​        Massacre of jackals by scientists in SA National parks
 
In 2010 SANPARKS culled over 300 jackals in three National Parks in what was the largest massacre of a wild predator species ever executed in South Africa. They believed (wrongly, as it turned out) that jackals were causing the reduction of springbok populations in the parks.
 
Following the cull in the Karoo National Park, SANPARKS discarded 132 jackal carcasses without any scientific investigation.
 
They then released 2500 springbok into the Karoo National Park.
 
Despite the horrific jackal slaughter, see photo of jackal heads above, a count of the springbok population a mere 6 months after their release, showed that an estimated 2000 springbok had died. Clearly, SANPARKS had misinterpreted the reason for the decline in the number of Springbok.
 
Unwilling or unable to accept that the jackal cull had been a ghastly mistake, SANPARKS and NMMU scientists Graham Kerley, L, Minnie and G. Gaylard went ahead and once again decided to massacre more than  300 jackals in the three national parks between 2011 and 2013.
 
To make this whole wasted exercise worse, the authors then published a paper with the Journal of Applied Ecology London, where they sought to analyse the difference between age group structures of the jackals massacred in the three parks, where ‘they had not been persecuted previously’, and those animals on farmland, where they are continually persecuted.
 
The 2010 massacre would have vitiated the findings, since thereafter, the few surviving parks jackals could hardly be put forward as ‘un-persecuted.’  So, the authors dealt with this inconvenient truth by ignoring it.  Unbelievably, the authors decided not to disclose the 2010 jackal massacres in their paper.
 
So 600 jackals were slaughtered for no good scientific reason, other than to produce a tendentious, unscientific and flawed paper. This worthless paper was then published in the Journal of Applied Ecology, giving it an unmerited credibility.
 
Despite demand by concerned conservationists, researchers and scientists, the Journal has failed to withdraw the paper and publish an apology.

Complain to:

Prof Andrew Leitch, NMMU, Port Elizabeth Andrew.Leitch@nmmu.ac.za
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Dr Erika Newton, Editor, Journal of Applied Ecology. Erika@britishecologicalsociety.org

                     The New Lion Park near Johannesburg
This post has caused a storm of abuse on social media. We should have explained it was part of our policy of engagement with all role players in order to create an inclusive Captive Lion Forum to press government for change. We repost our reply to an abusive comment below:
Hi Sheryl
Your comments fundamentally misunderstand what CACH is trying to achieve and the practicalities of doing so in South Africa.
CACH is not simply a protest group. As you know, we are seeking change in South Africa: the end of captive lion breeding and canned lion hunting. 
History shows us that effective and sustainable change rarely results from confrontation and/or public pressure alone. This is especially so in the context of dealing with South Africa’s government and its wealthy hunting industry. If change does happen here, it will be through a complex interaction of public pressure, commercial pressure and political and/or regulatory change.
That means our strategy necessarily involves a number of strands and approaches.
These include engaging with, and on occasions working with, a range of stakeholders with different views from our own if in our judgement that will help achieve our overall objective. We accept that on occasions this may lead to criticism (and social media abuse!), but the bottom line is our focus has to be on maximising effectiveness rather than maximising popularity.
We believe that the Captive Lion Forum that we are setting up to effect regulatory change in SA will become the leading voice here because it includes all stakeholders, including regulators, lion experts, lion farmers and cub petting facilities, various relevant govt depts, conservationists and a number of powerful animal welfare orgs. We think that our strategies will best deliver our objectives in South Africa. We are the ones on the ground and have been doing this longer than almost anyone.
Internationally, we continue of course to raise public awareness on the unacceptability of cub-petting and lion encounters (and indeed our Lion Park blog makes this clear) and to engage with the tourist industry on these issues. 
We also continue to engage directly and indirectly with the SA government. Last month we sent our Tourism Minister an extensive report highlighting the damage to Brand South Africa caused by lion breeding and canned hunting (happy to send you a copy). We then contacted the 40 or so UK members of the IUCN urging them to vote for the IUCN 2016 Conference motion 009 calling on the SA government to stop breeding & hunting lions – and we heard today this motion has been passed.
So if you think your donation to CACH has been misspent, we will gladly refund you.

