Cecil the Lion

Similar to a DJ, I love to take requests for blog topics.  And this week I had several messages from loyal blog followers asking that I address “Cecil the Lion.”  Well, first I had to figure out who Cecil the Lion was.

Cecil the Lion did not make the news here in Australia.  However, it was the second most popular Google search topic in the U.S. last week.  I read the newspaper articles, watched the YouTube clips of all the late night hosts, and I have some information you need to know if you are going to speak intelligently about this situation.

The first thing you need to be familiar with is CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora).  If you want to know whether a fish, bird, animal or plant is in danger and needs protection, you can find out on the CITES website.  CITES categorizes living fauna or flora into one of three “appendices.”

Appendix 1 is for animals needing the most protection because they are in danger of becoming extinct.  There are about 1,200 species in appendix 1, including the mountain gorilla, the Asian elephant, and all rhinos.  In short, it is illegal to trade in Appendix 1 animals without a licensed permit.  According to CITES regulations, Mozambique is permitted to export 60 lions (as wild-taken trophies) annually so long as the required permits are obtained.

Most species (about 21,000) are listed in Appendix 2.  They aren’t necessarily likely to become extinct, but may become so in the future if trade in these animals becomes more popular.  Import permits are not required from CITES for Appendix 2 species, but individual countries may prohibit these items from being permitted.  For instance, Australia prohibits importation of almost any animal product regardless of CITES or anything else because we like to control our borders like Fort Knox.  The great white shark and the American black bear are Appendix 2 species.

There are only about 170 species on Appendix 3.  An animal can be listed on Appendix 3 at the request of any CITES member country because that one country is having trouble controlling the species.  Costa Rica has placed the two-toed sloth on the CITES Appendix 3 list.

Now that you have some background, let’s talk about elephants.

In Botswana, elephants are a CITES Appendix 2 animal.  That means they are NOT in danger of extinction.  This means that Botswana has every right to allow hunting of elephants.  However, because Botswana likes to play Big Brother to Africa, and rightfully so, they’ve earned that honour, Botswana decided to banish elephant hunting 18 months ago.  And Botswana is REALLY regretting that decision right now.  Botswana figured if it got rid of hunting other countries would follow suit.  Other countries have not necessarily followed Botswana’s lead, and there have been some negative repercussions for Botswana because the elephant population is now exceeding carrying capacity.

Botswana has half the elephant population in Africa, and one-third of the entire elephant population in the world.  Previously, when elephant hunting in Botswana was allowed it was strictly limited.  I think they only sold about 100 permits a year.  At $100,000 a piece.  That’s $10 million dollars in permits only.  Then they also had to hire guides, hunters, pay for accommodation, transportation, and plenty of other services while in country.  At a conservative estimate let’s call that $25-30 million in economic impact from hunters ONLY.

Now, here’s the deal.  You can’t just kill one elephant.  Elephants understand when one of their herd dies from natural causes or from an attack by a predator.  They do NOT understand when a family member is killed by a human.  Herds are typically about 30-50 elephants.  When one is killed by a human the rest of the herd goes rogue and can’t deal with the depression.  So, one hunter kills one elephant (for the permit he purchased) and then the village that is responsible for that permit kills the rest of the herd.  This is called culling a herd.  This may sound cruel, but it isn’t.  The elephant which the hunter killed, and the rest of the herd, is used to feed the village for the year.  So, while this is generating a lot of money for the government and the village, it is also a form of subsistence living.

Back to today.  We have over 200,000 elephants in Botswana.  When we used to hunt, we used to eliminate about 5,000 elephants each year, which helped to control the elephant population.  The population continued to grow, but not at the fast rate which it grows today because there is no external method of controlling it.

Adult elephants eat about 300-400 pounds of food a DAY!  And they are herbivores.  That means they eat grass.  What else in Africa eats grass?  Giraffes, zebras, rhinos, impala, and the vast majority of African wildlife.  Elephants also live to be about 70 and they eventually starve to death because their teeth wear out and they can’t actually get enough nutrients to survive.  So, in truth, I think killing a 60 year old elephant is actually very humane.  But, back to the food issue.  As a result of the growing elephant population in Botswana other species have actually decreased in number because they are competing for the same food.

