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British & Irish Lions

Here is your once in a twelve year itinerary:

Sat 30 May; 15:00; Highveld XV v British & Irish Lions; Royal Bafokeng Sports Palace, Rustenburg

Wed 3 Jun; 19:10; Golden Lions v British & Irish Lions; Coca-Cola Park, Johannesburg

Sat 6 Jun; 15.00; Cheetahs v British & Irish Lions; Vodacom Park, Bloemfontein

Wed 10 Jun; 19.10; Sharks v British & Irish Lions; The ABSA Stadium, Durban

Sat 13 Jun; 15.00; Western Province v British & Irish Lions; Newlands,Cape Town

Tue 16 Jun; 15.00; Coastal XV v British & Irish Lions; Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, Port Elizabeth

Sat 20 Jun; 15.00; South Africa v British & Irish Lions; The ABSA Stadium, Durban

Tue 23 Jun; 19.00; Emerging Springboks v British & Irish Lions; Newlands, Cape Town

Sat 27 Jun; 15.00; South Africa v British & Irish Lions; Loftus Versfeld, Pretoria

Sat 4 Jul; 15.00; South Africa v British & Irish Lions; Coca-Cola Park, Johannesburg

Labels: british and irish lions, lions, lions tour, rugby, south africa

Conservation authorities on Tuesday continued their search for lions that escaped from the Kruger National Park.

Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks agency spokesperson Jimmy Masombuka said they were searching for the two remaining beasts. Two others that escaped had since been killed.

"We are busy monitoring the situation and taking part in a joint search effort with community members and Kruger personnel."

Masombuka said many sightings by the public had proved, after further investigation, to be false alarms.

The lions seem still to be in in the vicinity of the town of Emdlankomo in the Nelspruit area, near the place where they left the park through a break in the fence on Friday.

Two have been killed - one was hit by a train on Saturday and the second was shot on Monday night after it was found eating a cow.

Masombuka said the agency received a tip-off about the whereabouts of the lion, surrounded the area and killed it.

He said they had to kill the animal. "Because it's tasted a cow, it's going to be a problem and a danger to the livestock," he said.

Masombuka said it seemed the lions were much more active at night than during the heat of the day.

The search was difficult, partly because the area was heavily wooded.

"They can smell you at a distance and they hide themselves very quickly," he said.

However, Masombuka said the agency would not rest until they had found the remaining lions. "We are not going to stop the search until we make sure that everybody is safe. However, we'd like to urge the community to work hand-in-glove with us", he said.

He urged members of the community to report sightings to the agency.

Authorities are also monitoring the park fence to see if the lions had not returned to the park.

Villagers living next to the Kruger may be to blame for the recent escape.

Masombuka said that villagers often remove some of the Park's fencing to either use the material or to sell it. Masombuka has issued a serious warning against such actions.

** UPDATE, 04/10 **

Separately and further north, two more cattle have been killed by lions at Mahlathi village, in Limpopo. This brings the number of cattle killed to 49 since last month. The lions escaped from the Kruger National Park. Park spokesperson, Raymond Travers says animals that have escaped are no longer their responsibility.

Meanwhile, the environmental affairs department in the province says it has sent rangers to assist in the hunt for lions and farmers can kill the animals. However, the spokesperson for the department Lehlohonolo Masoga says farmers will not be compensated for their loss. Lions have also been terrorizing communities in Mpumalanga in past weeks.

** UPDATE, 06/10 **

Rangers and communal farmers have snared and killed two lions at Mahlathi village outside Giyani in Limpopo. This brings to three the number of lions killed so far. The lions escaped from the northern side of the Kruger National Park at the beginning of last month. It is believed four lions escaped.

The lions are believed to have killed 49 cattle since last month. Environmental Affairs authorities have given permission to affected communities to kill the animals. Lions have also been terrorising communities in Mpumalanga in the past few weeks.

Meanwhile, the Environmental Affairs department in the province says it has sent rangers to assist in the hunt for lions and farmers can kill the animals.

Labels: escaped animals, lions, nelspruit

CAPE TOWN- South Africa's environment minister announced long-awaited restrictions on hunting yesterday, declaring he was sickened by wealthy tourists shooting tame lions from the back of a truck and felling rhinos with bow and arrows.

In addition, lions bred in captivity would have to be released into the open for at least two years before they could be hunted. Van Schalkwyk said a previously proposed six-month delay would not give lions enough time to develop self-defense instincts.

"Hunting should be about fair chase- testing the wits of a hunter against that of the animal," he told a press conference. "Over the years that got eroded and now we are trying to re-establish that principle."