The old and the new are like chalk and cheese.  The old Lion Park near Lanseria was a run-down private  zoo. The new Lion Park is a world class facility which is more a zoo park.

The lions no longer hang around by gates in utter boredom. They have natural big camps where they can hide from the vehicles if they so choose. There are no self-drives anymore due to the safety concerns.
The property is enormous and very picturesque, with a rich cultural history. Management are busy reintroducing species that were endemic there hundreds of years ago.

There are genuine research projects on the go. Not the bogus lion ones we know so well, but important ones.  Two, for instance, are on Leguaans and Black Backed Jackals. They are also involved with Vulpro and the vultures.

There is a community outreach programme which is removing snares from the surrounding areas (a very big problem due to bush meat trade) and turning them into snare art.

The new facility has come under attack in social media for resuming cub petting after a short period of refraining from offering lion cub petting.

Prior to all the controversy on social media about the reintroduction of cub petting at the Lion Park, CACH was invited to meet with them to discuss the difficulties they were facing and to find common ground on a way forward.

On Saturday 20th August, Joburg director Linda Park, accompanied by Moji, went to the new Lion Park and spent the whole day there.  She writes:
We were met by an executive team of four and sat down over coffee to discuss the situation. Let me state here that this team are the "new guard".  None of them were around when the rot that founded the Lion Park empire was going on. Owner Rodney Fuhr, under whose management the old Lion Park in Lanseria was discredited in the CBS 60 Minutes piece, is apparently retiring.

They explained why they had reluctantly had to reintroduce cub petting.  When they opened their new world class facility recently, the plan was to offer an ethical lion experience with no cub petting.  Indeed, most of their male lions have been vasectomised.

However, they soon discovered that the public demand for cub petting was so overwhelming, that tour companies stopped coming to them because they no longer offered cub petting. Instead, tour companies took their business elsewhere to other places that do.

The new Lion Park has spent more than R100 million to set up exceptional facilities, and now has a massive mortgage bond to service. The implications of a drastically reduced cash flow meant that they would have been in serious financial trouble before the end of the year. So, as a temporary measure, they were forced to change their plans, and reintroduce cub petting on a limited scale.

We were told that they are wanting to help bring about an end to captive breeding and cub petting but cannot do so alone, or they would suffer a disastrous loss of business. It is not practical for one facility near Joburg to take the responsibility of abandoning cub petting; all that achieves is to drive away business to less ethical competitors. So what has become clear is that a level playing field can only be achieved by government intervention in the form of a blanket ban on lion breeding and cub petting.

Our suggestion was that they convene a meeting with the various political parties and that together we put pressure on them to get captive breeding outlawed. They committed to setting this up as soon as possible.

CACH had not changed its position on the cub petting.  The CACH position on this is, and always has been, that no cub petting is acceptable and we will never deviate from that.  But, for the greater good of all lions in captivity, we need to give credit where it is due and to work with the new Lion Park to see if, together, we can bring an end to lion farming and its profitable spin-off, cub petting.
​
We have been promised total commitment and transparency. Should that not happen, then we shall have to reconsider.
                 

​The lion farmers have employed a public relations firm to counter adverse publicity about canned lion hunting.  ‘Painting lipstick on a pig’ is the colloquial term for it.

The tactic decided upon was to convince the public that SA lion farmers are conservationists and animal lovers, and they looked for opportunities to convey that message.

SA has experienced severe drought in some parts of the country, and Leeuwspruit Nature Conservancy was hit, with animals including Rhino needing supplementary feeding.

Allison Fitzgerald is the organizer and feed coordinator for the Marloth Wildlife Fund, a volunteer-only NPO which campaigns and raises funds to buy food for wildlife at Marloth’s Leeuspruit nature conservancy near Kruger National Park. She received a phone call from a farmer who said his driver was en-route to Marloth with a bakkie load of feed for the rhino. “At no time did anyone identify themselves as representatives of SAPA or any predator association” Fitzgerald said.

After the feed had been delivered, and the bakkie had departed, she was later astonished to be notified of the claims on the lion farmers’ SAPA website, alleging its members and the Predators association had saved drought-stricken rhinos at Leeuspruit.