OK, now let’s talk about Cecil.  In truth, I find it rather difficult to talk about the Cecil situation because there has been so much media coverage, and media is there to sell a story.  I’ve read and hear a lot of conflicting reports, so I think it’s a bit difficult to know the truth from the fanaticism about this story.

What I will say is that there is a HUGE difference between poaching and hunting.  I actually just wrote a research article on this topic.  Perhaps I should write a blog post summarising that academic article.  The poaching you hear about is normally of elephants in Kenya and Tanzania.  The poaching that occurs there is truly unfortunate and in most cases the money earned from these illegal activities is used to support extremist, terrorist groups.

Hunting in Africa is closely regulated.  There are permits that must be obtained, particular rules that must be followed, and the legal repercussions are worse than any social ostracism you could possibly experience in the U.S.  The locations which permit hunting are highly dependent on that income and there are strict requirements regarding how the meat must be utilized.

In short, if the hunt was TRULY illegal then I’m against it.  However, Zimbabwe is no saint.  Mugabe’s government has been corrupt from the beginning, he has been guilty of human rights violations for years, and he’s starving his people.  The hunters involved in the Cecil situation were thrown in jail, and Zimbabwe’s call to extradite the dentist is likely an attempt to sensationalize this and drag the U.S. into negotiations for something.  If the U.S. elects to extradite the American dentist to Zimbabwe it will be his death sentence.

If you are unfamiliar with Mugabe, this Nando’s (a popular South African fast food chain) commercial depicts him with Kim Jun Un, Idi Amin, Gaddafi, Saddam Hussain, and all the other 20^th century dictators.  The commercial is pretty accurate as Mugabe IS the last one standing:

Zonkies: The Cool Kids of the Animal Kingdom

When I went to college I was in one of the first classes to have a significant number of multiracial students.  In an effort to be as transparent as possible I will take this opportunity to admit I actually had to look up the proper term.  A multiracial American is someone who belongs to two or more races.  This is different from being multiethnic.  Most Americans are multiethnic by default.  If you say you are an American whose ancestors are from Ireland and Germany you are multiethnic.  But someone who is multiracial is from two (or more) different races: black and white, or Asian and white, or Native American and Asian, etc.  Again, please keep in mind, I am a professor of tourism, not a race or ethnicity specialist.

But as I was saying, when I went to college I had a lot of classmates who were multiracial.  This made a lot of sense because kids born in the late 70s/early 80s had parents who were the first to consider and accept interracial marriages in the U.S. And all these kids were very open about this; they really embraced and were proud of the fact that they were a little bit different.  A lot of my friends had dads who were former U.S. military and met their wives overseas during either the Korean or Vietnam wars.  And then I had a lot of other friends who had one black and one white parent.  There were so many of these interracial kids at Hopkins they actually formed a club: the Happy Halfies.  They would introduce one another as, “This is my friend Chris.  He’s a Happy Halfy, just like me!”   To be completely honest, those of us who weren’t halfies were almost a little jealous because they were definitely the epitome of cool kids.  And they were all good looking.  I’m not sure if there is a biological explanation, but there wasn’t a single bad looking guy or girl in the group.

A few years after I graduated I moved to Galena, Alaska to work in a boarding high school.  All of my students were native Alaskans.  Some were Inuit, others Yupik Eskimos, Athabaskans, Aleuts and a few Inupiaqs.  Each year Galena would host a huge basketball tournament in which teams from around the state would fly in and compete.  I always looked forward to this event because there was a huge cultural component, and it gave me a real opportunity to learn more about the differences between the various native groups.  The team from Aniak always amazed me.  Their mascot was the halfbreed.  In the 1970s the Aniak high school students selected the mascot because “it made sense.”  There was a large population of white settlers who intermarried with Yupik Eskimos, resulting in mixed-race kids.  When I was in Galena almost 15 years ago, the mascot was shown as a face cut in half: one side of the face looked like a white settler, the other half of the face had native features and a long braid.  The portrayal has since been changed:

