Umbabaat/Ingwelala controversial lion hunt

[Lisbeth]

There are still some/several open questions in this story

[Flutterby]

Comment on the above article from John Varty:

I urge anyone interested in big cats to read michele pickover article...Kruger lions.....hunting for skye....if I was president ramaphosa I would get the intellect behind this article into my cabinet...michele pickover debunks the myth that hunting contributes to conservation...the article shows how unethical government officials hide behind sustainable utilisation to justify trophy hunting....trophy hunting is nothing more than rich people killing for fun..Mr president I urge you instead of pursuing land without compensation you clean up the department of environmental affairs and by extension all provincial nature conservation departments...they are inefficient, corrupt and rotten to the core...to timbavati and umbabat game reserves I say stop trying to run hunting and eco tourism side by side.they are not compatible...follow the sabi sand example...invest in eco tourism, uplift your surrounding communities, partnership with nature and become a champion for conservation...walk away from trophy hunting . tread Lightly On The Earth J.V

[Richprins]

What exactly is the argument? What are the specific rebuttals against trophy hunting other than differing opinions? What does Varty say to the communities that lose income should hunting be stopped...must they eat indignation?

[Lisbeth]

...must they eat indignation?

Better than pap, they would stay slim

[stefan9]

I can never and will never accept hunting. Its blood money plain and simple...

[Dzombo]

I am not pro hunting.
But I do recognise that there are those that want to do it.
Am not going to get into that debate here.

But for me, the main issue is SANP response, or lack thereof.
SANP dropped the fences between Kruger and the private reserves to the west. To create a larger conservation area is my understanding of the reason behind it.
So if this lion that was shot does turn out to be the Skye, which was enticed from the Kruger side of the non existent fence, SANP should be able to take some action. Instead they issued a statement saying that the lion was not shot in a SANP land so they are washing their hands of the issue. And since then their silence has been deafening !
Well...imo you can't have it both ways.

And them of course they lock the topic on "the other side" because they knew of the outcry this issue would cause

[Richprins]

The law is the law though, Dzombs. Not sure what they can do?

[Dzombo]

The law is the law though, Dzombs. Not sure what they can do?

Put the fence back up??

Perhaps this outcry is a good thing

[Lisbeth]

The law is the law though, Dzombs. Not sure what they can do?

Put the fence back up??

Perhaps this outcry is a good thing

I have no idea if this is a thing that happens often, but putting the fence back seems a bit extreme to me. Everybody has been battling to get the fences taken down and putting them back for one lion lost........

[Lisbeth]

Kruger Park Lion Debate: Animal rights activists are just plain wrong.

LETTER TO EDITOR

By Peter Flack• 18 June 2018

At the risk of sounding as if I want to have the last word, let me make a few brief points.

Beginning at the end of the article by Ms Louw and Ms Pickover (the two representative of the minuscule animal rights bodies I referred to in my article), “Kruger Lions: Who really Cares About Conservation”, and the four questions they asked of me, let me reply as follows:

In my youth I culled game for farmers and game ranchers in the Lowveld and Karoo and later on my own game ranch, Bankfontein, and shot hundreds of wild animals who, in all likelihood, would otherwise have ultimately died of starvation or drought as their numbers had grown beyond what the finite land could sustain.

This contributed to conservation by allowing the remaining animals to survive and, subsequently, propagate and increase in number as opposed to all ultimately dying from lack of food and/or water.

The reasons I stopped hunting in my 70th year and my expulsion by WWF-Southern Africa have been traversed at some length and can be read on my website – www.peterflack.co.za – where they have been for all to see for some months.

- While I will not show point by point why the article by the two women is disingenuous at best and dishonest at worst – because it is merely more of the usual emotional animal rightist propaganda rant, which has little or nothing to do with the facts but is designed to stir outrage and emotion – my failure to do so should not be construed as agreeing with anything they have written.
- I would like to return to one point, however, as someone who is passionate about wildlife habitat and wildlife. I have seen over the last 50 years or so how literally thousands of people have bought or converted previously eroded and badly maintained domestic livestock and/or crop farms and, with much time, effort and money, turned them into model extensive commercial and life style game ranches, which are home to a variety of game and wildlife such as birds, insects, reptiles and small predators, which are never hunted, at no cost to the government.
- These ranches cover some 21 million hectares today, which is almost three times the land covered by all national parks and provincial reserves in the country.
- Without the revenue generated by hunting, culling and game capture these properties would not be financially viable and would revert to domestic livestock and/or crops. How do I know? Because I was a game rancher for 20 years.
- Lastly, I have a question for the animal rightists. Why, given the huge amounts of money raised by them each year – a recent US report stated $605-million (over R8-billion) was raised by them in 2017 – have they not bought one hectare of wildlife habitat or one wild animal in this country on which to practise their preservationist policies to demonstrate to the world that it is a viable alternative to the current hugely successful, hunter-based South African and Namibian conservation models? DM

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article ... yduraczbIU