short notice for one of their clients. They get rid of the problem and earn some money to repay the loss caused by the killed calves, etc.

Due to the complexity of the subject, the long explanations required as well as the different regulations in different countries I decided to create a separate topic for each animal. To comment on the above examples, please go to the appropriate post and do not comment in this general part. It becomes too confusing!

Going back to the Governments being unable to fund the protection of such wildlife dispersal areas, I admitted that sadly enough he is right, but this is exactly where I would love to see a change. If those areas would be given back to the wildlife as a retreat, wildlife could recover. And it would recover faster if hunters wouldn't shoot some of the animals. Does mankind always have to make a profit? Am I asking to much from mankind to provide land to wildlife without a direct ecological value? In the end there is an ecological value because it would stabilize wildlife stock and that is what the whole African economy depends on.

Michel gave me the following example to answer this question. The Serengeti is amongst the most well covered and well known National Park in history. It earns massive revenue for the Tanzanian Government. The TZ Gov. has given prospecting licenses for gold many years ago. The results indicate that there are huge gold deposits in the Park. Mining these Gold deposits might earn the Gov. more revenue than current revenue from Tourism. So who is to say that 20 years down, there will be a huge gold mine in the middle of Serengeti? If there is a more economically valuable land use than wildlife related activities, then wildlife has little chance to survive in that specific area. There is no land (or very little) to give back. That is the reality of our world. Past trends indicate that even less will be available in 20, 50, 100 years from now. 20 years is a millisecond in terms of evolution but in human terms its enough for the population of Kenya, Tanzania and many other African countries to double. All these people also need land. So the solution is in Management of existing wild herds. And there is no space for sentiment either. The solution cannot be the restitution of historical land to wildlife. Most countries have already set aside wild land as National Parks, etc. There is very little that can be added to existing protected areas. Tanzania, for example, has over 1/4 of its land under some kind of protection for wildlife and plants. That is massive considering that in 25 years their population is expected to double!
- Edited by Carsten on 29.11.2006, 14:55 -

Besides the discussion of specific issues with specific animals I would also like to continue the general discussion about weather hunting is an integral tool of wildlife conservation or maybe just an excuse for making profit.

What we have all realized is that there are some areas outside national parks that may not be suitable for photographic tourism hence no revenue is made to finance these areas. Further, the extending human settlements, farms etc as well as wildlife "crossing it´s borders" increase the confrontation between wildlife and humans causing damage on both sides. Leaving it to itself is clearly not a solution, I think so far we all agree.

The situation as it is today brings up 2 problems.

1. Some species exeed the lands capacity and threaten others directly or indirectly (like elephants that consume so much vegetation that others suffer and reduce in numbers as a result, including their predators).

2. Human-Wildlife conflicts like elephants destroying farmland or predators killing farmers cattle.

The reason for both problems is lack of land. Either the national parks need to be enlarged or at least buffer zones need to be created/enlarged.

Trouble is, there is not much unused land left to solve this issue so easily. We can not simply walk up to some farmer or local, give him a couple of dollars and ask him to build his hut somewhere else.

If we allow controlled hunting in those areas (if I understand correctly it is mainly the buffer zones) we actually keep the situation as it is. It might be a system that works, pays, keeps the situation under control and doesn´t make it worse, but it doesn´t make it better either. Hence I accept strictly controlled culling or maybe even hunting, but only as a temporary solution. I accept it because it stops the situation from becoming worse. However, I demand that there must be a solution down the line that solves the problem by the root. For example, if the money made on hunting is used to increase the size of the national parks and buffer zones, it enables wildlife to increase.
In the end, that is how the whole Masai Mara was born. A part of the Masai land was declared "Non human settlement area" and in return they receive the money earned from it. Why can this not be done on a small scale with farmers or small settlements?

Former farmland can not be unaccessible for tourists because infrastructure already exists and lodges/camps will pop up likes mushrooms especially now that places like the Masai Mara banned any further construction. These lodges/camps will bring further revenue to the area to secure income and further improvement of infrastructure for photographic tourism.

In short, hunting tourism creates the money needed to get the ball rolling. Money that should be there anyhow but obviously some pockets are soo deep that we can not rely on it and need to find alternatives. Once the farmland/buffer zones have evolved into national parks the hunting company can still profit from the park by offering photographic safaris and controlling the stock in the future (naturally the numbers will soon reach it´s limits again). By the way, going on a photographic safari with professional hunters is an amazing experience because the wildlife knowledge of hunters is usually of great depth and elsewhere hard to find.

For putting this theory of mine into practice I see 2 solutions.

Either the money from the hunting companies goes to the district/government and the government continues the plan from there, or

the hunting company itself, bound by contract involving government and/or an institution like the KWS, continues the plan all the way through. In this case, the new "national park" becomes a private one. On the one hand a scary thought to me but on the other hand we see that we can not rely on the government either.

It is always a bit difficult to explain a whole concept in a forum post without writing a book, so forgive me if I jumped a couple of thoughts or steps in the concept.

carsten, sorry - i have honestly tried to read all the in my eyes rubbish posted here! but just couldn't bear what is written there!

