In the summer of 2015, social media turned an obscure series of hunting violations into a global cause celebre. The frenzied reporting last August about the killing of a lion was the catalyst behind changes in international laws and trophy transport, African hunting regulations, corporate policies and social awareness that have advanced the protection of African wildlife yet stalled the growth of a conservation model that was taking hold on the continent.
"Africa today is an amazing place with beautiful animals. The countries need tourists to help conservation efforts and awareness whether that be by using a camera or managing wildlife (through hunting)," said Joe Coogan, a long-time safari guide and owner of Africa All-Ways, which outfits and conducts safaris in several African countries.
A month after Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer posted a photo of himself, his guide and a lion killed in a trophy hunt, the image went viral as tourists recognized the individual lion they had named Cecil. Palmer was internationally vilified for participating in a safari that had been described to him, authorities said, as a legal $54,000 archery hunt. In fact, he'd been deceived. The tract of land where the hunt occurred, adjacent to Zimbabwe's 3.6 million-acre Hwange National Park, was not properly registered as a hunting conservancy. A lion quota had not been set by wildlife managers, and the guide's removal of a radio collar worn by the lion was illegal.
But the global outrage had little to do with violations of the law. Mainstream media sources repeated the claims of wildlife management laymen and animal-rights activists _ some accurate, some not so much _ that flooded social media. Defensive hunting organizations and safari-hunt organizers shot themselves in the foot with a collective lack of media savvy in the face of an explosive news event.
Since then, animal rights groups, African conservationists, the safari-hunt industry, hunters in general and people worldwide are still adjusting to the global Cecil moment.
At the start of the media frenzy, Palmer ducked out of sight for a short time before returning to his dental practice, which was reopened following two months of on-site protests. A Zimbabwean environment minister called for his extradition from the United States on poaching charges, and the White House received a petition with more than 100,000 signatures urging the government to comply. But an extradition request was never sent. Zimbabwean authorities found his permits and licenses to be in order and determined that the landowner and his guide were the culpable parties. Palmer was never charged with a crime, but in July, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced it was still investigating the case. Previously, the dentist had been fined for violating hunting regulations in the United States.
Zimbabwean landowner Honest Ndlovu was charged with selling hunting access without authorization and released on bail. Guide Theo Bronkhorst was charged with failure to prevent an illegal hunt, and his request to have the case dropped was denied. Neither case has been resolved. In separate litigation in September, Bronkhorst was acquitted of attempting to smuggle wild animals out of the country. Prosecutors told reporters that Cecil's cape and mounted head remained in Zimbabwe and would be displayed during the trials of both men, whenever they occur.
Another American was briefly swept up in the Cecil hoopla. Murrysville gynecological oncologist Jan Seski was accused of participating in an unrelated unsanctioned lion hunt months earlier. Charges were dropped when authorities confirmed he was not in Zimbabwe when the hunt occurred. Seski returned to his practice and has refused all interview requests.
Hwange National Park biologists were initially concerned that 14 cubs sired by the collared lion and another male might be killed in a territorial dispute with another lion. That hasn't happened and 13 have survived.
To retain hierarchy in the pride, aging male lions often pick fights with younger males _ battles that can be fatal. One common conservation strategy to keep a pride's young males healthy is to flag a male lion that is beyond reproductive age for an animal-specific hunt, to prevent him from harming younger lions. The license fees purchased in those hunts are used to help to finance the private militias hired by landowners to protect vast properties from illegal poaching.
Hwange Park's 13-year-old black-maned tourist fave was kept alive as part of a radio-collar study by the University of Oxford's Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, tracking the park's lions in a long-term study of ways to prevent illegal hunting. The study is funded primarily by hunting organizations _ details of Cecil's death, in fact, were included in the research.
At the height of the global outrage, late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel cried on the air over Cecil's demise and urged viewers to donate to the Oxford radio-collar study. Cash poured in. Project director David MacDonald told the National Geographic organization the unfortunate loss of the research subject resulted in a financial windfall for the study.
"I think it's arguable that this is the biggest global response to a wildlife story there's ever been," MacDonald told the magazine. "I think all those people were exhibiting an interest not just in lions but in conservation more widely."
The Cecil story sparked a new anti-hunting drive among skeptics who scoff at the notion that hunting can be a tool of conservation. In July, demonstrators at an animal rights rally in Washington, D.C., cited Cecil in a protest against trophy hunting. The Humane Society of the United States supported the trophy-hunt outrage with a gotcha sting in which wealthy hunters were filmed at a recent safari-industry expo in Las Vegas. Their images and individual hunting records were published in a report structured to inform their clients, patients and supporters of their safari-hunt hobby.
Shortly after the global lion event, Australia and France banned the domestic transport of lion parts. Some airlines banned animal trophies from their payloads, but the impact on actual hunting has been negligible.
"There are some airlines that have banned the transport, but it has not impacted tourism hunts as they just use other airlines," said Adrian Read, a professional hunter and safari outfitter for Hunters Africa.
Conservationists who see legal trophy hunting as a valuable tool against illegal poaching are awaiting a major decision that would put the pinch on international poaching networks. This autumn, the 182-member international convention that regulates global wildlife trade will vote on a proposal to outlaw the commercial trade of African lions and their parts. The move would impact poachers but not legal hunting.
A century ago an estimated 200,000 wild lions roamed the African continent. Following decades of habitat loss, an estimated 20,000 remain _ a dwindling resource that animal-rights organizations and hunting groups agree is worth conserving. But African lions are not an "endangered species" as was widely reported. At the time of Palmer's hunt, African lions hadn't even made the "threatened" list.
Six months later, however, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reversed policy with a finding that acknowledges the species "is not currently in danger of extinction" and "lion numbers in southern Africa are increasing overall," but notes that populations in some areas are declining due to ongoing threats. That, the finding stated, meets the definition of a "threatened" species. Agency director Dan Ashe added a caveat:
"The service found that sport-hunting, if well managed, may provide a benefit to (African lions)," Ashe wrote in a Director's Order tacked to the listing. "Well-managed conservation programs use trophy hunting revenues to sustain lion conservation, research and anti-poaching activities. However, the service found that not all trophy hunting programs are scientifically based or managed in a sustainable way."
In a compromise "threatened" listing, the United States now forbids the importation of African lion parts, including sport-hunting trophies, from nations that fail to verify that hunting fees are used to finance lion conservation.
Nevertheless, since the Cecil incident fewer animal trophies of any kind are being imported to Europe and the United States. In email correspondence from Zimbabwean bush country, Coogan suggested the social media attacks on Palmer caused some wary safari hunters to rethink their trips, while others have backed off on sending home the selfies.
"The Cecil story was picked up from a Facebook post. (Hunters) are careful in posting pictures on the Internet and across social channels," Coogan said. "Hunters provide critical funding that would not be there otherwise, as well as a presence in areas that are considered marginal for normal tourism and photographic safaris. ... The hesitation to hunt lions has impacted conservation efforts because the money people pay to hunt a lion goes back into conservation."
But in the Humane Society's report on its undercover safari-hunter sting, president and CEO Wayne Pacelle suggested that Cecil's death has sparked a new international awareness in animal welfare.
"The global business of trophy hunting is still thriving, but we may see increasing restrictions on the killing on the ground and on the trade of these species," he stated in the report. "One of the quickest and best things we can do is to restrict the intentional killing of these animals, especially when the purposes for the killing are so gratuitous and so obviously driven by the most wicked of intentions."
