Kerry and Libby Krottinger in their ‘Wall Of Death’ room
Kerry Krottinger, a wealthy Texas hunter and businessman, has slaughtered so much African wildlife over the years that he amassed a veritable “wall of death” in his Dallas home. The National Geographic portrait depicts him sitting with his wife among the taxidermied bodies of Lions, Rhinos, Cheetah, Giraffes and enough Elephant tusks to open a traditional Chinese hospital.
The British-based charity LionAID, which uploaded the photo to their Facebook page, took a markedly dim view. “This is just one Texas trophy hunter with a ‘love’ of Africa,” they write. “Is it any wonder that Africa’s wildlife is disappearing? Just have a count of the various species displayed. Three Lions? So many Elephant tusks? A Giraffe? A Rhino? Kerry must be one of the leading CONservation hunters on the planet!”
Little is known about Krottinger’s personal life. Aside from being an energy millionaire with multiple companies to his name, he and his wife Libby operate a Gypsy horse farm called Ndugu Ranch. A website about the property had been taken offline, but a cache copy can be viewed here. A Facebook page also associated with the ranch was also taken down. Next to a smiling photo of the pair, Krottinger wrote he named the ranch after the Swahili word for “brother” or “family member,” and that the couple has “a great love for Africa.”
Krottinger’s kingly haul of animal carcasses was acquired through what’s known as “conservation hunting,” a practice that is supposedly designed to protect species by allowing people to hunt animals for a high fee that’s then to be used for other conservation efforts.
Far from poachers, conservations hunters — and the websites that promote them — see themselves as environmentalists. LionAID’s director Pieter Kat said the whole premise was nonsense.
“Conservation hunting is a complete myth,” he told Mic. “If conservation hunting had been effective, Cecil the Lion would not have to have been poached out of a national park, because conservation hunting would have maintained a viable and sustainable Lion population within their own trophy hunting concession.” According to Kat, steep fees like the more than $50,000 Palmer paid to kill Cecil typically end up in the pockets of tour operators. “Sustainable hunting does not sustain anything,” he said.
PETA president Ingrid Newkirk was blunter still. “The idea of killing animals to ‘protect’ their species is like having 5-year-olds build a child-labor museum,” she said in a statement to Mic. “True conservationists are the people who pay to keep animals alive through highly lucrative eco-tourism, not the power-hungry people who pay for the cheap thrill of taking magnificent animals’ lives and putting their heads on a wall.”
On Twitter, the response was one of almost universal disgust, with the photo generating near Cecil-levels of rage.
Kat was unapologetic about the Krottinger-shaming on LionAID’s Facebook page. “What we were trying to do there is to alert people to the fact that trophy hunters have this sort of enjoyment of their activity, and what we would like to expose to people is these sorts of people belong in the 19th century,” he said.
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In May 2019, Botswana’s President Masisi justified the decision to recommence trophy hunting by emphasising that local communities will be guaranteed more than just menial jobs and enjoy sustainable wildlife management’s economic benefits.
A Bull Elephant shot in Botswana – a so-called ‘100 pounder’.
As the passage of the Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill moves to the Committee Stage of the House of Lords, a suite of amendments has been tabled for deliberation. These amendments include amending the Bill from a blanket ban to a case-by-case assessment of trophies imported into the United Kingdom based on whether they contribute to the conservation of wildlife and human economic upliftment.
For example: Amendment Clause 2(d) states that hunting imports may only be granted if:
“a hunting area where the hunting operator can demonstrate that financial or non-financial benefits of trophy hunting materially contributes to the conservation of the trophy hunted species, including habitat protection, anti-poaching measures, and support for community livelihoods.”
A Shopping List For Trophy Hunters
At face value, this appears to be equitable. Ignoring the obvious ethical dispute, if trophy hunting can be proven to benefit the conservation of wildlife and human livelihoods, then perhaps it may be a case to consider. However, the problem in the majority of trophy hunting cases, and in most countries where trophy hunting takes place, the activity not only is wholly unable to benefit wildlife and human communities, but precipitates the opposite.
Botswana, one of the major destinations for trophy hunters, is a particular case in point.
The southern African nation has been promoted by some in the House of Lords as an example of a trophy hunting ‘success.’ So much so that a high-level delegation of government officials from Botswana, including a minister, an ambassador and a wildlife department head of authority were invited to the House of Lords in June 2023 to make a case for the benefits of trophy hunting in their country. Yet, serious questions surround Botswana’s ability to adequately regulate trophy hunting and provide any meaningful benefits for communities living among and alongside wildlife.
Field investigations, in-person interviews and literature, financial audit, international policy document reviews have been undertaken over the course of a year to assess the validity that Botswana can provide meaningful and tangible benefits to its wildlife and people. This is a summary of the results:
On an international level, the country has been flagged for non-compliance under the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) due to its failure to submit annual reports, which provide crucial information for validating offtake of elephants for trophies for the international trophy trade. This indicates that the wildlife conservation in Botswana is not adequately managed.
Hunting quotas are not based on scientific data. A total quota of 356 Elephants and 74 Leopards are on the Wildlife Hunting Quota List for 2023. These figures are regarded as abnormally high. The list also includes Zebra, Buffalo, Ostrich, Wildebeest, Kudu, Eland, Gemsbok, Warthog, Baboon, and Lechwe.