CONSERVATION means conservation!
hunting, and even worse culling, is what it means: KILLING and has nothing but absolutely nothing to do with conservation at all. and because the hunters (means killers) make use of the term CONSERVATION it doesn't change the simple action of killing animals for compensating a lack of self-esteem (psycological reason) or making money !
i won't discuss hunting at all - it's waste of time and energy!

i am able to live with the term "hunter" despite i cannot comprehend how a human being is able to kill and extinguish life by cowardly pulling a trigger just in order to pamper its ego or earn a living!

i would never ever judge a local tribe for killing game because it belongs to their tradition and they eat the meat, make use of the skin etc. that has been happening for milliones of years without destroying nature.

but then humans started to interfere with nature because of serving selfish interests or just based on lack of knowledge. and since then we have overpopulations (because the natural enemies got whiped out or at least depleted) on animal's sides or due to increased land consumption on humans sides.
but the result is always the same: humans should not fiddle around nature declaring silly actions in their very own interests as CONSERVATION!
pippa

Hello pippa,
ok, you expressed your feelings about hunters but you don´t exactly provide a solution. What we are doing here is to collect and share knowledge looking for a solution on how to conserve wildlife.

You must understand that humans have "fiddled around with nature" in the past and have created circumstances that wildlife can not be left to itself. The smaller an ecosystem is, the more it needs to be controlled to keep a balance. If this balance is not kept, some animals and plants will dominate and others will vanish. Those that will vanish are the weakest including cheetahs and many other animals that depend on specific conditions. Scavengers or animals like elephants that will eat anything which is green might not need protection but others do. So, how do you keep a balance without killing animals? Provide a profound, realistic solution.

As I mentioned in my previous post, the solution is to rebuild what humans destroyed in the past so that humans no longer need to keep this balance as the ecosystem is big enough to take care of itself. But I fear, if in the meantime wildlife is left to itself, it will be too late for many species.

Neither can I comprehend the joy of killing that tourist hunters bring along but I make a clear differenciation between them and professional hunters that kill animals in concern of a balanced ecosystem. Is a farmer that pulls out weeds between his crop a plant killer? There might still be some black sheep in the hunting business, but I guess the majority have understood and do care about the wildlife at least as much as many conservationists. Even if the only reason is because they look ahead and want to make sure they can still go hunting in a couple of years.

Kenyan conservation activities outside the national parks have not been successful at all if 60% of the wildlife have disappeared. And this without hunting! Hence we need to find a solution that protects and increases those remaining 40%. If the solution is not hunting, what do you suggest?

Interesting points - however a real reason as well for conservbation in Africa NOT being 100% sufficient is due to lack of knowledge, management, local government bad management and insufficient laws which are NOT up held, corruption on ALL scles, local and international and most of all - there are enough funds that are available from 1st world countries however there is hardly ONE good NGO that is able to do a FULL job without having to climb some wall placed again by other NGO's, ministers, group ranches, tribes or even private sectors.
Everyone pulls in a different directions - most want a share of the funds for their own use and it is the wildlife in General that gets effected.
I think it was BwanaMich who said that the small private ranches are able to conserve - even if they are making a buck out of it. The reason that they are able to do this as it is one person making a decision in one large area. When we are talking about National Parks or largew areas and there are more than 2 "managements" involed; the job is harder and harder.

Hey Guys and Gals:

I'm getting depressed!

I've been reading all the new entries on the board the last week and have come to the conclusion that the real problem is GREED. There are millions of poverty-stricken people in Africa who wouldn't dream of harming/annihilating their wildlife. Thus GREED in a few is the reason for poaching, hunting, bushmeat trade, etc.

Greed is obvious in just about everything having to do with wildlife, not just hunting. When camp owners can charge $650.00 - $1,000.00 per night for one person this is obscene! You know in your heart not much of that is paying the employees. This could only happen in Africa. In other countries employers are forced to pay a decent minimum wage, pay for health insurance for their employees, etc., have labor laws that would prevent owners from making people work for three months before getting a day off. Perhaps if the governments started taxing the wealthy more, making them pay fair wages to their employees, etc. one would see a marked improvement in the attitude toward wildlife.

Look at the Masai Mara over the last 50 years. It has made a bundle. A few in high places made big bucks on it, but I'll bet few of the Maasai living in the area got to see any of it. They should be made to account for all their revenue and payouts so that it becomes public knowledge. Then the people could see if they had been treated fairly.

I just posted an article in the news section from Coastweek of an individual who was being honored for his work with MIKE. In the past three years he has counted 700, that is correct, 700 elephant carcasses in the Laikipia area. Granted, some of these would have been from natural deaths. There are ranches in that area making very big bucks, and yet the wildlife is not being preserved. Thus I don't think that we can say that by making money from wildlife it will be preserved.

I just can't buy the "if it pays, it stays" attitude. Wildlife was here much before us humans and has every right to exist. What makes us think that we are so much better that we should control their destiny?