South Africa is famous as home to the Big Five animals— lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant and buffalo. Its flagship Kruger National Park attracts hundreds of thousands of camera toting visitors every year. Some 9,000 privately owned game farms and other government-run reserves also offer visitors a taste of the wild.

But it has become also become a choice destination for wealthy gun-toting tourists willing to pay more than $20,000 to take home a "trophy" lion or rhino's head.

The new law, which enters into force June 1, bans the hunting of animals that have been tranquilized. It outlaws bows and arrows for big predators and thick skinned animals like rhinos - one of the practices singled out by Van Schalkwyk as particularly appalling. And it bans the use of vehicles to chase the animal until it is too tired and terrified to flee for its life.

"To see people who are half drunk on the back of a bakkie (truck) hunting lions which are in fact tame animals is quite abhorrent," Van Schalkwyk— himself an avid hunter— said.

But conservationists said the law would be difficult to enforce and did not go far enough because it stopped short of an outright ban on intensive breeding of lions, leopards and other predators.

"The big thing for South Africa would be to stand up and say 'we are conservation leaders and this industry is immoral and unethical and we are not going to allow it,'" said Louise Joubert of the San Wildlife Trust, which campaigned for tougher regulations.

She said it made little difference whether a lion was freed for six months or two years before being hunted because once it had got used to being reared and fed by people, it was hard to break that trust.

Joubert said there should be an outright ban on intensive breeding projects, which often remove cubs from the mother at birth so the lioness mates more quickly, and often destroy female cubs as male lions fetch a higher trophy price.

The South African Predator Breeders' Association, which was set up last year to lobby against the regulations, has warned that breeders may be forced to euthanise the estimated 3-5,000 lions they have reared if they are unable to offer them to foreign hunters and can no longer afford to feed them.

"We have asked for an outright ban," said Joubert. "If it means that four to five thousand lions have to be euthanised, it would be a tragic day but it is the only way for this country to get a grip, so be it."

Earlier this year, the breeders' association threatened legal action against the government to claim for compensation. Association officials did not return phone calls asking for comment Tuesday.

However, the Professional Hunters' Association of South Africa, whose members accompany foreign clients, said it welcomed the new regulations as a chance to clean up the image of the South African hunting industry by clamping down on lion breeders who account for only about 3 percent of game farms.

"A small sector has given the whole industry a bad name," said Stewart Dorrington, president of the hunting body.

Up to 7,000 foreign tourists visit South Africa each year on hunting safaris, each spending roughly $18,000, Dorrington said. About 55 percent of hunters are from North America and the rest from Europe and other countries.

Van Schalkwyk said the regulations marked the start of a "clean up of the hunting industry" and would in due course be extended to other animals like antelope species.

Hunting is an integral part of South African life because of its cultural traditions and importance to the economy.

"We gave our firm intention more than two years ago to deal with the issue," he said. "Many of the lion breeders thought they were empty threats and did not take it seriously. This is a practice that cannot be defended in any way."

Labels: canned hunting, hunting, lions, rhinos

NELSPRUIT- Lions killed an impala on a school sports field shortly before an interschools tournament was to be held.

Staff at Skukuza Primary School in the Kruger National Park had to remove the carcass so that the athletics meeting could go ahead on Saturday.

"They killed the buck on the track itself- right on the 80m mark," said school principal Jannie Geldenhuys on Monday.

He said the kill must have happened on Thursday night, because the remains were found on Friday morning.

"We removed bits of guts and other remains still lying there. It was quite safe. The lions were gone already," he said.

He said the lions were later spotted in the village and Kruger rangers chased them away.

He said the athletics track and rugby field, like the rest of the staff village, were not fenced off, unlike the tourist rest camp.

A way of life

The school hosted an annual athletics meeting involving about 250 children from six local schools.

"I showed some of the kids the place where we removed the remains and they enjoyed it," said Geldenhuys.

He said about 400 people, mainly Kruger employees and their families, lived in the village.

"Animals do move through now and then and are sometimes spotted on the rugby field and golf course, but in the day time they move out again.

"All our yards are fenced off. It's quite safe to walk around during the day, but no one is allowed to be on foot after dark- you have to drive. It's a way of life- you have to be careful."

Labels: escaped animals, lions, skukuza

CAPE TOWN— Lions bred in captivity to be shot and killed by a pleasure-seeking tourist. Rhinos felled by bow and arrow for fun. Zebras bred with donkeys to slow their escape from hunters.

