Lions do not fare well in terms of publicity and awareness

Not many people realize there are fewer lions remaining on the planet than rhinos, elephants, orang-utans, chimpanzees, blue whales or polar bears and comparatively speaking fewer even than tigers. We say this because whilst there are only around 3,200 tigers left now, they are solitary animals whereas lions, whose remaining numbers are around 15,000, are the only social cat and need to live in prides of around 10 animals to thrive. So, in terms of lion “units, we are down to the last 1,500 and only 5 viable populations left on the African continent.

We absolutely applaud the initiatives leading to the illegal wildlife trade conference on 21st May at St James’s Palace and we thank our Royal Family for highlighting the catastrophic growth of the illegal wildlife trade. But we were dismayed to see that yet again, the lion was not discussed despite the fact that the escalating lion bone trade (to replace tiger bones in Asian Traditional Medicine) is fuelling unprecedented levels of poaching of lions across the African continent. In addition, it is well documented that lion cubs are being smuggled to South Africa to feed their breeding programmes for the “canned” hunting trade and to the Arab Emirates to feed the pet trade. 

This follows a similar story at the recent CITES conference held in Bangkok this year. Lions were not even on the agenda. Lions are the ONLY big cat species not on CITES Appendix 1. A crazy situation that is being allowed as lions are the number one species desired by trophy hunters and the power, money and influence of trophy hunting lobbies are very strong.

Something needs to be done and quickly.

• We are calling for accurate lion counts in the few remaining African lion range states, to replace the current data based on questionnaires, guesstimates and extrapolations from habitat data. 
• We are calling for accurate lion counts to be conducted in hunting concessions by independent assessors. 
• We are calling for other African lion range states to join Botswana, Kenya and Zambia to put a halt to all lion trophy hunting. 
• We are calling on the importing countries to ban lion trophies as the offtake levels are unsustainable. 
• We call on all importing countries to ban lion trophies from “canned” hunting sources as it is an industry based on cruelty and a lack of morals and ethics. 
• We call on UNESCO and UNEP to pass resolutions to declare lions a World Heritage Species and to ensure maximum levels of protection for the species. 
• We call on the world public to take action to prevent further trade in lion products and to spread awareness about the ever-declining numbers in Africa. 
• We call on all members of the public, grant-making agencies, governments, corporations, and international bodies to significantly increase funding for effective lion conservation programmes that reduce human/lion conflict, resurrect national protected areas and stabilize remaining lion populations.  

Further trade, prevarication, complacency and dawdling is out of the question for a species so crucially important not only for our culture and heritage but also for the health and biodiversity of Africa’s ecosystems.

Picture credit: Chris Harvey  

If you have not already signed up to our mailing list, you can add your name here and keep up to date with our ongoing work and, most importantly, DONATE to support our work to conserve the remaining fragile lion and wildlife populations. Thank you.

LionAid is proud to be taking part in the very first Big Give Charities Raffle and we hope you will be keen to support us - and be in with a chance of winning fantastic prizes! For full details on the raffle, please click here 

To buy your tickets on behalf of LionAid now, please click here   

                                                                     Thank you Zulus

On May 17, the South Africa Inkatha Freedom Party issued the press statement below. LionAid would like to thank the IFP for their support of our position on canned lion hunting, and trust the other political parties in South Africa will take note. The IFP is to be commended for addressing this issue negatively impacting South Africa’s international wildlife conservation image. 

PRESS RELEASE

The Inkatha Freedom Party supports all calls to end recreational killing of lions in South Africa. IFP Spokesperson on the Environment, Mrs CN Zikalala, MP said, "Lions are being bred in captivity, in most instances tranquilized and then released into large enclosed areas to be hunted. They are then being 'hunted' by these pseudo 'hunters' who take great pride and satisfaction in being able to kill a tame lion, at point blank range with a high powered rifle. This is as pathetic as it is cruel."

Zikalala further added that, " It is reported that these lions are bred for the sole purpose of being hunted, often spending the majority of their lives in small, cramped quarters, are forced to breed and are released into controlled environments only when they are about to be shot. The wild lion population is also under threat with numbers dwindling from 450,000 to only 20000 currently left in the wild."

The IFP accordingly urges the Minister of Environmental Affairs to immediately ban or at the very least, severely limit the number of lion hunting permits issued in South Africa each year.

If you have not already signed up to our mailing list, you can add your name here and keep up to date with our ongoing work and, most importantly, DONATE to support our work to conserve the remaining fragile lion and wildlife populations. Thank you.

              President Ali Bongo Ondimba of Gabon – fighting poaching is all about political will

Yesterday’s Illegal Wildlife Trade Meeting at St. James’ Palace was a mixture of the predictable and the hopeful. 

Both the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge made presentations, with Prince Charles stressing the need for urgency, new approaches, collaboration, much better law enforcement, demand reduction and provision of employment alternatives to poaching. He said we are involved in a race against time. Prince William stressed the need of youth to become more involved as it is their heritage that is being destroyed. Prince Charles promised a further meeting on the issue in the autumn, this one to involve Heads of State.

Their comments were a breath of fresh air in contrast to those of some other presenters, who are beginning to look like they have been at too many similar meetings and keep saying the same things. David Higgins of Interpol mentioned the need to coordinate the gathering and analysis of data on the syndicates, the need to professionalize the wildlife crime investigators and prosecutors, and the need for more cooperation and political will to combat the illegal trafficking. John Scanlon of CITES said the significant gains made by CITES over the past 40 years were under threat and that the trends were disturbing. He said when put against ruthless opponents, a commensurate response was needed. He said we know the way forward, and what is lacking right now is the will by many to take strong action. He called for better financing and rigorous efforts to identify and prosecute the kingpins as targeting the poachers themselves was not going to deliver substantive progress. He mentioned that for the first time there were people speculating on extinction to drive up the prices of animal products, and said that CITES would use it’s “teeth” – compliance measures – to ensure a lessening of the illegal trade. 