The reason I am writing about my friends the Happy Halfies and the Aniak Halfbreeds is because a story about a zonkey in Crimea recently went viral.  (At least something positive is coming out of poor Ukraine.)  I was looking at CNN this morning and there was a zonkey born in a Crimean zoo recently.  When I was in Botswana I used to see zonkeys from time to time.  They aren’t terribly common, but when a zebra and a donkey fall in love, or have the opportunity, a zonkey is what results.  I am certainly not equating my friends to animals, but anytime I see a zonkey I was always reminded of the Happy Halfies and the Halfbreeds.  In case you are unfamiliar with a zonkey here is a picture from Botswana.  We used to have donkeys wander around town all the time, but here is one of the zonkeys not far from UB:

A Trip to the Gaborone Game Reserve

Here in Gaborone we have our own Game Reserve.  I always find it funny when there is a Game Reserve within city limits, but that happens a lot here in Africa.  It makes me appreciate animals so much more.  In the U.S. you have to make an effort to plan a trip to the zoo.  Here, you just get in your car and head to the Game Reserve.  The animals aren’t in cages, they are in their natural habitats.  I think that is one thing I will really miss about living in Africa.  I’m not sure I will ever be able to go to a zoo again and enjoy it.

Since we do live in a city and it is close to people we don’t have any predators in our Game Reserve.  But there are still plenty of animals you can enjoy.

We have eland and impala:

Lots of birds; in fact Botswana has TONS of birds.  I could do an entire blog post about birds:

And baboons:

Somehow I can’t manage to get a decent picture of an ostrich, but we have lots of those too, as well as zebra and mongoose. 

 

The animals are WILD. They might EAT YOU.

Today was the first day of meetings here at the UNWTO General Assembly.  The first event of the day was a lunch hosted by the Zambian Minister of Tourism and the Arts.  Naturally, this meant the lunch was held in Zambia, at the Zambezi Sun Hotel just over the border.  When we arrived we were greeted by a traffic jam caused by about two dozen zebras which had wandered into the parking lot of the hotel and weren’t particularly interested in moving.  Animals always have the right of way here no matter how inconvenient they may be, so we just waited until they moved off to the side of the parking lot where there was lunch waiting for them- grass:

 As you can see, they also aren’t particularly phased by humans:

 I wouldn’t go so far as to try to pet the zebras, but I figured standing a couple feet away and snapping a picture wasn’t a big deal.  However, at the lunch the very first thing the introductory speaker told the group was, “Please, do NOT get out of your vehicles to take pictures of animals.  They are wild.  They will chase you and may hurt you or try to eat you. It is better to remain in your vehicle and take the picture through the window.  It would be very bad if anything happened to someone here at this conference, so please stay away from the animals.”

Just for the record, this announcement was not a result of my zebra paparazzi tendencies.  Rumor has it some snappy happy delegates from a country that LOVES to take pictures of EVERYTHING (yeah, that country that just popped into your mind, you are correct) had a close encounter with an elephant yesterday.  So, to cover their bases they decided to give all of us a talking to.

As for the Minister’s lunch, it was great.  I met the Ministers of Tourism from Zambia, South Africa, Mozambique, Kenya and Colombia, as well as the Ambassador to the UN from South Africa and a number of other supporting staff members from these countries. 

After lunch the Commission for Africa had it’s meeting which I attended.  Most of it was rather general, relating to committee membership and priorities the countries want to focus on over the next few days.

Following that meeting I had the brilliant idea to walk back to my hotel.  Not my best decision ever. Keep in mind, I was in Zambia for the lunch and meeting.  I am staying in Zimbabwe.  There is a giant bridge in between the two countries.  But the gym at my hotel is closed for renovations, so I thought I would see some sights, take a few pictures and get in my exercise for the day.

As a side note, I normally don’t wear a pedometer.  But, I have one and for some reason I decided to pack it when I moved to Africa.  Since I don’t have a vehicle here I’ve been wearing it daily to record how far school is from home, or the distance to the mall.  Well, I wore it today and when I checked my distance it turns out I walked 9 miles through the African heat.  Fortunately I came prepared with a hat, sunscreen and sunglasses.  But what did I forget? Water! Oh well, lesson learned.