Unintended Consequences

Bring me a gazelle!

Hwange National Park to Slaughter African Lions Due to Lack of Hunters

Nearly a year ago, the world erupted in outrage when an American hunter killed “Cecil the Lion” in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe. Hunters were demonized, a man’s livelihood was destroyed and major corporations changed their policies to keep people from enjoying legal hunting. Baffled conservationists in African countries warned that pressuring hunters to stay out of Africa would harm wildlife. The gibbering gibbons of the anti-gun and anti-hunting movements continued their persecution of hunters. Now the same park in Zimbabwe where Cecil met his end may need to slaughter 200 lions due to the drought of wealthy hunters. From the National Post . . .

Bubye Valley Conservancy has more than 500 lions, the largest number in Zimbabwe’s diminishing wildlife areas. It has warned that its lion population has become unsustainable and that it may even have to cull around 200 as a result of what is being called “the Cecil effect.” …
Conservationists estimate about half of Zimbabwe’s wildlife has disappeared since President Robert Mugabe’s seizure of white-owned land began in 2000, but Bubye has held on by attracting wealthy hunters whose fees support its wildlife work. But last year’s shooting of Cecil, in a conservancy bordering Hwange National Park, sparked a huge backlash against big-game hunting, and bolstered a U.S. plan to ban trophy hunting imports.

The astronomical fees foreign hunters paid to shoot animals in Africa directly supported thecontinent’s conservation efforts. It was a mutually beneficial, self-sustaining system. Now that the hunters are gone, there isn’t enough money to support Hwange National Park‘s operation and the ecosystem is out-of-whack. Lions will be killed, anyway, without any of hunting’s enormous economic benefits.

It's not that they love wildlife, they just hate people and they really don't want them to enjoy hunting.