There is evidence of widespread unethical hunting practices including over-use of already overly high quotas, fraudulent practices, corruption, baiting, and hunting near and within photographic tourism zones. As well as the deployment of aerial support to search for large tuskers and killing Elephant bulls near artificial waterholes.
Trophy hunting activities in Botswana are forcing communities, which are expected to rely on the proceeds of trophy hunting, into a perpetual cycle of impoverishment and economic disenfranchisement. Trophy hunting obstructs the development of more meaningful activities like photographic tourism while the proceeds from trophy hunting are so miniscule that individual community members are practically receiving nothing.
There is also widespread evidence of corruption and mismanagement of funds generated by the Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) system in areas centred on trophy hunting as the main economic activity. The mismanagement and corruption are directly linked to trophy hunting.
The current government has revoked scientific research permits of organisations that have been committed to providing peer reviewed scientific data on the conservation status and ecology of Elephants and suppress those that have dared to voice concern over unsustainable and unethical hunting practices.
An aerial photograph of a butchered Elephant, shot by trophy hunters in Botswana.
The adult Elephant Bull (above) has been stripped of its body-parts. The trunk has been hacked off. There are large portions of the Elephant’s skin cut off. All four feet have been removed – presumably to make foot / table stools (the Botswana president, Mokgweetsi Masisi, (in)famously gave Elephant foot stools to the presidents of neighbouring countries at an Elephant Management meeting in Kasane in 2019). The tusks and skull have been taken to a taxidermy. These body parts represent the prize – the trophy – that the hunter was after, and which will be displayed on a wall in their home in Europe or America or Asia. There is also some flesh cut off on the flanks of one side, possibly to provide some meat for the trackers and skinners as a ‘tip’.
It has been claimed in Botswana that trophy hunting is only undertaken in ‘marginal’ wilderness areas that are not deemed viable for photographic tourism. It is also claimed that attempts to convert trophy hunting areas not viable for photographic tourism into photographic tourism areas is a challenge. Areas that are deemed not viable for photographic tourism are remoteness, lower densities of wildlife and monotonous natural landscapes. In these spaces, trophy hunting becomes a necessary evil as the sole provider of revenue for remote communities living within and alongside wildlife.
And yet, this Elephant was shot in a hunting concession (NG41) that is neatly wedged between two national parks – Moremi Game Reserve and Chobe National Park. These two parks are globally renowned for photographic tourism and are consequently brimming with tourists wanting to photograph what Botswana showcases best – wildlife. The fact that that this Elephant was shot right in the middle of these tourist hotspots makes a mockery of the claim that trophy hunting in Botswana only takes place in marginal areas.
The Wall Of Death: A Hunter’s ‘Trophy’ Room
The standard narrative from hunters and their proponents is that trophy hunting is an essential conservation tool that, if conducted ‘ethically’, preserves endangered wildlife and provides revenue for impoverished communities living in marginalised areas where photographic tourism is absent. Yet as this case shows, as they all do, that narrative is a false one. Stripped of its protective fairy-tale veil, the true face of trophy hunting lays bare, a narcissistic bloodlust of a few depraved individuals who care little for ethics, community upliftment or wildlife conservation. ~ Adam Cruise.
In The Trophy Hunter’s Sights: Botswana’s Elephants
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We believe EVERY animal should be treated with respect, empathy, and understanding. We raise awareness to protect and conserve wild, captive, companion and farm animals.
It is vital that we protect animals against acts of cruelty, abuse, and neglect by enforcing established animal welfare laws and, when necessary, take action to ensure that those who abuse animals are brought to justice.
Protect All Wildlife are involved in many projects to protect animals’ rights, welfare, and habitats. Money contributed to Protect All Wildlife supports ALL of our worthy programmes and gives us the flexibility to respond to emerging needs. Your donations make our work possible.
The Environment Secretary offered assurances about the Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill in a letter to campaigners.
The Government has pledged to do “all we can” to ensure a ban on trophy hunting imports becomes law amid fears pro-hunting peers could “wreck” the reforms.
Environment Secretary Therese Coffey said the Government will not support any further amendments to the Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill.
The proposed legislation would prohibit bringing into the country body parts from species deemed of conservation concern.
The Bill, introduced by Conservative MP Henry Smith, has already cleared the House of Commons.
But a group of peers have raised concerns and tabled amendments that threaten to derail the proposals.
Time is running out to consider the Bill and it will fall if it does not receive royal assent before the current parliamentary session stops ahead of the King’s Speech on November 7.
Ms Coffey, in a letter to the Humane Society International/UK dated August 17, wrote: “It is a manifesto commitment to ban the import of hunting trophies from endangered animals and we are working hard to deliver.
“The Bill passed the Commons in March, with the Government’s support, and we will do all we can to support its progress through the House of Lords working with Baroness Fookes.
“I can confirm that we will not be supporting any further amendments to the Bill. I expect committee stage to progress next month.”
Conservative peer Lady Fookes is the Bill’s sponsor in the House of Lords.