Sabri Zain of TRAFFIC and Peter Knights of WildAid both stressed the need for demand reduction but disagreed to some extent on the process. Zain mentioned that to date demand reduction has not been seen to be particularly effective as the issues involved were complex – including factors like social status, lifestyles and outward expressions of wealth to curry favours in business transactions. He felt that demand reduction would be most effective if Government-led. He also mentioned that there were good examples of demand reduction working in the past and mentioned that Japan, historically a major ivory consumer, had seen a great reduction in demand thanks to awareness campaigns and Government action. Peter Knights agreed to some extent, but mentioned that demand reduction in countries like Japan had been followed by demand increases in other consuming nations due to newly emerging rich economies. These newly affluent countries had therefore stimulated a new round of poaching to satisfy their demands. He said it was imperative to target society via celebrity campaigns and the social media, and that public outreach campaigns were not a strong point of Governments. 

I had been looking forward to hear what Thea Carroll of the Department of Environmental Affairs of South Africa was going to say. Predictably, she reported South Africa was mounting a “strong response” to rhino poaching by an integrated effort among police, the South African Defence Force, the National Prosecuting Authority and the wildlife ranger force. She said it was imperative to find long-term solutions and involve communities. The reality is that since the beginning of the year 353 rhinos have been poached in South Africa - a rate of one every ten hours heading for a predicted total of over 900 in 2013. 

Jorge Rios of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said poaching was not a conservation issue any longer but had evolved into a transnational organized crime. He said national legislations were largely incapable of dealing with wildlife crime and that current conventions on organized crime and corruption needed to be implemented. 

The presentations ended with those of Ian Craig of the Northern Rangelands Trust of Kenya and Lee White, Executive Secretary of the National Parks of Gabon. Craig urged the involvement of communities in leadership, care and commitment to wildlife through the establishment of community conservancies. White, in a quiet and carefully worded speech provided in my opinion the best presentation. He said the reason why Gabon was doing relatively well in protecting her wildlife was because there was the tremendous political will to do so. President Ali Bongo Ondimba had earlier stated “Gabon has a policy of zero tolerance for wildlife crime and we are putting in place institutions and laws to ensure this policy is enforced.” Gabon burned her ivory stockpile in June 2012 (unfortunately not an example taken up by many others) and has also mobilized their army and police forces and all government departments in a coordinated effort in what is rightly seen as a trans-border crime. Gabon is a shining example of how political will can make a decisive and meaningful difference in cutting through obstacles to achieve conservation of her wildlife heritage. 

Contrast that determination to the remarks made at the conference by Owen Paterson, the UK Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. He said the UK government was “determined” to play a part in fighting wildlife crime, that the UK was “committed” to develop the tools to do so and that failure would shame us all. Meanwhile his department has significantly cut funding to the police National Wildlife Crime Unit, only reluctantly and by public pressure agreeing to extend some financial support for one year. Paterson did announce a department “awareness raising” programme called “If They’re Gone” for just four species – elephants, rhinos, tigers and orang-utans. As mentioned by Peter Knights, public outreach is not going to be well-handled by governments – in this case by a government that has ignored that 60% of wildlife species in the UK have declined drastically in the past 50 years and that one in ten species are now in danger of extinction.

Lions received no mention at the conference, perhaps because there is still not the realization that lions are greatly affected by destructive trade. Much of this trade has the veneer of legality – trophy hunting – that has nevertheless contributed significantly to the relentless decline of the species. Also, there is as yet little realization that lions are now being targeted for their bones as a substitute for tiger bones in the traditional medicine markets. Trophy hunting provides a strange bedfellow to the poaching crisis – for example, in 2010 Cameroon exported close to 70 elephant trophies while mobilizing the army after 40 elephants were killed by poachers in March 2013. Until the realization hits that trade in species of wildlife in rapid decline – legal or illegal – must be stopped, lions will continue to draw the short straw of being ignored until it is too late.  

So, as I said, a mixed bag of messages with some high points. The Prince of Wales can do much good as he is non-political yet very influential. Together with a slowly growing number of Heads of State like Ali Bongo and Ian Khama of Botswana the African political will to conserve their national heritage is growing. Rather than moving from conference to conference where the same messages are being repeated, there needs to be a sense of building on progress. As Prince Charles said we are now in a race against time. In a following blog I will show that we have ignored all past trends since it seems that we can only respond to crises. And the crisis now is that we have no more room for error and complacency, our backs are now securely pinned against the wall. The choice is clear and unavoidable – action by deeds or extinction. 

Picture credit – James Morgan/WWF 

If you have not already signed up to our mailing list, you can add your name here and keep up to date with our ongoing work and, most importantly, DONATE to support our work to conserve the remaining fragile lion and wildlife populations. Thank you.

                                                  13 year old Oliver Timms shows the way…..

This Saturday, the 18th May 2013, Oliver Timms, a 13 year old autistic boy is taking on a huge  fundraising challenge because, as he says

 “I am raising money for Lions because they are dying out and being poached by bad people. I am worried about them and want to help. If we want to see Lions in the future we need to support them by raising money to protect them and their habitat”

Oliver will be taking part, along with his dad, in the South Downs Trekathon which is described by the organisers as “tough”. They go on to say that “The full 26 mile walk should take approximately 8-10 hours for fit and strong walkers; others should allow longer. It may take some walkers up to 12 hours or more” 

What an AMAZING effort. Young Oliver is truly showing the way by undertaking such an arduous challenge for the lions he loves. Actions speak louder than words and we hope you will all respond to his wonderful fundraising effort by donating as Oliver is hoping you will..

He is an inspiring young man with a true lion heart.  

Go Oliver!

You can donate to his Trekathon here.

                                                                            Yours for $10,000

Given that South Africa is supplying considerable volumes of lion bones to mainly Laos but also Vietnam and China (see table below) and that LionAid has warned that such trade could well stimulate a demand that would increasingly involve poaching of lions, an article in the recent edition of Botswana’s Ngami Times newspaper is worrisome. 