A panel of experts highlighted the darker side of South Africa's booming wildlife industry on Tuesday and recommended a total ban on "canned hunting"- the release of captive-bred animals to be killed for sport with no chance of escaping their human predators.



Environment Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk said the government would introduce legislation next year to salvage South Africa's reputation as an international haven for wildlife.

"We want to stop the approach of 'anything goes' in terms of hunting and crossbreeding," said van Schalkwyk.

The hunting of lions and other big cats bred in captivity purely to die at the barrel of a gun will be outlawed.

The Department of the Environment said the new regulations will make it illegal for anyone to kill large predators raised in an enclosed reserve to blunt their survival instincts.

It said it would also ban the shooting of lions, cheetahs and leopards in a "controlled environment," where hunters had an unfair advantage over the beasts, as well as forbidding the killing of tranquilized animals.

"The department shall never condone unacceptable hunting practices including so-called canned hunting," it said.

The proposed laws were drawn up following three years of consultations with hunting industry and conservation groups.

South Africa is famous as home to the Big Five— lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant and buffalo. Its flagship Kruger National Park attracts in excess a million camera-toting visitors annually.

Some 9,000 privately owned game farms and other government-run reserves also offer visitors a taste of the wild.

South Africa has become a choice destination for those willing to pay a high price to take home a prized trophy.

The TRAFFIC wildlife trade monitoring network said that in 2004, 190 lions worth an estimated $3.3 million were hunted in 2004 by foreigners: $17,500 each. Nearly 5,500 kudu- valued at $5.3 million in all- were also taken, along with 45 leopards worth an estimated $250,000.

Hunting is an integral part of South African life because of its cultural traditions and importance to the economy.

Minister van Schalkwyk is himself an avid hunter.

But the Government panel set up to examine the law found horrific examples of abuse, including the widespread use of predators born and bred in captivity.

Labels: ban, canned hunting, hunting, lions, van schalkwyk

BUSHBUCKRIDGE- Four lions were still on the loose in the Bushbuckridge area of Limpopo, the provincial department of environmental affairs said.

The department had already shot dead five of them after they apparently escaped from a private game reserve last week.

"I can confirm that we have put down five lions, they were threatening people's lives in that area," said spokesman Moses Tseli.

"We can't equate human lives with that of animals. We call on the communities in that area, when confronted by those lions, not to chase or provoke them," he added.

Kruger Park spokesman Raymond Travers said the lions could have come from one of any number of small private game reserves between the park and Bushbuckridge.

It would not be possible to say where they came from as no reserve branded or marked its lions.

Calson Magopane, a spokesman for the Dumphries community, said on Friday that the lions had already devoured cattle belonging to residents.

"The situation is very terrible. The community members are living with fear as these lions are still around."

Labels: bushbuckridge, escaped animals, lions

JOHANNESBURG- Africa's lion population could die out in the next decade if nothing is done to save the estimated 30,000 animals, a South African newspaper reported on Sunday quoting experts responsible for the latest research on the issue.

Conflict with humans and livestock, a loss of habitat due to development and a virus similar to the feline immunodeficiency virus has caused the continent's lion population to dwindle from an estimated 200,000 in the 1980s, according to a study, The Sunday Times newspaper reported.

The study released at the Eastern and Southern African Lion Strategy Conference in Johannesburg this week pointed to a sharp drop in the number of lions in Angola, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Botswana.

While lions in South Africa's Kruger National Park were identified as having a good chance of survival, it has already been shown that of the 103 cubs born in Botswana's Okavango Delta in the last six years, only 10 have survived.

It was critical that Africa embarked on action to defend its wild lions, animals that played a crucial role in the continent's economy through tourism and trophy hunting, researcher Kate Nicolls of Lion Aid in Botswana was quoted saying in the report.

The report of the meeting is here.

Labels: conservation, lions

JOHANNESBURG- Limpopo Province's conservation department has been caught with a smoking gun in its hands.

It has advertised for sale various predators, some of which were previously rescued from breeding facilities supplying the canned hunting industry.

This means the animals could find themselves bought by the big-bucks canned hunting brigade, and returned to the very fate from which they were once spared.

Up for grabs are several lions, nine endangered African wild dogs and a young Bengal tiger.

Louise Joubert, of SanWild Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre, in Gravelotte, Limpopo, was horrified to discover that the eight lions in their custody were being advertised for sale.

"In a tender document issued on November 15, under the heading Disposals, I saw various animals advertised for sale," she said. "Under lots two and three were Jespha and his pride, who we have been caring for since November 2003, with the help of international donor funding."