Claire Bass, senior director of campaigns and public affairs at Humane Society International/UK, said: “There is a small and vocal group of pro-hunting peers doing their best to wreck this Bill, but we need the Government to remain focused on the almost 90% of the public who want this ban on the import of hunting trophies.
“The timing for this Bill is indeed extremely tight but we were encouraged to receive a letter from Environment Secretary Therese Coffey yesterday.”
No Friday sittings to consider private members’ bills are expected in the House of Lords in September, according to the Government whips’ office in the Lords.
With the party conference recess running until October 16, there are expected to be just two possible Friday sittings before the parliamentary session ends.
Mr Smith, MP for Crawley, said he is speaking with the Government in a bid to secure more parliamentary time for his Bill.
Conservative peer Lord Mancroft, who opposes the proposals, said amendments have been tabled in a bid to “clean up” or clarify parts of the “badly drafted” Bill.
He acknowledged it is “very possible” the amendments could halt the Bill’s progress and rated its chances as “less than 10%”.
Mr Smith said the planned legislation is about UK import policy, adding opponents have pressed “spurious arguments” about how trophy hunting helps conservation.
A House of Lords briefing paper on the Bill stated: “According to figures from the Cites (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna) trade database, 190 hunting trophies from Cites-listed species were imported into the UK in 2020 (the most recent complete year for which figures are available).”
When I got wind of your courageous exploits, I felt I had to congratulate you. For a start, you are British. We adore the British – they are our second favourite colonialists. The first, obviously, are the Dutch. They gave us the Afrikaners who in turn gave us apartheid. What’s not to love about apartheid, right? Was that the reason your parents moved to South Africa in 1980?
Your efforts to encourage tourism to South Africa in these fraught times are laudable, indeed. It’s not easy these days to find a Brit who is interested in anything other than Brexit and that tawdry harlot, Meghan Markle.
Even though you’re only 46 and hail from Epsom, Surrey, you have your very own company operating out of Johannesburg. It’s called Take Aim Safaris. At first I thought it might be another of those bunny-fondling outfits that think the best way to shoot animals is with a camera. Ha! Poor fools. Unlike you, sir, they have clearly never cradled a 300 Winchester Magnum in one arm and a high-class prostitute in the other.
And you named your eldest son Hunter! You wouldn’t expect a man who enjoys shooting animals in the face to have a sense of humour. Well done.
You spotted a gap in the market. As the plague is still very much with us, people are understandably reluctant to travel. That’s until you reminded them that with fewer hunters around, wild animals have been breeding like, well, wild animals. You can barely walk anywhere in South Africa right now without bumping into an elephant.
So you fired off a newsletter to 3,000 of your clients around the world encouraging them to come here and kill a bunch of stuff for sport. And what a sport it is! Okay, maybe not so much for the animals, but they don’t pay taxes and won’t be missed.
You wrote, “Big elephant and trophy buffalo + hippo, croc are plentiful. The areas are well rested, the animal movement is fantastic.” Let’s see how fantastically they move with a 5.56-caliber bullet lodged in their brain haha.
“I have quota available on the big cats: leopard and lion plus elephant bulls at unbeatable prices.” This is great news. I have never trusted an animal that can’t change its spots. Leopards are duplicitous, violent brutes and I am delighted to hear that they are now on special. Lions, too, will pretend to befriend you, then have your throat out just for the sport of it. They are cats, after all. Did you know this? Or do you simply judge everything with four legs according to the price tag on its hairy ass? Fair enough.
Some of your prices do seem a bit steep. $8 for a guinea fowl? Leave a trail of breadcrumbs into your oven and they’ll cook themselves. $150 for a mongoose? Can’t be much left, especially if you’re using hollow-point ammo. And $75 for a vervet monkey? Daylight robbery, that is. Porcupines are priced right at $300. Even though it’s more of an execution than a hunt, you could still get a quill in the eye if you were very drunk and had to fall on him.
In a recent interview with African Hunting Gazette, you said you shot your first leopard at 16. Impressive! I hadn’t even had my first blowjob by that age and there you were on a wild killing spree. Have you had your first blowjob yet? No matter. It’s the killing that’s important.
I love that you hunted for a Christian drug rehab in the Northern Cape when you were younger. You gave them more meat than they knew what to do with. That’s a David Lynch movie, that is. Produced by Oliver Stone. Featuring a young Sylvester Stallone as you.
You’ve hunted all over – Mozambique, Botswana, Zimbabwe … you even shot a bear in Russia. I suppose he didn’t understand when you shouted, “Hands up! Don’t move or I’ll shoot!” You also said Namibia is a great place to hunt.
“Namibia reminds me of South Africa 30 years ago with its low human population and massive open spaces.” Yep, there was hardly anyone living in South Africa in 1991. An easy mistake to make, what with 40 million people being tucked away out of sight. As for the massive open spaces, well, you had the Group Areas Act to thank for that.
The magazine asked what’s your favourite animals to hunt and you said, “Dagga Boys!” What? That was the name of my gang when I was growing up. But you were talking about something else. “Such an exciting hunt … it’s kill or be killed when you’re hunting buffalo.” So you engage in hand-to-hoof combat with these brutes? Respect, bro.
