ZIMBABWE-WILDLIFE/INTERVIEW Animal welfare group calls on U.S. government to ban big game trophies

Record ID: 145386

  • Title: ZIMBABWE-WILDLIFE/INTERVIEW Animal welfare group calls on U.S. government to ban big game trophies
  • Date: 31st July 2015
  • Summary: WASHINGTON, D.C., UNITED STATES (JULY 31, 2015) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) U.S. CAMPAIGNS DIRECTOR AT INTERNATIONAL FUND FOR ANIMAL WELFARE BETH ALLGOOD SAYING: "Cecil brought in a lot of money for people who wanted to see him. That stopped when this guy paid 54,000 dollars to the operator to kill him. And he will be bringing in no more money for conservation. This is
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  • Topics: General
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  • Story Text: The American dentist who killed Cecil the lion was a "foreign poacher" who paid for an illegal hunt and he should be extradited to Zimbabwe to face justice, environment minister Oppah Muchinguri said on Friday (July 31).
    Muchinguri said the Prosecutor General had started the process to have 55-year-old Walter Palmer extradited from the United States.
    Palmer has admitted killing the 13-year-old lion, who was fitted with a GPS collar as part of an Oxford University study.
    He said in a statement issued by a publicist early this week that he had hired professional guides and believed the necessary hunting permits were in order.
    The U.S. Justice Department said it does not comment on extradition requests. Palmer must be charged in Zimbabwe before he can be extradited.
    Muchinguri said Palmer's use of a bow and arrow to kill the lion, who is said to have been lured out of Hwange National Park with bait before being shot, contravened Zimbabwean hunting regulations.
    Cecil's death has sparked global outrage, with intense social media reaction against Palmer, protests outside his practice, and calls for him to be extradited.
    The best known lion in Zimbabwe is said to have been lured from the park with bait, shot with an arrow, tracked for 40 hours, shot dead with a rifle and then beheaded and skinned.
    Cecil was wearing a GPS collar as part of a research project run by Oxford University.
    The International Fund For Animal Welfare (IFAW) said the death has gained traction because many Americans were not aware hunting the big cats is legal in many African nations when 75 percent of Americans are opposed to lion trophy hunting.
    "The idea that this lion who was in a protected area, who had been studied for years, he was so popular because the videos of him, he looks so cool, you just seem him wandering around and being kind of comfortable with people in the park, the fact they he had also brought so much money into Zimbabwe, people came to see him so he was a staple sort of in the conservation field, was lured out of a park seems unfair," said IAFW U.S. campaigns director Beth Allgood.
    Democratic members of the U.S. Congress are urging the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the African lion as threatened under the Endangered Species Act which would limit the import of sport-hunted lion trophies.
    The International Fund for Animal Welfare says the move would be an important step.
    "Over 50 percent of the trophy hunting in Africa is done by Americans. But most people don't go over to just hunt. They go over because they want to bring the trophies back and display them. So if the Fish and Wildlife Service were to ban the imports of trophies it would have a huge impact on the lion trophy hunting," Allgood said.
    As with many African countries, Zimbabwe issues annual hunting permits for big game such as elephant, buffalo and lion, arguing that the revenue generated can be used for wildlife conservation.
    Last year, the southern African nation, which is still recovering from billion-percent hyperinflation a decade ago, earned $45 million from hunting, Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority head Edison Chadziya told reporters.
    Zimbabwe had an estimated 2,000 lions on private and government-owned reserves and issued hunting quotas of 50 to 70 lions every year, Chadziya said.
    Allgood says more money could be made if the animals were kept alive.
    "Cecil brought in a lot of money for people who wanted to see him. That stopped when this guy paid 54,000 dollars to the operator to kill him. And he will be bringing in no more money for conservation. This is the case for a lot of trophies that are taken," she says.
    Allgood says the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust did a study that showed each elephant can bring in roughly 1.6 million dollars in ecotourism.
    "They animals are worth a lot alive."
    Despite global media coverage of Cecil's killing, the big cat's untimely demise has gone largely unnoticed in Zimbabwe, where average annual income is just over $1,000 and unemployment is higher than 80 percent. For most people in the southern African nation the uproar had all the hallmarks of a 'First World Problem'.
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