Big Game Hunting Archive
Dumb Roper Nabbed
Posted by jimheck in Big Game, Big Game Hunting, Hunting, Poaching, Uncategorized on May 21, 2013
Many Americans don’t care if something’s going extinct: it’s just “the way it is.” So it’s no surprise that big game poaching is as much an American problem as it is an African one. “Put bluntly,” writes Australian ecologist Euan Ritchie, current species extinction is an ecological “avalanche” with current rates 1000 to 10,000 times [...]
Spears & Signatures
Posted by jimheck in Big Game Hunting, Environment, Politics, Wildlife Management on April 18, 2013
A major fight if not an actual civil war is about to erupt in northern Tanzania, as Maasai prepare to battle government authorities in Loliondo, according to a BBC report this morning. The dispute is over a Tanzania government decision to evict 30,000 Maasai from traditional grazing lands near the Serengeti National Park so that [...]
Is African Big Game Hunting Ending?
Posted by jimheck in Big Game Hunting, Botswana, Zambia on January 11, 2013
Zambia’s decision yesterday to ban the hunting of cats is electrifying and marks a new movement against big game hunting in Africa. The tourism minister told the BBC, “Tourists come to Zambia to see the lion and if we lose the lion we will be killing our tourism industry.” From my point of view the [...]
Blood All Over the Place
Posted by jimheck in Big Game, Big Game Hunting, Wildlife Research on December 6, 2012
A good scientific paper on lion population declines embarrasses NatGeo and provides evidence that recreational hunting of lion may soon be illegal. The excellent scientific survey by Duke scientists published Tuesday in the journal of Biodiversity and Conservation shows serious contractions of African wilderness with lion decline as the principal indicator. But NatGeo’s exaggeration of [...]
Anything for A Buck!
Posted by jimheck in Big Game Hunting, Corruption, Environment on August 13, 2012
Tanzania’s scandals and sheer wastefulness of its bountiful natural resources are legendary. But last month’s incident took the prize. In addition to the world’s second largest single vein of gold, countless copper and recent rumors of off-shore oil, large deposits of uranium were discovered hardly 100 miles from the port of Dar-es-Salaam last year. The [...]
Public Auction To Murder Rhino
Posted by jimheck in Big Game, Big Game Hunting, Poaching, South Africa, Wildlife Management on January 17, 2012
If you believe in culling, does that mean it’s OK to invite casual sportsmen into national parks to hunt big animals for a fee? I don’t think so, but South African officials do. There are two related but very different stories here: the first is the growing number of scandals in the South African government; [...]
Pow
Posted by jimheck in Big Game Hunting on April 1, 2011
Big game hunting in Africa is a sticky issue. In Tanzania it’s worse, an abomination. Last month’s killing of a Tanzanian big game hunter by poachers right adjacent the Serengeti says it all. I did not know Andre de Kock, the hunter who was murdered, but I have had a few rare run-ins with the [...]
Big Game Hunting
Posted by jimheck in Big Game Hunting, Corruption on October 21, 2009
Uncontrolled, big game hunting is resurgent in Uganda. I believe big game hunting contributes to conservation if carefully controlled. Problem is, it’s not being controlled at all. The only reason tourists first came to Africa was to hunt. One of the world’s greatest conservationist, Teddy Roosevelt, was a big game hunter. That changed radically in [...]