The South African trade involves lion breeders/canned lion hunters and taxidermists at least, and it is reported that lion bones are selling for about $165 per kilo in South Africa and about $300-$500 at destination. The value of a lion skeleton could therefore be in excess of $10,000. In China, lion bones are soaked for a variable period in rice wine, whereas in Laos and Vietnam the bones are made into a “paste” with added ingredients like herbs (some reports say opium is also mixed in). The paste is then also dissolved in rice wine. Such bone tonics are used to treat a variety of ailments.

Lion bones are being used as substitutes for tiger bone potions, and bones from wild lions are considered more efficacious than those bred in captivity – the same applies to tiger bones from wild tigers versus those sold for traditional Chinese medicines from the extensive “tiger farms” in China.

The article (http://www.ngamitimes.com/) states the following:

“The Ministry of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism has strongly warned farmers against staging livestock predation incidents, adding that the full strength of law will be applied to such offenders. The director of the Department of Wildlife and National Parks, Oduetse Koboto said some farmers colluded with foreign nationals to stage incidents of livestock predation in order to claim compensation from government. He states that “such perpetrators illegally killed and harvested certain parts from wild animals for illicit trade. They later surrender skins and other animal remains to the Department of Wildlife and National Parks to legitimise their claims for losses against predators.”Koboto explained to the Ngami Times that this is a suspected new development which the department intends to nip in the bud. Though he could not point to a specific incident at this stage, the wildlife director maintained that some of the reported cases of livestock predation have been highly suspicious, and that Ngamiland is one of those regions where such cases have raised eye-brows. He further disclosed that such incidents involve primarily lions and leopards.” 

In South Africa, Vietnamese and Thai nationals have been arrested at O.R. Tambo International Airport with illegal lion bones in their luggage, but levels of the illegal trade are considered much higher than such occasional seizures suggest. With authorities concentrating on illegal ivory and rhino horn shipments, bones could well be smuggled out undetected. 

The extent to which poaching of lions occurs is difficult to estimate. Since poached lion carcasses are much smaller than those of elephants and rhinos, their detection is more difficult. Even when found, lion remains are likely to be seen as natural mortality and subsequent carcass destruction by scavengers. 

In India, all carcasses of tigers are considered poaching incidents until other reasons for mortality can be supported. Perhaps lion carcasses should now be treated with the same degree of suspicion. 

Picture credit: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bestand:Lion_anatomy_lateral_skeleton_view.jpg

                     Table 1: Lion bone exports from South Africa listed on CITES records 

If you have not already signed up to our mailing list, you can add your name here and keep up to date with our ongoing work and, most importantly, DONATE to support our work to conserve the remaining fragile lion and wildlife populations. Thank you.

LionAid is proud to be taking part in the very first Big Give Charities Raffle and we hope you will be keen to support us - and be in with a chance of winning fantastic prizes! For full details on the raffle, please click here 

To buy your tickets on behalf of LionAid now, please click here   

The decline in lion populations is getting worse by the week..... we not only have the lion trophy hunting which continues apace but we also now have the burgeoning lion bone trade for Traditional Chinese Medicine, the cub smuggling for the pet trade ( mainly for UAE market) and the continuing loss of habitat and human/wildlife conflict.

We estimate that there are only around 15,000 lions left now on the entire African continent. 

Most people are aware of the crises affecting tigers, elephants, polar bears and rhinos but whenever we mention that there are fewer lions left on the planet than polar bears, rhinos or elephants, they are astonished! And when it comes down to tigers, there are circa 3,200 tigers left which is appalling, but they are solitary cats so we are looking at 3,200 separate “units”. Lions are the ONLY big cat which is social and needs to live in prides of approx. 10 animals. So our estimate of 15,000 lions left needs to be divided by 10 to give a realistic equivalent figure. We are looking at only about 1,500 lion “units” left and only an estimated 5 viable populations. It is truly an unrecognised  and unsupported crisis. And you can see how bad it is when you then consider that the lion is the only big cat not listed on Appendix 1 (endangered). In fact it should be on the very top of the list!

Our biggest problem is funding. The UK Government is not prioritising lions so no funding there and the EU won’t admit there is a problem so no funding there either! Companies are resistant to new funding initiatives and stick with their “faves” they have had for years or have just genuinely cut back on supporting the charity sector. 

The general public, as I mentioned above, are generally unaware of the crisis affecting lions and don’t really donate anything, or they too stick with their old favourites and don’t think to check who is actually doing the work and producing results or even worse, check if their favourite charity is one of the big names that support lion trophy hunting. 

I think it has all got worse with the onslaught of social media because these days people show their support by retweeting or by clicking “like” on Facebook. How many of them stop to think how donation dependent NGO’s like us can carry on our work with no funding!

So we need to find new ways to get the help we desperately need and maybe this initiative below is one of them. 

Please help us if you can!

LionAid is proud to be taking part in the very first Big Give Charities Raffle and we hope you will be keen to support us - and be in with a chance of winning fantastic prizes! For full details on the raffle, please click here  

Every charity registered on the Big Give can sell tickets to their supporters - and the charity selling the most tickets will win £500! By entering the raffle, you can help us get closer to this goal and also be in with a chance of winning one of the following great prizes:

1st prize - £2,000 cash, or a luxury holiday for two

2nd prize - £1,000 cash

3rd prize - £500 cash

10 x runners’ up prizes of £50

Tickets cost just £1 (min. 10 tickets) and we shall receive 96p for each ticket bought, with the other 4p going towards the administration costs.  A fantastic way to support us and to win great prizes!

To buy your tickets on behalf of LionAid now, please click here   

 and select 'Buy Raffle Tickets'

Thank you for your support...and good luck!

If you shop online, you can raise money for LionAid at no extra cost to you!

We have just registered with www.givingabit.com who have partnered with over 1,200 shops that will pay us a donation every time a purchase is made.

It will not cost you a penny more and it is free to sign up. In fact you could even save money as there are thousands of discount codes too!

