ESCAPE NATURE As you read this, three lions are exploring their new home in KZN. Here’s why this is great news These cats got the creamSomkhanda Game Reserve is situated in the far northern wilds of KZN, between Pongola and Mkuze. ___4711111 Youth For Lions is the latest global awareness initiative. Find out why it’s not cool to pet cubs, and how kids can spread the word, on bloodlions.org infrastructure and train local people in hospitality and reserve management. ‘There is no way captivebred lions could ever have been used in an exercise like this as they have no conservation value,’ says Ian Michler, who was also involved in Blood Lions. ‘This is about expanding habitat using wild lions, and the project being managed by the recognised conservation community.’ Somkhanda’s credentials are golden it has also been involved in the Black Rhino Range Expansion Project, so doing the same for lions is just part of a day’s work. The reserve’s ecotourism approach is also laudable here visitors are encouraged to learn and contribute. Guests are involved in gathering data on game drives and bush walks, they Howard Clelland, Teaga n Cunniffe, supplied

In May this year, a male and two female lions were transferred asleep, on the back of vet Dr Mike Toft’s special trailer from Phinda to Somkhanda Game Reserve in northern KZN, which is owned and run by the local Gumbi community. The trio have spent the past two months acclimatising in a boma, and are ready to stretch their legs.

‘We feel privileged that the reserve is going to be a Big Five reserve our dream is now a reality,’ says Nathi Gumbi, a key player in this community that, after successful process of land claims in 1998, turned what were cattle and game farms into a conservation success.

The lions are the first in the area in 100 years. This means that biodiversity and ecological balance in the reserve is now restored. But the transfer is also part of a lion conservation strategy that aims to expand their range and genetic pool.

Lions were reintroduced at Phinda in 1992, and they’ve thrived to the extent that the numbers often exceed the capacity of the reserve. Finding a place to translocate them to is the tricky part, as habitat loss is one of the greatest perils facing our planet’s wildlife. It’s no surprise that one of the people behind this initiative was also a producer on Blood Lions, the recent documentary that exposed the canned-hunting and captive-breeding industry. Dr Andrew Venter, CEO of Wildlands, has been involved with Somkhanda since 2013, helping to upgrade infrastructure and train local people in hospitality and reserve management. ‘There is no way captive-bred lions could ever have been used in an exercise like this as they have no conservation value; says Ian Michler who was also involved in Blood Lions. ” This is about expanding habitat using wild lions, and the project being managed by the recognised conservation community. Somkhanda’s  credentials are golden –  it has been involved in the Black Rhino Range Expansion Project, so doing the same for lions is just part of a day’s work.

The reserve’s ecotourism approach is also laudable – here visitors are encouraged to learn and contribute. Guests are involved in gathering data on game drives and bush walks, they can help with cattle dipping in neighbouring villages, or sign up for a wildlife conservation experience that includes helping to dehorn rhinos and replace their tracking collars. Back to the lions: ‘They’re bonding nicely and have been feeding well,’ David Gilroy, Wildlands Strategic Manager, told us at the end of June. ‘We anticipate a smooth release into the reserve at the end of July.

Cape Town – On 1 July 2015, Cecil the Lion was killed by an American trophy hunter in Zimbabwe, resulting in the professional hunter having his licence confiscated and facing criminal charges for poaching.

The incident sparked global uproar regarding canned lion hunting and poaching, with the Blood Lions film and campaign running worldwide with the goal to “bring an end to canned hunting and the exploitative breeding of lions and other predators on farms across South Africa”.

But despite all these global efforts to make the general public, tourists and professional hunters aware of the ramifications of pet cubbing and canned hunting, the futile death of lions in many of Africa’s parks continue at the hands of canned hunters.

Two years after the killing of Cecil the Lion, it has been reported that one of his cubs has been shot dead by a big game trophy hunter in Zimbabwe.

The six-year-old lion named Xanda, who was in his prime, was killed in similar circumstances as his father, just outside the Hwange National Park in north-west Zimbabwe, not far from where Cecil was killed in 2015.

“His death was discovered because Xanda was wearing an electronic collar, fitted by researchers monitoring his movements in the area,” reports the The Telegraph.

According to the UK news site, “when the Zimbabwean professional hunter on the shoot, Richard Cooke from RC Safaris, discovered the dead lion had a collar, he handed it back to the researchers”.

Andrew Loveridge from the Department of Zoology at Oxford University, which has a team supplying and fixing collars to monitor the lions in the Hwange National Park, says he fitted Xanda’s collar last October. “It was monitored almost daily and we were aware that Xanda and his pride were spending a lot of time out of the park in the last six months, but there is not much we can do about that,” he told The Telegraph.

“Richard Cooke is one of the ‘good’ guys. He is ethical and he returned the collar and communicated what had happened. His hunt was legal and Xanda was over 6 years old so it is all within the stipulated regulations,” he adds.

Loveridge says he hoped that there would soon be a 5km exclusion zone around the Hwange National Park so that hunters would no longer accidentally shoot collared lions that wonder outside the boundary of the Park.

“The client may have paid about £40 000 (R674 400 at R16.86/£) for the shoot and for Xanda’s head to be cured and mounted and sent to him wherever he lives,” says The Telegraph.

Remembering Cecil the Lion

Cecil the Lion’s death in 2015 placed the spotlight on trophy hunting in Africa. Although the practice is not a novelty, more and more pressure has been put on the industry’s distorted ethical arguments, in a bid to stop lion trophy hunting for good.

Cecil was killed by US hunting tourist, Walter Palmer, who reportedly has a hunting felony history, faced charges for the illegal hunt.

The 13-year-old big cat was shot at night near his birth place, close to the national park. He didn’t die immediately and was tracked down the following day. His head was cured in Bulawayo in preparation to be dried and mounted when police seized it.

The world united to bring attention to the crime committed and an image of Cecil was even projected onto the Empire State building in protest of the trophy hunt.

According to The Telegraph, more than 70% of funds to safeguard Zimbabwe’s wildlife and catch poachers come from revenue from professional hunters.

Overview of ground made to protect lions in Africa

– Australia and France have placed bans on importing lion trophies.

– The Netherlands has placed a ban on importing trophies from lions and 200 other endangered species.

– The US (the country with the most hunter-tourists) has made significant changes to have stricter import requirements.  Since January 2016, hunters wishing to import lion trophies must prove that the killing was necessary to protect lions living in the wild – which is in general very difficult to do. South African sources show that lion hunts involving hunters from the United States have decreased by 70%.

Great Britain is threatening to ban imports from 2017 if the African countries of origin do not maintain their lion numbers more effectively.

– Over 40 international airlines have banned or restricted the carrying of trophies.

– The South African hunting association PHASA has taken a firm stand against the official lion breeders in the country, the South African Predator Association (SAPA) and has distanced itself from this cruel form of hunting

Europe’s largest hunting fair, Germany’s “Jagd & Hund”, and the Austrian “Hohe Jagd & Fischerei” fair have undertaken to oppose canned hunting products and packages.

– Several African states have committed to calling for Africa’s lions to be promoted to the highest level of protection (CITES Appendix 1) at the upcoming international World Wildlife Conference, to be held in Johannesburg in September 2016. It is still uncertain whether the application will achieve the necessary majority.

Meanwhile, the South African Government plans to permit the annual export of 800 lion skeletons to curb poaching, but conservationists say this clearly supports canned lion hunting.