Can regulated hunting offer the best route to lion conservation? (Image: David Chancellor/Institute)

THE Disney classic The Lion King paints a rosy picture of lion behaviour. Unfortunately, this romanticised image of the ruler of the Serengeti is so pervasive even activists can go soft on lions.

Locals who put up with them daily tell a different story. They speak of people-eating, cattle-killing beasts that carry out infanticide and are worthy of being hunted to extinction, and of gaining manhood by so doing.

In Lions in the Balance, ecologist Craig Packer writes: “Lions need trophy-hunting just as much as trophy-hunting needs lions.” His plan: kill only male lions over the age of 6, so cubs aren’t killed by a lion mating with their mother who seeks to safeguard his own progeny. This is a fresh approach to conservation, where hunting is essential to survival. It might just change the lion behaviour he describes in this sequel to his classic, Into Africa.

As he exposes corruption in Tanzania’s hunting industry and tries to get his plan adopted, diary entries show Packer and his colleagues taking on locals, hunters and megalomaniac politicians in a struggle to balance human needs, a lucrative hunting trade and true Serengeti science.

His brave accounts of blackmail and death threats are alarming. At one point, the book describes a desperate strategy to protect the ecosystem while pacifying the crooked policy-makers. Packer aimed to identify lions’ age by the fullness of their manes and by ear markings, but politicians refused, saying it would restrict the hunt.

The book makes compelling reading as we journey through pioneering science, dodging the influential government fat cats on the way. Packer is completely candid about the “ethics” of those instrumental in the future of the King of the Beasts. Let’s hope someone will listen.

This article appeared in print under the headline “Killing the killers”

Can regulated hunting offer the best route to lion conservation? (Image: David Chancellor/Institute)

THE outraged public reaction to the killing of Cecil, Zimbabwe’s most famous lion, by a vacationing dentist shows just how romanticised lions are in the popular imagination.

The killing of the lion was a tragedy, but the attention to the details of the unpleasant hunt obscures a harsh reality. Field workers must struggle to balance lucrative trophy hunting with preventing lion populations from crashing still further, while locals who put up with lions on a daily basis speak of people-eating, cattle-killing beasts that carry out infanticide and are worthy of being hunted to extinction, and of gaining manhood by so doing.

In a new book, Lions in the Balance, ecologist Craig Packer writes: “Lions need trophy-hunting just as much as trophy-hunting needs lions.” His plan is to kill only male lions over the age of 6, so cubs aren’t killed by a male lion seeking to safeguard his own progeny after mating with a mother that already has cubs.

This is a fresh approach to conservation, where hunting is essential to survival. It might just change the lion behaviour he describes in this sequel to his classic, Into Africa.

As he exposes corruption in Tanzania’s hunting industry and tries to get his plan adopted, diary entries show Packer and his colleagues taking on locals, hunters and megalomaniac politicians in a struggle to balance human needs, a lucrative hunting trade and true Serengeti science.

His brave accounts of blackmail and death threats are alarming. At one point, the book describes a desperate strategy to protect the ecosystem while pacifying the crooked policy-makers. Packer aimed to identify lions’ age by the fullness of their manes and by ear markings, but politicians refused, saying it would restrict the hunt.

The book makes compelling reading as we journey through pioneering science, dodging the influential government fat cats on the way. Packer is completely candid about the “ethics” of those instrumental in the future of the King of the Beasts. Let’s hope someone will listen.