You still buy directly from your favourite shops, including Amazon, Play.com, Sainsbury’s, John Lewis, Vodafone and many more – you just visit them through the givingabit.com website to create a donation for us!

All you need to do is go to www.givingabit.com and sign up. Once you have signed up, click on ‘Find a Charity or Community’ from your Quick links box, and choose LionAid

Thank you for your continued support!

Today, we want to share with you a new youtube video,

created by B-R-A-V-E Badger who are working very hard to stop the cull. See their website here.

The youtube is called Badgerusalem and you can view it here.

You can add your weight by signing the e-petition here

 Picture credit: http://www.savethebadger.com/ 

If you have not already signed up to our mailing list, you can add your name here and keep up to date with our ongoing work and, most importantly, DONATE to support our work to conserve the remaining fragile lion and wildlife populations. Thank you.

This a  26 mile walk following part of the famously scenic South Downs Way and has been graded as a "tough" challenge by the organisers. 

Says Oliver:

"I am raising money for Lions because they are dying out and being poached by bad people. If we want to see Lions in the future we need to support them by raising money to protect them and their habitat."

Please support this magnificent effort by Oliver. He is a good example to us all. He combines his concern for lions with immediate action.

Click here to view Oliver's Just Giving Fundraising page and to make your donation.

Thank you! 

                                              Bow hunting of lions lives on in South Africa

An article today appeared in the South African newspaper “Beeld” concerning a video (Warning: graphic animal cruelty) of a bow hunter shooting the young female lion from the back of a vehicle. As the article is in Afrikaans, I have translated some of it here:

“A video showing a young female lion shot with a bow and arrow from the back of a vehicle has set blood boiling among hunters, wildlife breeders, conservationists and animal activists.

A search is on for the bow hunter so he can be questioned.

The people in the video are speaking Afrikaans. They chase the lion back and forth with their vehicle, but she keeps hiding behind a bush. Later, one of the men calls his workers and tells them to chase the lion out from behind the bush with a tractor.

It seems as if the bow hunter shoots the lion twice. It is not clear if the lion is dead after the second shot. 

Adri Kitshoff, chairman of the Professional Hunter’s Association of South Africa (PHASA) branded this as abhorrent and said the practice should be eradicated. PHASA did not want to be associated with it.

During a professional hunt the animals should have a reasonable chance to escape.

Kitshoff said it is unacceptable, unethical, unlawful and cowardly to hunt from the back of a vehicle.

Isabel Wentzel of the National Animal Protection Association sees this as shocking. Canned breeding and hunting of half-tame animals is a flourishing business in South Africa and should be eradicated, she said. 

‘This is a scandalous abuse of our wildlife and a blot on South Africa’s name.’

Professor Pieter Potgieter, chairman of the South African Predator Breeder’s Association (SAPBA) , [referred to as the Lion Breeder’s Association in the article], said his organization also distanced itself from such acts.  According to him it is unlawful to hunt a lion in an enclosure smaller than 1,000 hectares. 

The Lion Breeder’s Association also forbids bow hunting and hunters are not allowed to hunt from the back of a vehicle.”

The comments by the chairman of the Professional Hunter’s Association (PHASA) and the chairman of the South African Predator Breeder’s Association (SAPBA) are interesting to say the least. Perhaps it is an indication of how completely out of touch they are?

South Africa requires a registered member PHASA to be present during all hunts of “dangerous” game. PHASA therefore seems not to have any control over their members, as this is far from the first time that canned lion hunts have been conducted in small enclosures, from the back of vehicles, and with bow and arrow. PHASA members were also present during all “pseudo” hunts of rhinos, including the now infamous cases where Thai prostitutes posed as “hunters”. I would suggest PHASA finds out to what extent members have abused existing rules of the Association and ban them. PHASA has been associated with canned hunting of lions since its inception, and for the chairman to suddenly discover any level of conscience is hardly credible. Also, canned hunting by definition does not allow the animal any means of escape (as they are all in enclosures), so the chairman referring in any way to the concept of “fair chase” can only be roundly ridiculed.

The same level of derision should meet the comments made by the chairman of SAPBA. Lions are regularly hunted in enclosures smaller than 1,000 hectares. Similarly, many South African hunting companies advertise lion bow hunting, and there are literally dozens of pictures and videos on the internet showing bow hunters in action and with their trophies. Also, there are many videos showing “hunters” shooting from the back of vehicles whether using rifles or guns. 

It is unimaginable that these chairmen are talking about morals and ethics and lawful acts when their organizations have long thrived on the absence of application of any of those measures. SAPBA breeds lions for one reason only – to have them killed. And PHASA members have aided, abetted and profited from such activities by their “supervision” of thousands of lion canned hunts (5,892 from 2002-2011). 

I’m happy to see Ms Wentzel of the South African National Animal Protection Association calling the practice reprehensible and a blot on South Africa. Until canned hunting of lions ceases, whether by internal pressure from South Africans or external measures to prohibit the import of all canned hunting trophies (as they all involve animal cruelty), it will remain a blot and a stain on South Africa that will tarnish any hope of being seen as a country concerned with wildlife conservation. South Africa was a pariah nation during the time of Apartheid and cannot afford, as a major destination for nature tourism, to be branded so again though its callous abuse of wildlife. 

Picture credit: http://www.africahunting.com/content/2-canned-lion-hunting-928/

If you have not already signed up to our mailing list, you can add your name here and keep up to date with our ongoing work and, most importantly, DONATE to support our work to conserve the remaining fragile lion and wildlife populations. Thank you.

                                                     Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead

On April 17 we attended a very interesting meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Conservation and Wildlife to discuss the issue of badger culling and bovine tuberculosis.  

The panel consisted of Adam Quinney (Vice President, National Farmers Union), Sir Jim Paice MP and former farming Minister, Simon King (President, Wildlife Trusts) and Dr. Brian May (Team Badger). The meeting was chaired by Angela Smith MP.