Most bizarre was the photoshopping of the SAPA banners and logos on to the delivery vehicle after the event.  See photo above.
​
Fitzgerald reacted strongly, stating on social media:
“We would like to distance ourselves from reports that we are assisted by SAPA (SA Predator Association) At no time did Ian Otto identify himself as having any connection to them. We were contacted by him to say they were bringing 29 bales donated from a Lucerne farmer who had read the story in the Beeld. The vehicle had no sign or identification of SAPA and we strongly deny the report that they claim to have saved the Rhino. It is nothing more than a cheap publicity stunt” Fitzgerald wrote.

Just a note on the Western Cape Wildlife Forum meeting in Cape Town on Friday 29th July 2016.  It is always well attended by the Cape Nature officials with whom I have to work regarding the Karoo Wildlife Centre.

Although other issues are included in the terms of reference, my overarching concern is always to get the use of gin traps banned, and I always ask that this issue be made number one on the agenda. CN officials and most on the Forum are behind me on this issue, but they say they get voted down at national level by other provinces, whose farmers say: 'give us a feasible alternative first if you value food security.'
There is politics involved too!

One suggestion from a senior CN official at the Forum was to offer incentives; eg for every two awful old gin traps handed in for destruction, one modern 'soft' trap (ie one with hard rubber to grip the leg) would be given in return. And we thought that if we could get sponsorship (Woolworths came to mind since Woolies exec Tom Mclaughlin sits on the Forum) we could also give a raffle ticket as well as the soft trap. At the end of each year, there could be a well publicised draw and the winning ticket would get, say, R50,000. Good publicity for Woolies too as well as raising public awareness.

Only thing is; our colleague at Landmark Foundation, Dr Bool Smuts, hates the 'soft' traps saying they also cause severe damage to the animal, whereas Quinton Martins of Cape Leopard Trust says that they are, at least,  a vast improvement.  I'll talk to Bool again next week and maybe we can take this idea forward, but there is a strong article by Fiona Macleod in the Mail and Guardian supporting Bool's stance.

mg.co.za/article/2008-09-25-try-traps-on-your-own-cojones

Anyway, that is how I spent Friday afternoon.  
Oh and I had a catch-up meeting with Toni Brockhoven of Beauty Without Cruelty afterwards, and drank far too much coffee which gave me a bad nights sleep!

Press release: 24/06/16

Title: Wildlife charity thanks corporate donor with quirky YouTube clip



​Source: SME Pals (http://smepals.com/strategy/how-use-csr-corporate-social-responsibility-marketing-strategy)
 
CACH (Campaign Against Canned Hunting), a wildlife non-profit organization dedicated to stamping out the practice of canned hunting in South Africa and around the world, was delighted when LUSH UK (a handmade cosmetics company), and their Australian counterparts LUSH Australia, offered to completely fund the purchase of an electric work vehicle for CACH’s headquarters (a wildlife rehab center and sanctuary).
 
According to SME Pals (http://smepals.com/strategy/how-use-csr-corporate-social-responsibility-marketing-strategy), Chris Mercer, the co-founder of CACH was so delighted with the generous support offered by Lush that “he decided to thank them in the most unusual way... by naming the vehicle the 'Lushmobile', and by making a YouTube clip to publicly thank Lush.”
 
‘CACH and the Lushmobile’ YouTube clip
 
The quirky, homemade video can be viewed on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4a5Wpd6Rb0
 
In a heartwarming thank you message, Chris Mercer explains why an electric vehicle (otherwise prohibitively expensive for a non-profit organization that relies entirely on donations for funding) is so important for running an environmentally friendly wildlife rehab center - that simultaneously avoids carbon emissions and reduces stress on sick or injured wildlife.
 
 
About CACH
 
CACH's (http://www.cannedlion.org) main focus is to stamp out the terrible practice of canned lion hunting. The problem is that hunting industry is rich and powerful and not easy to fight. Death threats aren't uncommon in this line of work.
 
They also have a wildlife sanctuary (as their global headquarters, based in the Western Cape, South Africa) where injured and orphaned animals can be rehabbed and released back into the wild (if possible). The co-founders poured every cent they owned into starting the wildlife sanctuary and rely on donations to develop the infrastructure and keep it running.
 
Over the many years they have been fighting this battle they have (quite literally) faced off against the army, been to constitutional court (and various other courts), organized global marches, supported international rescue operations, helped fund other charities and non-profits, and won many awards.
 
