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Yes it is worth remembering amid the outrage over Cecil that shooting lions and other big game is legal practice in many areas

Of course the reality is often more complicated than the surface with the role that hunting plays in conservation, local economies, and enabling countries to offer better protection to these species than they otherwise would do. An interesting article: http://www.panthera.org/node/1253

But that does not mean that all hunting is necessarily bad for lions. Just as strong, empirical science has shown that over-hunting is bad for lions, it also demonstrates that hunting can be sustainable. By setting very conservative quotas and raising age limits to ensure that older male lions are targeted, the worst effects of lion hunting can be mitigated (Packer et.al). There is scant evidence of the hunting industry embracing such measures on its own but the few exceptions- and they do exist- show that hunting does not inevitably come with costs to lion numbers.

Indeed, it even has the potential to benefit lions. In Africa, sport hunting is the main revenue earner for huge tracts of wilderness outside national parks and reserves. Many such areas are too remote, undeveloped or disease-ridden for the average tourist, precluding their use for photographic safaris. Hunting survives because hunters are usually more tolerant of hardship, and they pay extraordinary sums- up to US$125,000- to shoot a male lion. The business requires only a handful of rifle-toting visitors to prosper which, in principle, helps protect those areas. The presence of hunting provides African governments with the economic argument to leave safari blocks as wilderness. Without it, cattle and crops- and the almost complete loss of wildlife they bring- start looking pretty attractive.

Which is why I’m not happy about the ESA petition. If American hunters, by far the largest market for big game safaris in Africa, can no longer hunt, lions and other wildlife will probably lose out. As unpalatable as it may be, until we find alternative mechanisms to generate the hard cash required to protect wilderness in Africa, hunting remains the most convincing model for many wild areas.