Cecil the Lion. A prime example, from Zimbabwe, of the best of the species. That wonderful black mane, quite rare now in lions, that powerful demeanor and wild presence, now reduced unforgivably to a rug, in some idiot dentist's house. Lured out of his protected space into a hunting concession with bait, and then shot with a bow and arrow. A lousy shot, apparently, as it did not kill him, instead allowing him to suffer for over 40 hours before he was tracked and shot. One wonders if Walter Palmer, the wealthy US dentist, is any more accurate with a drill than a bow and arrow.
The killing of Cecil, while tragic, is just a slice of the tragedy pie that is the state of lions in Africa today. Estimated numbers suggest that today Africa has less than 30,000 lions. A population estimate in 2012 put numbers at 32,000. This might sound like a huge number, but remember these estimates are for a continent and not a country.
Just 50 years ago, there were about 100,000 lions. So there has been a 70% drop in population. Habitat loss is the main reason for the decline. Just 10,000 years ago, lions were the most widespread mammals after humans. Then agriculture started, and they steadily started to lose their home ranges.
But trophy-hunting has played its own insidious role. When idiots with big egos like Walter Palmer the dentist want to kill a lion, they want to kill a big male lion with a dramatic mane. Usually male lions like that are the prime of their species, and their genes are crucial for keeping lion populations healthy and strong. When the males are killed, prides get thrown in disarray as other males try to take over and kill cubs. Female lions who fight to protect cubs get injured and killed. Several conservationists support hunting as they say that without hunting, more wild spaces would be converted to farms as the money made through hunting incentivises the owners of concessions to keep the habitat wild.
But we have to ask what is stopping African countries and the IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, from declaring the lion as an endangered species. Not only are lion numbers in steady decline, but many populations suffer from bovine TB and feline HIV, making them vulnerable and weak to disease. They are also in conflict with people over cattle deaths.
Right now, the lion is declared as a vulnerable species, and African countries still make their own laws on hunting. The Lion is also only on appendix 2 of CITES, the Convention On International Trade In Endangered Species. This means licenses to hunt can be obtained legally, and a certain amount of trade in lion body parts is allowed. For example, Cecil's head and skin was allowed to be taken out of Zimbabwe and into the US. If lions were shifted into appendix 1 of the CITES laws, all hunting and trade would have to be stopped.
With hundreds of millions of dollars coming into African nations through hunting, and much of the bed rock of modern conservation in Africa being built on a theory of sustainable hunting, it's an uphill battle to get African countries on board to stop all hunting. Hunting has reduced a great deal in the last two decades with greater public protests and tourism also becoming major money spinners, but with species numbers also dropping, it is still a significant concern.
There are community-owned hunting concessions in Africa that have worked well. As communities make money off the hunting of the animals, they help protect the habitat for the animal and stop all illegal hunting. The laws of the legal hunts are strict, with only older non-breeding animals being declared fair game.
In response to the reduction of legal hunts has emerged the reviling practice of canned hunting, where lions and other big cats are bred in captivity, hand-raised by humans, and then once grown to the size of a trophy, offered up to hunters. These animals don't run, could be drugged, are fenced in with nowhere to go, and are basically sitting ducks. South Africa can proudly claim to be the capital of canned hunting. Owners of canned hunting farms will say they are doing a service, as they are anti the trophy hunting of animals in the wild, and because they are providing a service that aids conservation as their animals are captive bred. If Cecil was a shocker, imagine a lioness, a mother, shot by a hunter against a fence, from where she did not run because her cubs were on the other side. Imagine her dead with blood and milk flowing out of her body while her cubs look on. No, I am not making this up. This is a video I have seen and used in my documentaries on canned hunting .
The word "game" in reference to animals that are hunted, some say, is derived from the Greek word "Gamos", which symbolizes a marriage, a union between gods. Here, it symbolizes a union between the hunter and the hunted. When we humans lived as hunter-gatherers, hunting, while a survival tool, was a spiritual expression with the deep understanding of the entwined connections between all living things in the web of life. Even in that time, we knew better than to kill apex predators like lions unless it was in self-defense. In fact, in Southern Africa, there are accounts of cooperative hunting between the San, the bushmen, and Lions.
It is such a great pity today that it is about the divide between man and animals. A practice driven by egos in the notion that we are greater, when in actuality we are just the human animal blundering our own way through the living world. Losing that basic connection to nature shows today, as we are deep in the middle of the sixth mass extinction (we have had five mass extinctions already in the world over the many millions of year with the dinosaurs being the last one), climate change, and a countdown to our own extinction.
(Swati Thiyagarajan is an Environment Editor with NDTV)Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.