poaching – Coexistwithmeg

How’s the future looking for African Lions? Did you know the king of the jungle, the mighty lion, is being wiped out by humans…

African Lion are listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Redlist and their population is decreasing. The decline in lion populations has been huge, 100 years ago there were approximately 200,000 individuals and today there’s estimated to be less than 23,000 lions left.

Lions face many threats including:

Habitat loss
Prey depletion
Human-wildlife conflict
Illegal trade in body parts for traditional medicines
Trophy hunting

Cases of lion poaching have been reported in Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Uganda.

There is no history of lion bone use in traditional medicine in Asia but there is increasing cases of lion bone being used in place of tiger bone as a result of the decline in tigers (around 3,900 individuals remain).

CITES lists African Lion as Appendix II and allow “export for trade in bones, bone pieces, bone products, claws, skeletons, skulls and teeth for commercial purposes, derived from captive breeding operations in South Africa” with annual export quotas established and communicated annually.

In South Africa, there is something called ‘Canned Lion Hunting’ where the captive lions are shot in a fenced area by ‘hunters’. These lions have often been hand-raised by unsuspecting tourists who have paid for the experience of cuddling, taking selfies with and even helping to raise the cubs, thinking they are helping the wildlife in some kind of rehabilitation type of scenario when in fact it is another way for the canned lion industry to make money. Once the lions are older they are hunted within an enclosure. In 2017, an annual quota of 800 lion skeletons from captive-bred lions was approved and in 2018 the figure was nearly doubled to 1,500.

Lion have lost 85% of their historical range. They play a vital role in the ecosystem as they are top predators that dominate their environment and help keep a balance in the number of prey animals. They also help with disease control by taking the weakest members of the herd. Lions have no natural predators.

How Can You Help Lions?

Raise awareness of the plight of lions
Do not buy wildlife products. The killing would not happen if the demand was not there.
Do not participate in lion petting
Support conservation efforts and anti poaching units

Tread lightly on this Earth,

Coexistwithmeg ♥
Megan Richards

Resources and further reading:
https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/conl.12444
https://www.wwf.org.uk/wildlife/african-lions
https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/tiger
http://checklist.cites.org/#/en/search/output_layout=alphabetical&level_of_listing=0&show_synonyms=1&show_author=1&show_english=1&show_spanish=1&show_french=1&scientific_name=Panthera+leo&page=1&per_page=20

I recently did a talk about my conservation journey and raising rhino orphans. After the talk a lady in the audience asked, “Have you ever been in danger…” I immediately thought ‘yes’ but as she continued her question, my answer changed “… as rhinos are so big and powerful, does working closely with them put you in danger?”

I said…

“That’s a great question. Rhinos are very strong and definitely have the ability to cause us harm if they feel it is necessary, for example to defend themselves, but I never felt like I was in danger while working with them. They are generally very gentle and tend to know our limits, especially when you’ve spent time with them and built that bond.

Although I have been nudged and stood on and knocked into the air a few times and ended up with some scrapes and bruises it was never the intention of the rhino to hurt me. To be honest, most of the ‘run-ins’ I had with the rhino orphans have been hunger-related… You know, in the wild they’d nudge their even bigger, even stronger mums when they are hungry but when they nudge us mere humans to tell us they are hungry it’s quite a bit more than a little nudge. That’s the only thing I can think of but it was never really danger.

However, there is another side to your question because when you asked if I had been in danger the first thing that came to my mind was poachers. So, yes, I have been in danger while at the orphanages but not because of the rhinos, because of poachers. The most afraid and at risk I feel I have been has been a result of the potential of poachers coming to attack the orphans for their small horns. There have been times we’ve been told we need to be on high alert because of intel that poachers are targeting us so for me when I think of being in danger it’s the humans that worry me, not the rhinos.”

Tread lightly on this Earth,

Coexistwithmeg ♥
Megan Richards

Tag: poaching

Poaching of African Lions

Have You Ever Been in Danger?