Our president is also into buffalo in a big way. Mainly for breeding purposes, though. No, I don’t mean … never mind.
Your greatest trophy was the buffalo you hunted with your dad in Mozambique. “It was, and remains, the fulfillment of a father and son dream hunt in a perfect environment.”
My greatest trophy was for tennis in Standard 8. It was tiny but I was very proud. My father never taught me how to hunt. Instead, he taught me how to play pool. The thrill just wasn’t the same, although people did die in some of the pubs he took me to.
You talk fondly of the “38-inch bull in Mozambique that put me firmly on a path I’m still on”. That’s, like, just over a metre? What kind of small-ass bull is that? You might as well have kicked him to death. Anyway, what do I know. I’m sure you believe your wife when she tells you that size isn’t everything.
So the hippo-humpers are saying that many of the animals on your list are endangered. This is nonsense. There are around 400 000 African elephants left in the wild. If you shot a hundred a day, they would last for ten years. That’s not exactly endangered in my book.
There are also 20 000 lions roaming about off their leashes. That’s more than enough lions for everyone. You can get through five a day at least, maybe more if they stop hiding up trees and in cardboard boxes. Sure, their numbers have plummeted by over 40% in the last three generations as a result of hunting, but our national IQ has dropped 40 points in three years as a result of bad education and too much CNN and you don’t see us shooting our stupid people, do you? Damn, this stuff is strong.
Where was I? Oh, yes. You charge £10,000 to shoot an elephant? That, my friend, is a small fortune in my pathetic currency. And £14,500 to put a bullet into the back of a lion’s head? That’s way too much. Are you on drugs? Tell you what. I’ll give you R10 000 for two baby elephants, three monkeys and a crocodile. You do mix-and-match packages, right? And you do pay your taxes, right?
I see you have lived in Joburg for almost your entire life. It’s completely understandable, then, that you would want to kill everything in sight. And you’ve been organising assassinations ever since 2008? Nice work if you can get it.
I see those gerbil-suckers over at MailOnline have been questioning your ethics. How very dare they. You told them, “We eat what we hunt … we love and conserve animals.” I’ve often wondered what elephant tastes like. Tough, I imagine. Do you make carpaccio out of the leopards? That would be a winner among the Italians.
You also told the running dogs of the media that “I have broken no laws”. Good one, mate. You and me and Jacob Zuma know it’s impossible to break laws in this country. Well, you can break them alright, but there ain’t jackshit gonna happen to you.
That bastion of truth, The Mirror, asked how you felt about the dwindling number of wild animals in SA. You said they were lying, which they obviously were, and said, “In South Africa we have over 20,000,000 wild animals bred and conserved here. The birth rate per annum is around 3,000,000.” You might want to check your science, son. I think you’re talking about our people, here.
By the way, my friend Ted said you look like a bit of a cunt. You’ll be pleased to know that I had one of the servants horsewhip him soundly. Your name is Knight, for heaven’s sake. You’re a member of the realm. And I do mean member.
I liked the way you wrapped up your interview with that hunting magazine: “For my family and I, there is no life without God.” There’s a rich vein of irony in there somewhere.
Did you know that if your Boris Johnson had kept his word and implemented the ban on trophy imports pledged in his election manifesto and repeated in the Commons last year, you’d be back in Surrey organising weasel hunts by now?
Our president also has trouble keeping his promises. Politicians, eh? Long may they lie.
Ben Trovato is the author of thirteen books, although you wouldn’t think so if you had to see his living conditions. His notorious trilogy of letters illuminated the darkest recesses of the human psyche, while his self-help guide went a long way towards boosting divorce and suicide rates. He also wrote a book that almost turned golf into a blood sport and brought out a survival manual that caused more harm than good. With a background in print and television journalism, Trovato’s popular newspaper columns have earned him a wicked reputation and a fatty liver.He can often be found surfing instead of meeting his deadlines. Trovato lives alone with two regrets and a hangover.
Larry Rudolp confessed killing his wife on an African safari in Zambia and collecting millions in life insurance.
An American dentist and big-game hunter was found guilty of murder in the shooting death of his wife on an African safari.
Lawrence Rudolph, 67, killed his wife, Bianca Rudolph, with a shotgun and defrauded multiple insurance companies, a federal jury found Monday. Rudolph cashed in more than $4.8 million in life insurance payments after her death almost six years ago.
Rudolph has maintained his innocence and said he believes the gun fired accidentally.
“I did not kill my wife. I could not murder my wife. I would not murder my wife,” Rudolph told jurors when he took the stand in his own defence at a federal trial in Denver last week.
The Phoenix couple shared a passion for big-game hunting and had travelled to the southern African nation of Zambia in September 2016 so Bianca Rudolph could add a leopard to her collection of animal trophies. They carried two guns for the hunt: a Remington .375 rifle and a Browning 12-gauge shotgun.
Two weeks later, as Bianca Rudolph was packing for the couple’s return home, she suffered a fatal blast from the Browning shotgun in their hunting cabin at Kafue National Park. Rudolph told investigators he heard the shot at dawn while he was in the bathroom and believed the shotgun accidentally went off as she was putting it in its case, court documents said. He told investigators he found her bleeding on the floor.