Additional information to the Group was provided by LionAid, interpreting recent results of molecular genetic epidemiology studies based on whole genome sequencing. This information showed that the epidemiology of the disease was not well understood, that the role of badgers in bTB transmission to cattle was not clear, and that maintenance of bTB in cattle could well involve latent infections, persistence of the pathogen in soil for many years and cattle to cattle transmission despite existing movement controls.   

Discussion centred on the questionable need of a badger cull given scientific uncertainty of outcomes and the possibility of exacerbating bTB outbreaks, the decision by Government to proceed with the upcoming culling test, the issue of whether the vote in Parliament on October 25, 2012 (147 against further culling, 28 for) could be ignored by Government and whether Parliament was sovereign in the case of the badger cull, the possibility and efficacy of vaccination, and the risks involved by Government pushing through badger culling against the will of Parliament and the voting public. 

It was confirmed by Sir Jim Paice that the planned cull in June was purely an exercise to determine whether 70% of badgers could be exterminated from test regions by shooting them at night. This culling therefore has nothing to do with bTB control per se, it is only to determine the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of eliminating badgers. It was not clear how the 70% benchmark could be reached given uncertainty of badger numbers before the cull, the strong possibility that badgers will escape the kill zones and increasing wariness of badgers surviving initial attempts. 

After the meeting we had a brief but very informative discussion with Mr Quinney who made an excellent presentation at the meeting and was at all times careful, reasonable and receptive of new information. There have been endeavours in the past to polarize the issue of badger culling  with farmers on one side and conservationists on the other but this is overly simplistic. We pointed out to Mr Quinney that British farmers have been living together with wildlife for millennia and are indeed contributing to conservation of wild animals that live on their land. He accepted this and pointed out that the goal for the farmers was to control bovine tuberculosis in the most efficient way. He was very receptive to use of best scientific information to prevent a waste of time and money in pursuit of techniques with questionable effectiveness. He admitted that there were considerable problems with currently administered antibody tests among cattle – it is possible that animals in the early stages of infection will test negative, that the test did not work well among older animals, and that testing should be more frequent in outbreak areas. False negative tests could well be a source of bTB in herds when infectious cattle had been transported. 

Mr Quinney was fully cognizant that bTB can persist in the soil for long periods of time. We discussed with him that the reason why bTB is relatively rare in northern regions of the UK could be more related to longer and colder winter conditions hostile to survival of the pathogen outside the host, rather than any connection with resident badger populations. (see Point Three below). He did not believe deer were much involved in UK bTB transmission to cattle as there is little opportunity for deer (browsers) to infect cattle (grazers), but accepted that the epidemiology of bTB could be much more complicated than is currently believed.

We have asked for a further meeting with Mr Quinney as we believe that farmers are ready to be part of solutions that reduce incidence of bTB in cattle and that do not necessarily involve blind adherence to Government plans to cull badgers. Government must not believe they can force such measures down the throats of farmers, Parliament and the general public based on unjustifiable “scientific” evidence. Sir Jim Paice stated at the meeting that the vote in Parliament was non-binding, that Government from time to time must make unpopular decisions “for the greater good” and that the Government does not have to be swayed by popular opinion. An increasingly better-informed public will not accept slaughter of wildlife as what seems to be an increasingly desperate attempt by Government to “take action” despite all those urging caution. Ministers should hesitate to emulate Admiral David Farragut in the battle of Mobile Bay almost 150 years ago who issued the paraphrased order “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” Farragut was promoted but Ministers with that approach are likely to be sacked.

Before we end, a few more things to consider about bTB epidemiology.

• First, bTB has an extremely wide range of susceptible species – humans, cattle, badgers, foxes, deer, llamas, pigs, domestic cats, lions, coyotes, opossums, weasels and rodents. It seems likely that bTB can infect all warm-blooded vertebrates.
• Second, there has been a worrisome increase in the level of human tuberculosis, in part explained by emergence of strains resistant to multiple antibiotics and increased incidence of Human Immunodeficiency Virus/AIDS affecting competence of immune systems. Dairy cattle in southwestern Britain where bTB is highly prevalent were infected at a rate of 7.2% (in 2001) by Bovine Immunodeficiency Virus (BIV). In addition to BIV, research at the University of Liverpool has shown that cattle infected with liver flukes (a parasitic worm) also show reduced immune responses. The researchers concluded that the chances of detecting bTB through the skin test might be reduced by a third where liver flukes were present. This could mean infected cattle are not being detected through routine testing and could therefore spread bTB when transported to other farms. Liver flukes spend part of their life cycle in snails and flukes have become more common in the UK over the past 15 years due to increasingly warmer climate.
• And third, following on from Point 2 above, bTB could well be increasing in the UK as a result of global warming. The bacteria can exist for long times in damp soil, and the increasingly mild winters (when was the last time you went ice-skating on your local pond?) promote their survival outside the host for longer and longer periods. Global warming has already promoted the spread of human diseases like malaria, dengue fever, West Nile virus, yellow fever, babesiosis and Lyme disease – all of which have arthropod vectors increasing their geographic ranges into ever warmer temperate regions. 

Given such complexities, what possible reason can there be to continue to tout badger culling as the silver bullet for bTB control? 

You can sign the petition to stop the badger cull here

Picture credit: http://kaylaente.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/owen-paterson_2077475b2.jpg

If you have not already signed up to our mailing list, you can add your name here and keep up to date with our ongoing work and, most importantly, DONATE to support our work to conserve the remaining fragile lion and wildlife populations. Thank you.

Sadly, given the plans by the UK Government to cull many thousands of badgers in further trials to determine whether removing badgers lessens the occurrence of Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in cattle, it appears the epidemiology of this disease is still not well understood. 

Badgers are regarded as a maintenance host and a reservoir of the disease that costs UK cattle farmers millions of Pounds each year. Not only because infected cattle need to be destroyed, but also because they need to be regularly tested and farms need to implement biosecurity measures to keep badgers away from cattle at night. Get rid of the badgers, say the farmers, and bTB has a chance of being eradicated. 

This is despite overwhelming scientific evidence that badger culls are not likely to be effective and could even exacerbate the problem. Undaunted, the Government will proceed in England though Wales, having evaluated the same available information, will not cull badgers. 

