The national park at the southern end of Africa’s Great Rift Valley was once considered a wildlife paradise. Hippopotamuses lolled in the lush waters of Mozambique’s Lake Urema, and thousands of antelope bounded across the park’s savannas and floodplains. Elephant herds and prides of lions drew international tourists.
Trophy hunting in Africa is no different to the harvesting of surplus wild animals by farmers in countries like Sweden to keep populations at sustainable levels. And it is largely because of hunting that South Africa and Namibia have been responsible for the world’s biggest-ever rewilding of former agricultural land.
It was the overpowering stench and the thick swarm of flies that told Reinet Meyer she had stumbled upon something truly horrific.
It has long been recognised that older female elephants are pivotal to elephant ecology and herd survival (McComb et al. 2011; Foley et al. 2008; Moss et al. 2011), but what of older males? Longevity in males is associated with size (the older the bull the taller he is), dominance, prolonged musth periods and reproductive success (Hollister-Smith et al. 2007).
he growing appetite for 'conservation holidays' has shone a light on the dark – and poorly regulated – industry of lion farming, where felines are destined not to be 'released into the wild' - but to be shot by trophy hunters and their bones exported to Asia for use in traditional medicine.
In a first for megafauna, half of SA’s white rhino population is now privately owned. And, given the precarious outlook for the animals elsewhere, it is conceivable that most rhinos worldwide will soon be in private hands. However, some private owners say they may not be able to sustain the costs of maintaining their herds if the global ban on the horn trade remains in place.