But federal prosecutors at Rudolph’s trial in Denver, where the insurance companies are based, described it as a premeditated crime. Prosecutors argued Rudolph killed his wife of 30 years for insurance money and to be with his girlfriend, Lori Milliron.
Defence attorney David Markus had argued that Larry Rudolph had no financial motive to kill his wife. In court documents, he noted that Rudolph owns a dental practice near Pittsburgh valued at $10 million.
“We are obviously extremely disappointed. We believe in Larry and his children,” Markus and fellow defence attorneys Margot Moss and Lauren Doyle told CNN in a statement after Monday’s verdict. “There are lots of really strong appellate issues, which we will be pursuing after we have had a chance to regroup.”
The jury also found Milliron, Rudolph’s girlfriend, guilty of being an accessory after the fact to murder, obstruction of justice and two counts of perjury based on her testimony before a grand jury, according to the Department of Justice.
Milliron, who was tried alongside Rudolph, said the couple had been in an open relationship, according to court documents. Milliron and Rudolph lived together from 2017 until his arrest last year, her attorney, John Dill, told CNN.
“We are disappointed in the jury’s verdict, but that is our system,” Dill said. “Lori Milliron is innocent and we will continue to fight to exonerate her.”
An embassy official expressed suspicion after the shooting, the FBI said
In court documents, investigators alleged Rudolph raised suspicions when he sought to quickly cremate his wife’s body in Zambia.
Rudolph scheduled a cremation three days after her death, according to court documents. After he reported her death to the US Embassy in the Zambian capital of Lusaka, the consular chief “told the FBI he had a bad feeling about the situation, which he thought was moving too quickly,” FBI special agent Donald Peterson wrote in the criminal affidavit.
As a result, the consular chief and two other embassy officials went to the funeral home where the body was being held to take photographs and preserve any potential evidence. When Rudolph found out the embassy officials had taken photos of his wife’s body, he was “livid,” Peterson wrote.
Rudolph initially told the consular chief that his wife may have died by suicide, but an investigation by Zambian law enforcement ruled it an accidental discharge.
Investigators for the insurers reached a similar conclusion and paid on the policies.
But forensic evidence showed Bianca Rudolph’s wounds came from a shot fired from at least two feet away, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court.
“At that distance, there is reason to believe that Bianca Rudolph was not killed by an accidental discharge as stated,” the complaint said.
US Attorney Cole Finegan welcomed the jury’s ruling.
“Bianca Rudolph deserved justice,” Finegan said in a statement. “We can only hope this verdict brings Bianca’s family some amount of peace.”
A friend of Bianca Rudolph’s asked the FBI to investigate
But federal investigators maintained the shooting was premeditated so that Rudolph “could falsely claim the death was the result of an accident.”
Rudolph orchestrated his wife’s death as part of a scheme to defraud life insurance companies and to allow him to live openly with his girlfriend, the FBI alleged.
Larry Rudolph was charged with foreign murder in the 2016 death of his wife.
Bianca and Lawrence Rudolph moved from Pennsylvania to Arizona about four years before her death. Rudolph’s dental practice remained in Pennsylvania, and he commuted back and forth from his Phoenix home.
Federal authorities got involved after a friend of Bianca Rudolph asked the FBI to investigate the death because she suspected foul play. The friend said Larry Rudolph had been involved in extramarital affairs and had a girlfriend at the time of his wife’s death.
Milliron worked as a manager at Larry Rudolph’s dental practice near Pittsburgh and told a former employee that she’d been dating him for 15 to 20 years, according to court documents. Milliron moved in with Rudolph three months after Bianca Rudolph’s death, court documents said.
What you can do to help animals in need:
Support ‘Protect All Wildlife’ by donating as little as £1 – It only takes a minute but it can last a lifetime for an animal in need. Thank you.
We believe EVERY animal should be treated with respect, empathy, and understanding. We raise awareness to protect and conserve wild, captive, companion and farm animals. It is vital that we protect animals against acts of cruelty, abuse, and neglect by enforcing established animal welfare laws and, when necessary, take action to ensure that those who abuse animals are brought to justice.
Protect All Wildlife are involved in many projects to protect animals’ rights, welfare, and habitats. Money contributed to Protect All Wildlife supports ALL of our worthy programmes and gives us the flexibility to respond to emerging needs. Your donations make our work possible. Thank you for your support.
Everyone who donates will receive a Certificate of Appreciation as a thank you for supporting wildlife.
Below, is the full testimony of an anonymous source, a former member of the Oxford University Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU) team that radio-collared and studied Cecil prior to him being killed.