Recently, a paper was published in the journal PLOS Pathogens  that showed how little is yet understood about bTB in cattle and badgers. Using advanced molecular genetic techniques, the researchers showed that: 

• •Fine-scale genetic analyses reveal gaps in the current understanding of bTB epidemiology;
• Whole genome sequencing is sensitive enough to differentiate bTB strains involved in outbreaks on neighbouring farms;
• Badgers in outbreak areas can have identical as well as very different genetic bTB strains to those among infected cattle;
• Strain persistence among cattle sampled years apart raises the possibility of latent infections, environmental persistence and inter-herd transmission of bTB.

This data calls for considerably more research to be conducted before any badger culling can be contemplated. You can see our analysis of the research here. 

There are also some futher aspects of bTB to consider:

• Other research has shown that deer also harbour bTB, and it is important to remember that there are about 1.5 million deer in the UK versus about 300,000 badgers. While deer have been implicated in bTB transmission to cattle in the USA and France, somehow this is not considered relevant in the UK.
• Mcobacterium is a diverse genus of bacteria. Some species cause tuberculosis in humans, birds, seals, voles, goats, deer, pigs, cattle. One species causes leprosy. But most species are free-living in soil and water.
• Given this ancestry, it is not surprising that Mycobacterium bovis can also survive for long periods outside the host. Some studies indicate such environmental persistence can be on the order of 14 months under the right conditions, but more dedicated studies are needed. Mycobacterium avium that causes tuberculosis among birds has been shown to survive for 47 months in bird droppings. Such long environmental persistence can account for repeated infections among cattle even in the absence of badgers.
• It is entirely possible that bTB outbreaks can be caused by inter-herd transmission without involvement of alternative hosts like badgers. Cattle are regularly moved across the UK, and either not be adequately tested before such moves, or test negative while they might be harbouring the disease.

In short, killing badgers is not the answer and it is surprising that the move is so strongly being supported by Government while the epidemiology of the disease is not nearly fully understood. 

 Picture credit: http://www.savethebadger.com/ 

If you have not already signed up to our mailing list, you can add your name here and keep up to date with our ongoing work and, most importantly, DONATE to support our work to conserve the remaining fragile lion populations. Thank you.

 We recently were asked to give a presentation to the European Parliament at a Workshop on wildlife crime, organised by Mr Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy, MEP (Alde-NL).

 As Mr Gerbrandy said “The dramatic explosion in wildlife poaching and trafficking has been driven by growing demand in Asia, but Europe is no innocent bystander and it is high time that the EU did something about it… the European Union is the third largest market for illegal wildlife products after China and the United States”.

There remains a long list of things that need to be done in order to gain a measure of effectiveness in the fight against wildlife crime. An organized response will therefore likely take many years to materialize especially as no time frames and milestones have been set.

However, effective measures can be put in place almost immediately by closing a number of existing loopholes. Wildlife products are currently gaining entry into the EU by dubious means even though they are accompanied with CITES “permits” issued by the countries of origin. Records of such imports and exports are available on the CITES trade website, although  data for 2011 is only just now becoming available.

Nevertheless, the data can provide trends and indications of patterns, thereby pinpointing trade “hotspots” with obvious potential for law enforcement efforts.

Using the legal trade records, we will show that there are considerable inconsistencies that can be seen as facilitating the illegal trade. These studies of the “grey trade” need to be expanded, enhanced and maintained. Criminal networks are highly flexible in terms of taking advantage of these loopholes, and their areas of operation can rapidly shift as enforcement attention is focused on a particular nation.

The limited investigations LionAid has already carried out and which we revealed at the Workshop were met with astonishment & shock. Nobody had seen these trends until we began to point them out.
Here are the full details of this new important project that we have placed on The Big Give. 

We need to raise £50,000 to complete this initial project.  We can’t do it without your support.

All sums donated, large or small, will help us reach the funding we need to identify the loopholes used by the wildlife traffickers.

                                                 Thank you if you can help.

If you have not already signed up to our mailing list, you can add your name here and keep up to date with our ongoing work and, most importantly, DONATE to support our work to conserve the remaining fragile lion populations. Thank you.

I wanted to share with you today a YouTube clip called “Mary's life - a tale about a canned lion” that was created by three children, aged 9-10. It will move you beyond words and will exemplify the full horrors of canned hunting and lion breeding farms, as told through the eyes and pens of these wonderful children who bring a simple lucidity to our complex, convoluted world.

From time to time, we remind you about “So What?”  (an extra-curricular club that aims to bring wildlife conservation into the school classroom) which we are very proud to support.

Indeed, if we are successful in securing the urgent resources we are seeking, we and founder Matthew Payne have high hopes to expand  the “So What?” programme to schools throughout the UK.

Recent sessions of a “So What?” club at the Navigation Primary School in Altrincham, near Manchester, have focused on the African lion.

Today, as we unfold the horrors of the severe inbreeding of white lions and the latest birth of a white lion cub in Paradise Wildlife Park in Hertfordshire, we remind you that this new born little cub’s white inbred relatives (only a maximum two generations back) were born in South Africa in a breeding farm owned by Wiets Safaris, before being sold to the owners of Paradise Wildlife Park. Wiets Safaris offer trophy hunting on their land.

 Very well done to these young adults who, given a voice, can make a real difference in conservation. They are our dedicated conservationists of the future.

If you are a school teacher and are interested in forming a “So What?” Club, then please get in contact on info@lionaid.org.

Please click here to add your DONATION to enlarging this programme.

Video credit: The children of Navigation Primary School, Altrincham, Mannchester

If you have not already signed up to our mailing list, you can add your name here and keep up to date with our ongoing work and, most importantly, DONATE to support our work to conserve the remaining fragile lion populations. Thank you.

Further to our announcement on the 4th April about the scandalous inbreeding of white lions at Paradise Wildlife Park in Hertfordshire, an article was published in today’s Sunday Times (7th April 2013) entitled “Inbred” white lion cub puts cat among pigeons” (subscription required to read the full article).

