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A leading conservationist in Namibia reports the killing of a desert lion and rare black rhino by a hunter using a bow and arrows in the Hartmann Mountains. This illegal hunt bears similarities to the killing of Cecil the Lion in Zimbabwe. Namibia has a large lion population but the African lion is listed as vulnerable, and black rhinos are listed as endangered. Hunting is legal in Namibia with permits, but questions arise about the legality of this particular hunt. Wildlife conservation organizations condemn the killings and call for a ban on all hunting.
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Instruction page • You are working on a national radio news programme. You are covering this story over the course of an afternoon. • Agency, correspondent, audio, video and contextual material will be fed to you. • Two interviewees will be made available for you to question at video press conferences. • Please write a news flash after slide 2. • Write a 100 word story after receiving the picture entitled, Palmer and dead lion (slide 17). • Write a 200 word feature after you’ve had both interviews.
Reuters: conservationist reports Cecil-style killing of lion and rare rhino by US hunter in Namibia Reuters Windhoek – A leading conservationist in Namibia has said that a desert lion and a rare black rhino have been killed by a hunter using a bow and arrows in the Hartmann Mountains of the Kaokoveld region. A large male lion and a black rhino cow were killed in what Jezz Owen-Jones of the Kunene-Kaokoveld Conservation Trust believes to have been an illegal hunt. The story bears huge similarities to the killing of Cecil the Lion in Zimbabwe in July 2015, when an American dentist paid to kill a lion that was lured out of a national park into a hunting area and shot with a bow and a rrow, before being tracked and killed with a rifle some 40 hours later. Namibia has a large lion population but the African lion is listed by the International union for the Conservation of Nature as vulnerable. Black rhinos are listed as endangered and there are feared to only 2,500-5,500 in the wild in Africa. Namibia has at the most a population of 1.750. Hunting is legal in Namibia, with the correct permits. Lion permits are frequently issued to visiting hunters. Only five permits to shoot black rhinos are issued each year, always for male black rhino. The Namibian Ministry of Environment and Tourism has issued a statement saying it has no knowledge of an illegal hunt but will launch and investigation
The Namibian – newspaper report • Red Drum, Kunene: Namibia’s own Cecil the Lion saga has begun. A large male desert lion and a female black rhino have both been killed by a foreign hunter, believed to be an American from Michigan, using a bow. The animals were killed in a hunting concession between red Drum and Otjihungwa in the Hartmann Valley of Kunene region. • Local conversationists say that there are good reasons to believe the hunt was illegal. Jess Owen-Jones of Kunene-Kaokoveld Conservation Trust said that the rhino killing was definitely illegal because permits are never issue for the killing of female rhinos. He said he couldn’t comment on the legality of the hunting of the lion but said he deplored the killing of any vulnerable or endangered species and said that hunting with a bow was a cruel method that led to prolonged suffering for the animals • Sources in the professional hunting community in Nambia said that bow hunting was legal as were lion and rhino hunting with the correct permissions and dispensations. They said that the bhunt had been organized by Selous Safaris, based in Ssesfontein but with concessions north of red Drum.
Save the Rhino factsheet • Species / population size • Namibia has a total of 1,750 South Western black rhino (D.b. bicornis) and 469 Southern white rhino. Please note that individual population sizes are confidential. • Habitat • Namibia holds about 28% of Africa’s black rhinos and is the stronghold of the South Western subspecies (Diceros bicornis bicornis). With more than 91% of the total population of this taxon found in Namibia (primarily in Etosha National Park, Waterberg Plateau Park and in the Kunene Region), and rhino numbers increasing steadily under a well-established and innovative conservation and management programme, the future of the South Western black rhino will depend on Namibia’s ability to maintain adequate standards of protection (given the poaching crisis), management, monitoring and sustainable utilisation of rhinos, and to expand available areas of range to accommodate further population increase. • Primary activity • Namibia’s Black Rhinoceros Conservation Strategy concentrates on maximizing population growth rates through biological management and range expansion. Its vision is that by 2030, the subspecies D. b. bicornis is re-established in viable, healthy breeding populations throughout its former range, and is sustainably utilized; and the overall goal is a commitment to collectively manage the black rhinos of Namibia as a metapopulation, increasing by at least 5% per year. The Strategy’s overall objectives are as follows:
Born Free condemns killings in Namibia • Will Travers, the President of the Born Free Foundation, has condemned the killing of a lion and an endangered black rhino in Namibia. He said it was cruel abhorrent and and stain on humanity. He called on the Namibian government to investigate and bring to book the culprits and move to ban all hunting.
