[CAT] "Cecil Is One of Hundreds of Lions Killed Recently in Zimbabwe"

[rfmcdonald]

National Geographic's Brian Clark Howard reports about the science involved in the hunting of lions in Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe is thought to have between 500 and 1,680 lions remaining, about 80 percent of which live in protected areas. The country has the highest proportion of lions that can be legally hunted, along with Tanzania, which is home to 40 percent of Africa’s lions.

Across the continent, lion numbers have plummeted by more than 80 percent over the past century, from 200,000 to less than 30,000.

Zimbabwe’s poverty and remoteness has made it harder for game officials there to keep a close eye on legal lion hunting and to prevent poaching than in some surrounding countries, says Wayne Bisbee, a trophy hunter and conservationist who often visits Africa. Zimbabwe is also often cited for its corruption—its president, Robert Mugabe, has ruled the country for 35 years— which can lead to lax or unequal enforcement.

[. . .]

In 2013, 49 legal lion trophies were exported from Zimbabwe, out of about 665 such trophies that come from Africa each year.

Zimbabwe’s wildlife authority has issued a statement saying it is aggressively investigating what it calls the illegal hunt of Cecil and has jailed two of the guides that arranged the shooting trip of American dentist Walter Palmer. The guides currently on bail in the Cecil case could face as much as 15 years in prison, and Zimbabwe’s authorities have asked for Palmer to be extradited to their country to face possible charges.