Joubert, however, is not prepared to leave the lions to their fate, and is ready for a battle. She is bringing a High Court application against the department to stop the sale.

An emotional Joubert said she had just received a phone call from UK donors who had already raised £10,000 (about R111,900) towards the costs of a court hearing.

"They said they will never desert their lions, never just leave them to this horrible fate."

She spoke fondly of the leader of the pride, the magnificent Jespha, and of Nikana, who had given birth to two cubs, which donors named Rongo and Aroha.

"This was the first time Nikana had had an opportunity to raise her own cubs. Previously they were always removed from her, and hand-raised, forcing her to come into season again," said Joubert, adding this was customary in breeding centres.

Breeding

Explaining how SanWild came to be home to the animals, Joubert said the lions had been the basis of a controversial court case - in which an Edwin Claasens was found guilty of setting up a breeding project for hunting purposes.

At that time an agreement was reached between the Department of Economic Development, Finance and Tourism and SanWild. SanWild Trust would raise international donor funding to construct a temporary holding facility for confiscated predators.

The department did not have such a facility, nor the funding to feed and care for the animals. Joubert said SanWild hoped not only to offer the animals a chance of a better life, but to help the authorities curb illegal breeding and hunting of lions in particular.

Inherent in the agreement, she said, was that the lions would not be sold back into the captive breeding and hunting industry. The department would also work with the trust to find suitable end destinations for animals that were the subject of court cases.

However, by November 2004 relations had soured. The trust believed the department had little interest in the animals' long-term welfare, so suggested the department should contribute towards the animals' financial upkeep. The first payment was only received in June 2005.

Now Joubert believes the department intends setting up its own facility for handling confiscated animals. "But if they are going to sell them off to the canned hunters, then they are just as bad as them, and cannot call themselves a conservation body," said Joubert.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare meanwhile commissioned a private investigator - conservation and wildlife journalist Ian Michler - to look into the captive breeding of predators in this country.

Hotspots

The fund's Christina Pretorius said Michler had identified Limpopo, North West and Free State as the hotspots.

They had also proved less than co-operative. "We asked what species they were captively breeding, the number of animals, where it was taking place, and what the animals were being bred for," said Pretorius.

Conflicting information had been provided. Limpopo, for instance, had maintained there were only seven registered captive-predator holding facilities in the province. However, chairman of the Limpopo Carnivore Association, Piet Warren told Michler that at least 32 facilities had been established in the province and were holding about 400 to 500 lions.

Michler further found that at many facilities, commercially viable animals were fed, while others were left to starve. In most instances, enclosures were tiny and cramped.

Pretorius said exotic animals such as pumas, jaguars, tigers (about 60) and grey wolves were also being kept in captivity. A spokesman for the Department of Economic Development, Finance and Tourism, Tseli Moss, said, "The matter is sub judice, so we have no comment."

Labels: ban, canned hunting, hunting, lions

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC- Attacks by African lions on people and livestock have been in the news lately, but on the whole humans present a much greater threat to Africa's lions than the lions do to humans.

South Africa's free-ranging lion population, an estimated 2,700 animals living mostly in the ecosystem surrounding Kruger National Park in the northeast corner of the country, is among those at risk.

One possible threat is bovine tuberculosis, a disease probably introduced to South Africa through domestic cattle brought in by European settlers at the end of the 18th century.

The disease also afflicts animals in the Serengeti grasslands and woodlands in northern Tanzania and southern Kenya. But according to Craig Packer, professor of zoology at the University of Minnesota, TB isn't as important an issue there.

"While it seems that TB is a worse problem in Kruger than elsewhere, it is still not clear that the disease is as devastating as people originally claimed," he said. "While we still have TB in Tanzania, it isn't a problem that we worry much about."

Dewald Keet, the chief veterinarian at Kruger National Park, does worry. He said that bovine tuberculosis is an ever-increasing threat to Kruger lions. But because TB is increasing at a slow rate, people may have the mistaken impression that it has stabilized.

"Nothing is being done to control the disease except research," he said. According to Keet, the prevalence of the disease in lions in the southern half of the park varies between 48 percent and 78 percent.

He explained that lions first contracted the disease when eating infected buffalo carcasses, and the southern region of the park is where TB prevalence is highest in African buffalo. Lions in Kruger are also infecting each other through biting and aerosol transmission, Keet said.

About 25 lions die of TB every year in Kruger, but even more important is the effect of the disease on lion social behavior. Males are weakened by the chronic disease, and this, Keet said, leads to "faster territorial male turnover and consequent infanticide, eviction of entire prides, and a decrease in average longevity."