Born Free on Cecil • News from Zimbabwe that a trophy hunter has killed one of African’s most famous lions – a magnificent male called Cecil – just outside Hwange National Park – has been greeted with dismay by wildlife campaigners and conservationists alike. • Will Travers OBE, President of Born Free Foundation, commented: “This story is so shocking on so many levels. Cecil was of huge value to Zimbabwe’s economy and their Wildlife Service. Now he is gone. According to information I have received, the carcass of a freshly killed animal – a ‘bait’ – was used to lure Cecil out of the protected area where he was shot with a bow and arrow. • The use of a bow and arrow could imply either that the hunter wished to do this on the quiet – no gunshot – or that he was able to get up close enough to use a bow and arrow. Cecil was not afraid of people and so relatively approachable. • Will went on to say: “Cecil was also collared and was part of a long-running Oxford University Research Project. Tragically, 24 of the 62 lions that have been tagged by the project have been shot by sport-hunters and one can only imagine the negative impact that the sport hunting of lions is having on the population of Zimbabwe.”
Selous deny involvement in killing lion and rhino • Jacobus Steyn, a spokesman for Selous Safaris, has spoken to The Namibian and said that his organization would not under any circumstances be involved in illegal hunting of any sort. He said that Selous had a permit for the legal hunting of one male black rhino, purchased through the government’s dispensation for hunting a limited number of rhinos. He categorically denied that they would take a client to hunt a female black rhino and demanded that those accusing him produce evidence or face the legal consequences in the courts.
Expert view on value of hunting as a revenue source in poor rural areas of Africa • A number of Southern African states (South Africa, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe) have argued that legalisation of trade needs to be considered. As with the debate on the trade in narcotics, the argument is made that legalisation will take profits away from organised crime, traffickers and poaching rings; legalisation could ensure that profits from wildlife trading will flow to states and local communities to alleviate poverty and reinvest in conservation. This was a key underpinning argument for the development of community oriented conservation and poverty reduction initiatives; the best known is Campfire in Zimbabwe. The rationale was that local communities should have full control of wildlife resources in their area to sell as sport hunting trophies, sources of ivory and rhino horn on the international market or to use wildlife as a source of protein. The revenue would then be used to alleviate poverty. If returns were spent locally, at the ward level, and if village populations were small, then the value of wildlife could be remarkable and make a significant difference to people’s lives. In two villages in particular, Mahenye and Masoka, Murphree has documented substantial improvements. However, Campfire was increasingly criticised as top down and failing to disburse promised benefits to communities. Equally the global level ivory and rhino horn trade bans under CITES prevented capture of the full value of wildlife - Rosaleen Duffy and Freya St John, Poverty, Poaching and Traffciking: What are the links? , Evidence on Demand/Climate & Environment Infrastructure Livelihoods, http://dx.doi.org/10.12774/eod_hd059.jun2013.duffy
Selous Safaris - • • Hunts • • Price list • • More info • • Contact Us • • Selous Safaris – meet Courtenay and Robyn Selous • • Hunting areas and camps in Zimbabwe • • Previous • • Next • Hunting in Zimbabwe . • Hunting in Zimbabwe with Georgia Safaris who offers some of the finest, rhino Cape buffalo, lion hunting and leopard hunting safaris available in Zimbabwe. As a special offer on our new website we are willing to do a once-off Cape buffalo, leopard AND sable combination hunting deal to be scheduled for 2013. Contact us for details - we know where to hunt!
Green Hunts – an alternative to killing • A green rhino hunt, or any kind of green hunt, is a catch-and-release hunt. You dart the animal with a drug, the animal goes down, the veterinarians and the scientists then study, measure, evaluate and draw blood from the animal to check its health, and you get to make pictures with the animal that you’ve taken while the animal’s unconscious. So on a green rhino hunt, you go through all the stalking and hunting strategies that you go through if you’re planning to take the animal with your bow. However, when you release the arrow, instead of having a broadhead on the end of it, it has a hypodermic needle known as a dart • Green hunts take place in private game concessions in the Hartmann Valley. • The Bowhunter’s Dream: Bill Epeards’“Green Rhino” Bow Hunt • Got Hunts: Many hunters contribute to further research and recovery by doing a rhino green hunt. • This is shooting a rhino with a tranquilizer dart. Once a rhino is darted on your green hunt, a vet will examine and medicate him, and take care of any other necessary data for research. • http://gothunts.com/hunting/rhino-hunting/
International Institute for Environment and Developmenthttp://www.iied.org/markets-payments-for-environmental-services • Markets and payments for environmental services • BiodiversityEconomicsNatural resource management • Share on emailShare on facebookShare on twitterShare on linkedinShare on google_plusone_share • Payments for environmental services (also known as payments for ecosystem services or PES), are payments to farmers or landowners who have agreed to take certain actions to manage their land or watersheds to provide an ecological service. As the payments provide incentives to land owners and managers, PES is a market-based mechanism, similar to subsidies and taxes, to encourage the conservation of natural resources.
Interviewee 1 – Kobus Voetsek of Bliksem Game and Hunting Safaris, Kunene, Namibia. Runs hunting safaris in north-east Kaokoveld and the Caprivi
Jezz Owen-Jones, Kunene-Kaokoveld Conservation Trust – runs conservation projects in Kunene and Kaokoveld. Opposes hunting rhino and favours Payment for Environmental Services instead.