The most recent being Gold at the World Responsible Tourism Awards in London for the Best Animal Welfare Initiative (http://www.responsibletravel.com/awards/categories/wildlife-and-habitats.htm).
 
 
Regards,
David
 
About SME Pals
 
SME Pals (http://smepals.com) is a preferred free entrepreneurial resource with many great universities like Duke, Cornell, Boston, Emory, and more, because it offers an innovative and creative approach to generating business ideas; along with guides and advice to turn those ideas into successful startups.
 
David Mercer
Founder
SME Pals
Smart Modern Entrepreneurs
http://smepals.com
​

Carte Blanche ran a strong expose last night on the sordid industry that is captive lion breeding and canned hunting. There are some facts that need to be laid out on the table:-

1. The hunt that was shown was a nine day one in which ten lions were slain. This was organised by Bob Vitro (True Life Taxidermy) who is a New York based agent.

2. Eight CAPTIVE BRED lionesses were released onto the farm “Wilzenau” which is owned by De Klerk Safaris. “Wilzenau” is situated in North West Province – a province that is commonly known as the Wild West due to the widespread corruption in conservation there. These 8 lionesses were all hunted over a period of four days.

3. Two CAPTIVE BRED male lions were released on the fourth day of the hunt and slain on days five and nine. This is totally illegal in terms of the province’s legislation governing release periods for captive bred hunts.

4. Stormberg Elangeni Safaris, a South African hunting outfitter, arranged for five professional hunters (PHs) to attend the slaughter. These PHs – James Quin, Harry Sparks, John Sparks,Paul Inman and David Birch – all knew that they were “hunting” captive bred lions.

5. Further adding to the unethical, immoral and illegal scenario, the American hunters were led to believe that they were hunting wild lion who roamed free in their own territory which they knew very well and thus were able to defend themselves and evade the hunters.

6. The truth? All the lions were CAPTIVE BRED and habituated to humans. They were drugged, completely confused and terrified. They climbed trees, hid in warthog burrows and under thick bush – trying whatever they could to hide from the bullets. Their terror is unimaginable. They were shot down where they hid. They stood absolutely no chance of escape.

Campaign Against Canned Hunting (CACH) calls upon:-

1. The Professional Hunters Association of South Africa (PHASA) to ban these so-called professional hunters.

2. The Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) to thoroughly and openly investigate the hunters, outfitter and game farm owners for illegal hunting of lion.
​
This entire industry brings shame to South Africa and the rest of the world cannot understand how it has been allowed to proliferate and continue.
Here is the Carte Blanche link:
http://carteblanche.dstv.com/player/1067054/

CHRIS MERCER & LINDA PARK : DIRECTORS

THE WAY OF NATURE  
 
Kruger Park and the sun rises on another day in the African bush. A story waiting to unfold. A story of hardship, strength, resilience and adaptation.
 
Kruger has been hard hit. Not only by the rhino poaching war but also by a severe drought which has left dams and water holes dry. Rivers are so low in places that you can see the sand at the bottom.
 
Driving along the road the smell of death catches my nose.  I pray it is not a poached rhino but instead a predators dinner. It is neither. A hippo has succumbed to the drought. One of a number that are found over a few days.
 
As sad as these sightings are, they are nevertheless testament to how amazing nature is when left to its own devices.  There were too many hippo in Kruger. The drought came and nature carries out its own cull. Those that survive will be the strongest. And so a new era will begin.
 
Many areas have no grazing left.
Finding some grazers now browsing was fascinating. Again the animals know best. Those that adapt will survive. Those that are unable to adapt will suffer.
 
The scales of nature come down in favour of the predators at this time. Food is plentiful. This is a time for them to also become stronger and for youngsters to thrive.
 
Nature has an innate intelligence. This intelligence, the way of the wilderness if you will, was acknowledged and worked with in days gone by. As the human species became technologically advanced, that knowledge and understanding has largely been lost and in our arrogant way we interfere because we think we know better. In our advance we have become poorer in many ways.
 
A trip to the bush, if you are open to it, allows time for introspection. It gives you the opportunity to connect with that wilderness that is inside all of us. It touches your soul in ways nothing else can. . 

Lush.com helps the Karoo Wildlife Centre to run on sunshine.