CECIL LIVED IN HWANGE NATIONAL PARK, IN ZIMBABWE. HE WAS LURED OUT OF THE PARK WITH AN ELEPHANT CARCASS BY AMERICAN TROPHY HUNTER WALTER PALMER
This anonymous source’s first-hand account of the killing of Cecil 7 years on is an appropriate testimony, not only to the callous way in which American trophy hunter Walter Palmer et al took this pride male Lion’s life for their own self-gratification and/or financial enrichment (the ethos of trophy hunters and the industry that panders to them in general), but also a testimony to why trophy hunting is a vacuous void, devoid of any moral or ethical compass that undermines Africa’s indigenous culture. That is why the long outdated, notion of a bygone era of colonial entitlement and the predominantly white foreigner’s self-proclaimed ‘right’ to kill African wildlife for sadistic entertainment as espoused by trophy hunting must end:
“The physical act of a white hunter coming in and going out on their exploratory adventure, to conquer and kill an animal – that act rehearses the history of colonialism. That point is not lost on people who live in local communities, and it should not be lost on those of us from the country sending trophy hunters” (page 146) – Dr Chelsea Batavia
Senior environmental scientist
“When I started reading the narratives of trophy hunters, I was struck more than anything by the similarity with the narratives of terrorists when they talk about what they do” (page 151) – Professor Geoff Beattie, Professor of Psychology, Edge Hill University. Author, ‘Trophy Hunting: A Psychological Perspective’
The economic forces that drive the trophy hunting industry can be replaced with a balanced approach that enriches Africa’s own cultural identity and interaction with its native wildlife, free from the imposition of the destructive, greed-based desire of the trophy hunting colonial mindset and its bloated lobby heavily financed by vested interests.
ANON – a former member of the Oxford University Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU)
“I worked for close to a decade as a field researcher on the Hwange Lion research project in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe. The initial focus of the work was the impact of trophy hunting outside the park on the Lions inside the park. There was a lot of darting, collaring and observational data to collect. I spent 7 days a week tracking Lions, catching and collaring them and getting to know them. Soon that developed into a study of the conflict between people and Lions, a subject I eventually specialised in.
Cecil was a very large mature Lion in Hwange. He was special because very few male Lions ever survive as long as he did, and thus a lot was made of his huge mane and the fact that it was black. The black mane is a genetic trait that is quite strong in Hwange Lions, but very few Lions survive long enough for it to present. Cecil was dominant over some of the best Lion real-estate in Hwange and this too was the area best for tourists. That is why he was so well-known. He had large prides and he was seen daily by tourists. Cecil was very much in his prime when he was shot, despite him being 12 years old or so. The hunters made a case that Cecil was old and therefore past his prime, but that was not true. He was still breeding and in perfect condition. He was considered old because most Lions are shot long before getting to that age. He was one of two males in a coalition. They were unrelated but had forged an alliance because together they were stronger.
On the night of the 1st of July 2015, a couple of professional hunters (PHs) and their client were sitting about 40 or 50 metres from a blind overlooking a dead elephant. Between 9 and 10pm Jericho, Cecil’s coalition partner, ran past the blind and started feeding on the elephant. Jericho was a very large Lion in his own right and was about a year younger than Cecil. His saving grace was that he was blonde. Walter Palmer – the trophy hunter who shot Cecil – has subsequently said that he didn’t know about Cecil and hadn’t come to hunt Cecil specifically. However, the fact that they didn’t shoot Jericho while watching him feed for over an hour meant that they knew that a larger and darker Lion – the traits a trophy hunter prefers – was still to come.
BROTHERS IN ARMS: THE LAST KNOWN PHOTOGRAPH OF CECIL (WITH BROTHER JERICHO STANDING BEHIND HIM)
Cecil arrived about an hour later. Walter Palmer let loose his arrow. Cecil ran off wounded. The hunters left to go back to camp for the night. Normally when a client is about to shoot a Lion from a blind, his professional hunter (PH) is ready too with his rifle. If the client’s shot doesn’t kill the Lion instantly, then the PH shoots the animal to “secure it”. This is common practice because a wounded Lion is dangerous to follow up and nobody wants to do it. The PH is professionally obliged to “back up” the client’s shot to avoid a wounded animal. In this case, however, Walter Palmer had told his PH not to back him up. The reason for this was that Walter Palmer was after Safari Club International’s bow-hunting record for a Lion. If a rifle was subsequently used, then the bow-hunting record would have been disallowed. So Cecil ran off wounded, and the hunters simply went back to camp.
In the morning, at around 9am, the hunters returned and tracked Cecil down. He was badly wounded and hadn’t gone far. Walter Palmer then finished him off with a second arrow. From statements made to police, we understand that when Palmer and the PH approached the Lion they saw the collar and panicked. The PH said that he took the collar off and placed it in a tree before following his client. When he returned he said the collar was gone. We know from the GPS data that the collar was collecting, however, that they then gave that collar to someone who carried it around for a couple of days to mimic a Lion’s movements in order to confuse us and presumably buy time to get the client out of the country. On the morning of July 4, the collar sent its last GPS point and was presumably destroyed. We never found it.
There was no permit for hunting a Lion in that area. The PH had purchased a Lion quota from another area. He was hoping to hunt Cecil and export it as one of the others shot elsewhere. Illegal practices such as those are relatively commonplace.
During my time as part of the Lion project, it happened maybe a dozen times that we know of. Usually the collar is destroyed and we only find it months later. In Cecil’s case he had a new satellite technology collar which meant all its data is sent to a server and even when the collar is destroyed the data is safe and accessible.
CECIL ENJOYS A MOMENT WITH A LIONESS. THE FAMOUS LION WAS KNOWN FOR BEING UNAFRAID OF HUMANS.