In this article Paradise took the opportunity to respond:

Firstly, we hear that Paradise have thought better of the £999 per person/couple (they quoted both!) they were charging to pet this cub and have now reduced the price to £250 per person. Perhaps unluckily for them, we have the screen print of their original price in case they should wish to deny any such extravagant pricing policy!

Secondly, they now tell us that these petting sessions will be taking place during the veterinary inspections! We’re sure the vet will be thrilled with this and since we are also told that the cub is proving to be “a huge draw for visitors”, the vet may have to do some prolonged inspections.

Thirdly, the owners of the Wildlife Park maintain that this cub is a “natural variant” and the cub and both its parents are all healthy. There is little that is “natural” about breeding close relatives that carry the recessive leucistic gene in order to ensure the white coat in any offspring. Incidentally, it is unusual for only one cub to be born in a litter. Did this cub have any brothers and sisters that died before they could be also be presented to an unsuspecting public? Reduced fertility is associated with inbreeding, and an Italian zoo breeding white lions reported that 17 of 19 cubs were either stillborn or died within a month.

Fourthly, Paradise Wildlife Park apparently prides itself on its conservation work. They quote the sponsoring of “vaccination programmes to protect wild African lions” to illustrate their point.  This project was called “Life Lion” and was a programme set up to vaccinate domestic dogs against canine distemper in villages around the Serengeti National Park to hopefully protect lions and other carnivore species. It was started in 1995, meant to last 10 years, but trailed off in 1999 as funding ran out. In addition, over 75% of funds raised by Friends of Paradise Park in 2010 and 2011 went into refurbishment and building of new enclosures at Paradise and Wildlife Heritage Foundation.

Fifthly, the article correctly points out that BIAZA (the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums) has said there is no conservation value in breeding white lions, are produced by severe inbreeding and can cause a number of congenital disorders and abnormalities. Read the full statement here and note that the US Association of Zoos and Aquariums similarly cautioned their members.

Sixthly, Paradise Wildlife Park admit that they do not have full records for the cub’s parents but “had traced their ancestry back five generations”. This is a stretch. The cub’s mother was imported from South African breeders who keep no studbooks. The cub’s father was born at West Midland Safari Park to parents also imported from South Africa. The South African breeders provide white lions to zoos and to trophy hunters. Regardless, all white lions are derived from a single pride in the Timbavati region near Kruger National Park where some members expressed the then rare leucistic coat colour. Now it is estimated there are 300-400 white lions in captivity in zoos and breeding farms, all closely related to each other.

The article ends with a statement from the Park that “the money paid by visitors to see the cub will fund our conservation work”. Meanwhile, BIAZA states that “Inbreeding practices as necessary to produce white lions impair the ability to develop and maintain sustainable captive populations and to deliver the appropriate animal welfare and conservation educational messages”.

We call on BIAZA to remind Paradise Wildlife Park of this statement, the more so because Paradise is embarking on another white lion breeding programme at their sister facility, the Wildlife Heritage Foundation in Kent. There, two females imported from South Africa will join a half-brother of the new cub, born in 2009. The public might not be aware of how white lion cubs are produced, but the zoo governing body in the UK cannot claim such innocence.

Picture credit: http://thetim.es/10tF6JB

If you have not already signed up to our mailing list, you can add your name here and keep up to date with our ongoing work and, most importantly, DONATE to support our work to conserve the remaining fragile lion populations. Thank you.

The Rally starts in Saint Quentin in France on Friday 12th July and finishes on Sunday 14th July in Monte Carlo.

The teams taking part should preferably be driving a banger costing less than £250.

We are looking to gather a PRIDE OF LION CARS taking part and plan to travel in convoy from Dover, across the Channel on the ferry to Calais and on to Saint Quentin on the Thursday afternoon, the 11th July to complete registration.

If you would like to join us on this wonderful weekend, the price to enter is £200 per team but we may be able to offer you a discount (email us on info@lionaid.org for details).

The more of you that join in, the more we can do. We have great plans and may even be able to provide the bangers if we get enough support! We will also have people on hand to provide essential car maintenance if the need arises!!

So come on, everyone, this a GREAT chance to show your support for lions and have lots of fun along the way.

We will be there and we want to see a HUGE Pride of lion cars taking part!

 Get your friends, family and please, all businesses will you send a team or even just sponsor us? We will help you promote your team and all businesses taking part will get their Company names painted on the cars! THINK OF THE PUBLICITY!!

And if you are not in the UK, you can still support this event by donating/sponsoring! We will flutter a flag from our convoy of cars for every donor/sponsor to this event!!

 And we will blog from the route and post photos as we go!!

THE FIGHT IS ON FOR LIONS!!!

SO PLEASE CONTACT ME ON info@lionaid.org TO REGISTER YOUR INTEREST.

Charities denounce inbred white lion programme at Paradise Wildlife Park.

Two leading animal protection charities, the Captive Animals’ Protection Society and LionAid, have criticised a major UK zoo for its continued programme of inbreeding big cats to create unusually-coloured animals. Spokespeople for the two organisations say that there are “serious animal welfare implications” for white lions bred at Hertfordshire-based Paradise Wildlife Park and that the animals “serve absolutely no purpose whatsoever in conservation terms”.

Paradise Wildlife Park in Hertfordshire is promoting a competition to name a new white lion cub born there recently and is using the competition as a fundraiser over the Easter period. In addition, the Park is earning considerable funds by allowing members of the public to “cuddle” the new cub for a fee of £999 for two people. Such intimate public interactions are highly controversial as the cub has to be separated from her mother, is likely stressful, has no benefit at all to the cub and is purely a money-making scheme.

The park claims that white lions are “regarded as god-like entities in African folklore [and] it is believed their majestic coats serve as a representation of the good found in all creatures. Any person lucky enough to gaze upon this rare gift will be blessed with health, happiness and luck”. Unfortunately for the animals, there is nothing “lucky” about being a white lion due to the process of perpetual inbreeding required to produce their unusual colouring.