"Canned" Hunting

Hunting lions is still legal in South Africa. According to Karyl Whitman, a graduate student in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior at the University of Minnesota, "nearly all of the hunting is conducted on private ranches, and thus on small 'manicured' populations as opposed to 'wild' viable populations."

This kind of "canned" hunting is controversial, and, in Whitman's view, "distasteful." She adds that it may have at least one redeeming feature in that it takes the pressure off wild populations in other areas. "But I know of no studies that have that documented," she warned.

Whitman said that hunters are divided on the subject of the ethics of canned hunting. "One might argue that 'hunters' are opposed to it," she said, "but 'shooters' are not."

Luring Free-Ranging Lions

Keet sees another danger: hunters who lure lions with bait or sound, especially large, free-ranging males from protected areas. Hunters are only interested in big, preferably black-maned lions, Keet said, and killing them can be disastrous. "It causes a chain reaction where new males then move in and kill the offspring of the hunted males."

Trophy hunters claim about 150 South African lions each year, but the South African government views this trade as sustainable. An April 2004 proposal by the Kenya Wildlife Service for the management of Africa's lion population asserted that current levels of hunting are unsustainable.

In response, Pieter Botha of South Africa's Environmental Affairs and Tourism Department, wrote that this might apply to some countries, but not to South Africa.

South Africa exports more lions and lion body parts than any country except Tanzania. South Africa contributes about 30 percent of lions hunted in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Future of South African Lions

Although there are some small populations of lions outside of the Kruger ecosystem, they are not self-sustaining, and, according to Keet, they have to be managed with occasional additions and removals.

Keet worries, though, about the continuing health of the free-ranging population. "Bovine tuberculosis is not a disease that will disappear from the Kruger ecosystem unless radically combated," he said. "And by now it is probably too late."

Click here for the full National Geographic article.

Labels: canned hunting, disease, lions, tuberculosis

SKUKUZA- Three lions showed up as unexpected guests while a marathon race was underway in South Africa's famed Kruger National Park, forcing runners to stop until the animals left the road, local media reported on Tuesday.

Three participants of the annual Skukuza Sterling Light half-marathon had a big fright on Saturday when they ran into three lions taking a nap in the middle of the road.

A motorcyclist in front of the athletes noticed them just before the 14km mark and stopped the runners in their tracks.

The nearest field ranger on duty was called and the lions were chased away before the marathon could continue.

But the incident resulted in a large group finishing together, said the newspaper.

On Friday evening, elephants caused havoc in the Skukuza staff village inside the park, which formed part of the race.

The elephants left the village before the race started, but the athletes had to run around heaps of dung, the newspaper said.

Labels: escaped animals, lions, rangers, skukuza

JOHANNESBURG- A man has been killed by lions at the Kruger National Park's Phalaborwa entrance in Limpopo, a spokesperson for the Park said on Friday.

Raymond Travers said the incident occurred on Thursday evening after the man entered the park while security guards were closing the gates.

"The man eluded security guards manning the Phalaborwa gates and ran into the bush near the gate.

"The security guards informed park rangers and began searching for the man, but because of the thick Mopani bushveld and darkness, the man could not be found and the search was called off."

When rangers resumed the search on Friday morning they found the man's remains.

Rangers found a lion with the lower half of the man's body near the Phalaborwa entrance.

Travers said a male lion was shot to recover the man's body.

Rangers are still searching for a female lion as they believe that the lion could endanger communities living near the park.

The director of the Kruger National Park, Bandile Mkhize, appealed to people living nearby not to enter the park once the gates were closed as it was dangerous and illegal.

Police are investigating the incident.

Labels: lions, Phalaborwa, rangers

HOEDSPRUIT (Kruger Times)- During the early hours of Wednesday February 16, between five and seven lions decided to take a stroll down the main road through Skukuza village. At about 04h00, Jannie Geldenhuys and Frikkie Rossouw were covering the cricket pitch to protect it for a match later in the day, and at about 04h30 the lions decided to walk onto the field.

Four of the lions were darted when people who had spotted them alerted the rangers and vets. They loaded the lion onto two vehicles and brought them around to the school at about 06h45 just before the start of school.

According to Sharon Gillespie, ”It was amazing. The children were enthralled and extremely curious until the male lifted his head and one just saw kiddie winkles scattering. It was a great day and we are truly thankful to the rangers and vets who brought the lion around for our children to experience- it really was education in action.”

by Lynette Strauss, Kruger Times

Labels: escaped animals, lions, skukuza