I became something of a pariah in Zimbabwe after the story died down. At first, when the story broke, I was the only person on the ground speaking to the press, and I was complimented by the authorities and WildCRU alike. However, when the hunting industry approached the government and told them that if they pressed for Walter Palmer’s extradition they would lose their industry, there was an about-turn.
Suddenly it was said everything was legal and no charges were pressed. I was left alone on the end of the plank, surrounded by sharks. I still had to go to meetings with the very landowners in the Gwaai Valley where Cecil had been shot where I was screamed at and accused of destroying the industry. I slept with a loaded rifle by my bed for many months, always waiting to hear a vehicle approaching our home at night. I have since been subjected to all sorts of abuse and character assassinations, including now having a file of everything I had ever posted on social media printed and given to Zimbabwe’s secret police, the CIO (Central Intelligence Organisation), the Parks authorities, local chiefs and so on. I was banned from entering the park for over a year and forced to delete my Facebook page. I have had to keep a very low profile since.
The situation of Lions today is difficult. There were 1.2 million wild Lions in the 1800s. Now there are around 20,000. They are doing well in protected areas. They are under threat from habitat loss, though, as well conflict with livestock owners which includes retaliatory killing and – worryingly – preventative killings before they kill any livestock. Lion conservation is all about boundaries. On park boundaries, where mortalities are man-related, that is where we lose Lions.
Much value is placed on the value of Lions in terms of economies, both for hunting and photographic safaris, and that is very important. However, to me these are the least important of their three values. The other two are cultural value and ecological value. The cultural value of Lions is all around for us to see. There was a premiership match a while ago between Manchester United and Chelsea. Three of the largest sports brands on earth and all three – the premier league being the third – have a Lion in their logo. That doesn’t even describe the value that the Lion represents to Africans which can hardly be quantified.
The most important aspect or value of Lions, though, is their ecological value. It is very much like the value of wolves which people are now understanding when they were lost and then reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in the US. Lions keep landscapes healthy, rivers flowing and arid areas regenerating whilst avoiding desertification. Simply put, Lions keep browsing animals bunched in dense herds moving which avoids overgrazing. Savannahs are healthier with Lions. The loss of Lions would be a catastrophe for the people of Africa and for the globe to have lost the most iconic species on earth. Economies would suffer and ecosystems would have lost a key component that keeps millions of hectares of Africa from becoming desertified.
PALMER SHOT CECIL WITH A BOW AND ARROW ONCE THE LION LEFT THE SAFETY OF THE PARK, ONLY WOUNDING HIM. HOURS PASSED BEFORE THEY FINISHED HIM OFF
The 2015 IUCN Red Data analysis on Lions reported that trophy hunting was one of the main contributors “to an astonishing decline of 42% of the continent’s total Lion population.” Trophy hunting is detrimental because it targets the largest animals. With Lions, trophy hunters target the males with the darkest manes too. In nature, if a male has those two traits – in other words, he is the largest and darkest male in the area – then he is the pride male. Period. So hunters are targeting the very animal that is maintaining pride stability and holds all the best genes. The loss of that individual is felt for months after his death and over a large area for many species including ours. When a pride is stable and the male is in tenure undisturbed, his male offspring usually leave the pride at about 3.5 – 4.5 years old. They often leave in coalitions and have had plenty of hunting experience to allow them to fight for a territory and take one over for themselves. They are considered adults and will avoid humans and their livestock as a rule. The daughters will tend to stay with their mothers and that continuity is the maintenance of a pride and their territory.
CECIL’S PRIDE: CECIL’S CUBS IN 2015
If a pride male dies naturally, in a fight for instance, the new male is probably stronger with some genetic advantage. He will kill all the cubs from his predecessor and very quickly mate with all receptive females and get his genes into the system as soon as he can. And rightly so, as he is the strongest male around now. If the pride male is hunted, though – and we know that trophy hunters target the pride males by virtue of the fact they are after the largest, darkest males – then the weaker males that couldn’t beat the pride male move in after the hunter has left with his trophy, and the stronger male’s cubs are killed and replaced with weaker genes. We have seen a situation where a coalition of four males in a pride were trophy hunted and up to 16 cubs and sub-adults were killed by new males after the fact. So we don’t just lose 4 males – we lose 20 Lions altogether from that hunt.
Infanticide as I have described sounds all very clinical, but Lionesses if nothing else are the best mothers alive and they hardly just sit and allow their cubs to be killed.
They either fight, in which case they too can be killed, or they flee. Africa’s parks are large, but the Lionesses will flee to the only place that an adult male won’t follow her to kill the cubs, and that is often amongst people. When they leave the parks to avoid infanticide and find themselves amongst people, they rarely find wild prey to live off.
So they may start killing livestock. I noticed this pattern many years ago and I know that WildCRU has the data but they won’t publish it for fear of upsetting the people that give them their permits to study Lions – for example, the Parks department managers who receive money from Lion hunting.
As a result, we are told that trophy hunting is not the largest source of Lion mortality but that conflict with livestock is. This story shows that trophy hunting is in fact a major, if not the major, driver of that conflict. Ironically, the hunters that are responsible for the conflict spikes are often called in to deal with the “problem Lions” with no mention of the fact that they caused it. We have had prides of Lionesses birth 4 or 5 cohorts of cubs and not see a single one reach adulthood because they are caught in this cycle. No sooner have they moved out of the park and started killing livestock than they lose their cubs to snares and “problem animal” control. If the Lionesses survive they now move back to the park without cubs to protect and mate with the new males. Their own cubs are born when hunting season comes around and those males are killed too.
