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Oxford conservation donor counters pro-hunting accusations

An Oxford University conservation unit responsible for tracking lions has responded to allegations that it accepted donations from a pro-hunting organisation.

Since the reportedly illegal killing of a lion, Cecil, that was being tracked by Oxford University’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU), donations to the unit have topped half a million pounds, founder and Director Professor David Macdonald told Cherwell on Monday.

Oxford alumnus and US philanthropist Dr Tom Kaplan added to the funds, pledging on July 31 to match up to $100,000 in donations made to WildCRU. Dr Kaplan is the founder of field conservation group Panthera, and made his fortune investing in precious metals.

Following the pledge, Professor Macdonald told Cherwell, “Dr Kaplan and his wife, Daphne, have been wonderful supporters of WildCRU, and I am deeply grateful. In the context of big cat conservation, he is the greatest living philanthropist”.

However, WildCRU faced accusations of receiving funds from pro-hunting organisations after a blog post by Panthera Executive Vice-President Dr Luke Hunter surfaced on Tuesday.

In the blog post, Dr Hunter writes, “Just as strong, empirical science has shown that over-hunting is bad for lions, it also demonstrates that hunting can be sustainable […] Hunting survives because hunters are usually more tolerant of hardship, and they pay extraordinary sums – up to $125,000 – to shoot a male lion. The business requires only a handful of rifle-toting visitors to prosper which, in principle, helps protect those areas”. 

He continues, “Let me state it again; I think sport hunting big cats is repellent and I would welcome its demise. But my personal distaste for hunting won’t help lions if shutting it down removes protection from African wilderness”.

In response to the accusations made toward Panthera, Dr Kaplan told Cherwell in an interview, “Luke Hunter has done more for lion conservation across its range than anyone I know. Luke and I started Project Leonardo, which is the only range-wide program for the conservation of the African lion. To see him labelled as pro-hunting is absurd.”

When queried about Panthera’s view on sustainable trophy hunting, Dr Kaplan said, “No organisation in the world is doing more to protect big cats. It is now the largest NGO that focuses solely on big cat conservation. None of us like hunting big cats. None of us advocate hunting. Although, professionally, conservationists have to face the reality that lions are hunted for trophies, personally we can’t relate to it, it’s not in our DNA. It goes against everything that motivates us in our passion for conserving wildlife.”

Professor Macdonald also expressed WildCRU’s stance on sustainable trophy hunting, stating, “Modern conservation is highly inter-disciplinary – biology is necessary but not sufficient. Ultimately it is about how society wishes to live alongside wildlife, hopefully for the well-being of both. We are an evidence-based organisation, not an advocacy one, so we strive to provide the evidence that informs policy and mitigates the conflicts between people and wildlife”.

Dr Kaplan and Professor Macdonald began working together when WildCRU was founded in 1986, in what Dr Kaplan describes as a “rewarding relationship”, to focus lion conservation efforts within Hwange National Park, where Cecil was killed. At first, Professor Macdonald experienced conflict with the Zimbabwean government on matters of hunting law and policy, but Dr Kaplan claims that “WildCRU have proven themselves to be excellent at proving scientifically the effects of hunting, thereby mitigating its effects, and even changing the laws.

“Look at what they’ve done in Zimbabwe. In the early 2000s, the lion quota [limiting the number of lions that were legally allowed to be hunted] in the concessions around Hwange was 60. WildCRU’s science resulted in a hunting moratorium for three years, after which the revised quota was four.”

Dr Kaplan, stressing his view of the importance of the work done by both organisations, continued, “If you strip out the emotion, the most important aspect of this whole discussion is that it is highlighting the really unknown story of the imperilled nature of the African lion. People assume that because they’re social animals and allow themselves to be seen, that they are ubiquitous. A century ago there were 200,000 lions; now we’re maybe down to 20-30,000.

“An example of how this cat is ‘disappearing in plain sight’ is the data that was collected in West Africa, where we were told there were 21 areas where lions were thriving. When Project Leonardo’s study was released a year ago, there were only four areas in which they existed at all, and only one area in which there were more than 50 lions.”

Both Dr Kaplan and Professor Macdonald expressed their belief in the positive outcomes that could arise from the public outcry over Cecil’s death. Dr Kaplan told Cherwell, “We need to take the interest that has gone viral, and turn it into a movement. The leading players in this field, Panthera, WildCRU and others, should converge into a partnership so they can express both the current state of the lion population, and concrete ways in which the decline can be reversed. In this way, the spirit that has been unleashed from Cecil’s sad fate, and the renewed donor interest, can be translated into an enduring and sustainable victory for conservation”.

Professor Macdonald stated, “While the illegal death of Cecil was a tragedy, our hope is that something good will come of it. I think the extraordinary reaction around the world transcends concern for Cecil, or even just for lions, but reveals that millions of people care about wildlife, the environment and how people are to live alongside the nature on whose ecosystem services we all depend”.

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