Said Dr Pieter Kat of LionAid:

“All white lions are derived from a single small population discovered near Kruger National Park in South Africa. The white coat colour is caused by a recessive gene and the animals are known as leucistic. Leucism is seen among mammals, fish, reptiles and birds, but is only expressed in homozygous recessives. White lions are therefore by definition inbred, and since they all derive from one small founder population, progressive inbreeding can be expected to lead to a number of aberrant disorders like skeletal deformities, immune system deficiencies, digestive problems and neurologic conditions. In South Africa, lion breeders intentionally inbreed lions expressing the white coat colour for trophy hunting and for international sales and a number of zoos around the world have bought them. Because white lions are purposely inbred, zoos should not have them in their collections. They might be “cute” but contribute nothing to increasingly urgent conservation needs of their tawny relatives in the wild.”

Even zoo industry body the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquaria is opposed to the breeding of these animals, stating in a published paper on the issue that: “severe in-breeding has resulted in a number of congenital disorders and abnormalities, which may severely impact on the health and welfare of these animals”. Despite this, BIAZA allows both Paradise Wildlife Park and West Midland Safari Park to retain membership to the association even though the parks persist in keeping and breeding the white lions.
Paradise Wildlife Park well knows the consequences of inbreeding. Two white lions were sourced from South Africa as cubs in 2006. The female, Nala, died in 2007 aged 2-3yrs due to skeletal deformities. Male Thabo died in 2010 aged 5-6yrs from undisclosed causes.

Undeterred by BIAZA’s statements on purchasing, keeping and breeding white lions, Paradise Wildlife Park seems committed to ensuring a regular supply. Two cubs were born at Paradise in 2009 before the birth of the new cub this year. In addition, Paradise’s sister park Wildlife Heritage Foundation in Kent specifically imported two more white lion females from South Africa in May 2012 to breed with Thabo’s son, Themba.

Said Liz Tyson, Director of CAPS:

“Notwithstanding our overall opposition to zoos, it is appalling that businesses such as Paradise Wildlife Park and West Midland Safari Park continue to breed these animals despite the well-recognised welfare concerns. This is a clear example of putting profit before the most basic needs of the big cats. The white lions might look beautiful but this offers no justification for this continued practice”.

At the end of the last year, the two charities exposed West Midland Safari Park for supplying inbred white lion cubs to a notorious circus trainer, who then sent the animals to a travelling circus in Japan. The news caused widespread outrage amongst animal lovers around the UK.

Picture credit: http://bit.ly/16rnONE

If you have not already signed up to our mailing list, you can add your name here and keep up to date with our ongoing work and, most importantly, financially support us to conserve the remaining fragile lion populations. Thank you.

Those who promote the concept that lions can be hunted sustainably claim that males older than 6 yrs can be shot without consequence – after all they have already reproduced by that age, and can then be classified as “excess males”. I have always had problems with such theories based on Serengeti studies and computer models.

When I studied lions for eleven years in the Okavango Delta of Botswana it was clear that males do not even begin to think about taking over prides until they are about 5-6 yrs, and after their initial reproductive period within “their” pride they begin exploring neighbouring pride territories. If they find females in oestrus during their explorations they will mate with them. Males often voluntarily abandon prides and take over others where there are more reproductively receptive females. Male coalitions are fluid, and older males evicted from prides will often join up with younger males to form new coalitions and take over other prides. Careful studies have shown that this model of male reproductive flexibility occurs in many other areas besides the Okavango, and that a male lion’s reproductive potential encompasses much more than an initial chance.

The Serengeti research, based on outdated genetic techniques liable to misinterpretation of results, insists that all cubs born in a pride belong to the pride males. And that males take over a pride when they are 4 yrs old, and once they are replaced by new males two years later, have no further reproductive opportunities. Hence they become “excess males” that sadly wander the savannas for the rest of their lives – so they might as well be shot by trophy hunters to put them out of their misery.

What is equally sad is that such highly questionable “information” on male lion reproduction has been accepted as gospel by trophy hunters and that such hunters and their supporting “scientists” actually believe in the concept of “excess males”. 

Now there is genetic paternity evidence that all is not well with such absurd theories. In an article in Molecular Ecology, researchers found that in Etosha National Park in Namibia, “extra-group paternity”(EGP) (cubs sired by males other than the pride males) occurred in 57% of the prides examined, and the rate of EGP in those prides was 41% (meaning over 4 of every ten cubs had a father that was not a pride male). This is consistent with observations made in my Okavango study and casts severe doubt on the concept of “excess” males with no reproductive potential.

Basically, all male lions have reproductive potential with and in addition to their pride females. Lions have a complex society that cannot be simply defined by what trophy hunters want to believe, and such data once again puts into question the whole concept of “sustainable” hunting.

Picture credit: Chris Harvey http://bit.ly/ZIX7mx

If you have not already signed up to our mailing list, you can add your name here and keep up to date with our ongoing work and, most importantly, financially support us to conserve the remaining fragile lion populations. Thank you.

Have a read of the answer to this question, posted by one of the “Catholic Answers” staff on their blogsite.
The reply goes on to say that they believe it is also OK for man to use animals for “scientific experimentation” and for “leisure of man”.

On the other hand Pope Francis in his inauguration speech mentioned the need to pay careful attention to the environment and "creation". He chose the name Francis as patron saint of the poor .... and animals.

Nowhere in the Bible does it say we can kill animals for fun.

  The Church is very far behind in terms of ANY conservation message though we are all supposed to celebrate God's Creation. What celebration can there be in greed, causing suffering, killing for fun?

We wrote a blog back in April 2011 on this very subject : “Do animals have rights?”

 
Time for the Church to speak out carefully on this issue.

Let us have your views…..

Picture credit: http://bit.ly/ZcXDpv

If you have not already signed up to our mailing list, you can add your name here and keep up to date with our ongoing work and, most importantly, financially support us to conserve the remaining fragile lion populations. Thank you.