The Truth About Cecil’s Death and The Future of Africa’s Lions
And so the process repeats itself. All the time, Lions are getting the blame and hunters are seen as saving the day. Conflict work is the hardest work of all, especially if you are trying to be sensitive to people and protecting Lions. I have attended meetings where every man attending had an axe on his shoulder for me if the meeting went badly! Yet in Hwange, we know without a shadow of doubt that trophy hunting had the single most significant effect on Lion mortality. As Dr Andrew Loveridge of Oxford University WildCRU has written, levels of hunting mortality exceeded deaths of Lions in conflict with people or killed in wire snares set by poachers and also far outstripped natural levels of mortality. Other sources of mortality such as retaliatory and pre-emptive killing of conflict Lions are often driven by trophy hunting too. So the total impact of trophy hunting is enormous.
Lions breed quickly and their numbers can recover very swiftly once hunting is stopped. We saw Hwange’s Lion population nearly double in the 4 years that Lion hunting was stopped. By allowing the pride males to mature, their protection means that Lionesses lose fewer cubs to Hyaenas. The sub-adults leave later when they are more experienced and can get a territory, rather than get chased around by adult Lions until they too escape the park and predate on livestock – and end up being killed as a ‘problem’ animal.
What perhaps churns my stomach most are the prizes offered by groups such as Safari Club International. To win the highest Safari Club International award, it is estimated that a trophy hunter must kill more than 300 animals. This is one of the strongest arguments against trophy hunting. The hunting and killing of animals purely for ego is a colonial relic that has no place in modern humanity. Pro-hunters argue that if we stop hunting, then the lands that are set aside for it quickly turn to alternative, less Lion-friendly land uses. Slave owners and traders used a similar argument to counter the proposed abolition of slavery. If you ban slavery without finding an alternative source of labour then you won’t have sugar in your coffee, they might say. But that was not an excuse to keep an inhumane system going. It was banned, and people were forced to find an alternative, and so will conservationists when trophy hunting is banned.
MAJESTIC
If you wait, though, then there is no incentive to change. I actually advocate for traditional hunting in protected areas believing that people too are key components of healthy ecosystems, and traditional hunting is a disturbance activity that keeps animals moving and avoids overgrazing. Trophy hunting, though, has no place in African culture. If we are to strengthen Africa’s appreciation and protection of their natural heritage, we must look for links to their cultures. Currently, trophy hunting makes traditional African hunting illegal, and we call them poachers – while rich foreigners come and kill the wildlife with a red carpet rolled out for their arrival. It is vile and has to be consigned to history. These animals should not be sold and hunted as a commodity, but rather they should be part of a strong cultural and ecologically healthy system.
To ensure the survival of Lions, we need to get Africans to feel that the Lions are theirs and not only there for the privileged foreigners to shoot. Often I hear that there are people who have signed a letter saying that the world should leave Africa to manage its wildlife the way it sees fit. I agree with that in principle. However, when I read the list of names, especially from Zimbabwe, I see nobody who represents ordinary people. I see politicians with interests in the trophy hunting industry promoting hunting as “Africans managing their wildlife”. Trophy hunting has no place in African tradition. It is very easy to assemble corrupt people to sing the new song that the powerful trophy hunting lobby want to push, namely that trophy hunting is about promoting African self-determination.
I do believe Africans should decide how to manage their natural resources, but it is almost that they need to be allowed to re-learn what this means. All our park managers are trained by the colonial system under the “if it pays it stays” mantra. Let us instead promote a system change where self-confident Africans, who know what Lions and other wildlife mean to them culturally, and without outside influences, decide what to do with their rich resources. That is paramount. The rest will come easily after that.
I have advocated for the Lion to be declared the first World Heritage Species. This means not seeing it as a tax to ensure the survival of Lions, but rather as a celebration of an animal that means so much to all of humanity. Brands that use Lions for their marketing should come under pressure to pay into a fund that supports the types of work I describe above. Lions are important, but they are also the most efficient means of protecting large areas and a plethora of other species. If you give Lions what they need, their prey will be looked after and their landscapes as well as the people that have to live with them.
It is time to ban trophy hunting, set up Lion as the first World Heritage Species, and raise funds from businesses that use Lions in their marketing. That money should be used to protect Lion landscapes with less stick and more carrot, build up Africans in a way that they can explore what Lions and their wildlife resources mean to them both culturally and ecologically, and empower them to make those decisions.
BELOW ARE PHOTOS OF WALTER PALMER WHO KILLED CECIL IN THE PRIME OF HIS LIFE
US TROPHY HUNTER WALTER PALMER (LEFT) WITH ANOTHER LION HE KILLEDPALMER IS SNAPPED HERE WITH A RHINO THAT HE APPARENTLY PAID £13,000 TO KILL
PALMER WITH A LEOPARD FROM HIS NOW CLOSED FACEBOOK PAGE
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