By Jeffrey Moyo
HWANGE, Zimbabwe (IDN) – “On the fateful night, I heard the lions roaring and coming closer to my cattle kraal and when I got up to find out what was happening, I saw Verikom being pulled to the ground by about five lions. I was afraid and just ran back into my bedroom hut,” says Mehluli Ncube.
“My wife begged me not to go outside again that night and the following morning we found Verikom’s carcass lying about 45 metres from our kraal, with half of the animal gone. We could only take what meat was left to eat at home.”
Verikom was the name of Ncube’s bull, and it had fallen victim to a pride of stray lions that had pounced on his kraal in Magoli, a village in Hwange in Zimbabwe’s Matabeleland North Province.
Ncube is just one of many other villagers around Hwange who complain that despite the threats lions pose for their domestic animals, national parks and wildlife authorities here are not doing anything to help them.
For us to be caught killing or even suspected of having tried to kill stray lions is a punishable offence and we are forced to stand by watch as lions kill our livestock,” Ncube told IDN. “If our cows are eaten by lions, no one gets punished for that; we get no compensation either from wildlife authorities who tell us that lions should be conserved, but what about our cattle?”
Zimbabwe is a signatory to the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the country’s Parks and Wildlife Act lists a number of “specially protected animals” which cannot be hunted for sport. A hunting permit for this category of animals may be issued only for good reasons, including for educational and scientific purpose or for management of the animal population.
However, under the act, lions are not listed as specially protected animals and can therefore be hunted, although a special permit is required if villagers like Ncube want to get rid of any stray lions, and that permit is issued depending on the location of the lion and on condition that the lion to be killed is injured or sick or considered to be a danger to humans.
For lion conservationists, the ‘king of the jungle’ should be conserved under all circumstances. “Every living creature has the right to exist,” Lovemore Sibanda of the Hwange Lion Research Project, told IDN. Sibanda is a Zoology PhD candidate at the University of Oxford which is funding the project.
“The purpose of mitigation projects is to avoid livestock predation from happening in the first place. We give out protective fences to locals and these have proved very effective in preventing lions killing livestock. My view is that we should all aim to prevent direct contact between lions and livestock happening in the first place as far as possible.”
As conservationists preach about the preservation of lion species, game rangers like Hebert Sibalo in Hwange say that the lion population has been increasing since the murder of Cecil the Lion here in 2015. That incident resulted in widespread international media attention and caused outrage among animal conservationists.
“Lions are not being hunted these days following the murder of Cecil the Lion and as a result they (lions) are increasing in numbers,” Sibalo told IDN. The Hwange Lion Research Project puts the numbers of lions in Hwange National Park alone at approximately 500, with Bubey Valley Conservancy touted to have over 500 lions.
This has led to wildlife authorities hoping that ways could be found to decreasing the lion population. “I wish we could give about 200 of our lions away to ease the overpopulation,” Blondie Leathem, general manager of Bubye Valley Conservancy, told The Telegraph in February last year. “If anyone knows of a suitable habitat for them where they will not land up in human conflict, or in wildlife areas where they will not be beaten up because of existing prides, please let us know and help us raise the money to move them.”
Meanwhile, according to Lovemore of the Hwange Lion Research Project, no one should be blamed for the lions devouring people’s livestock. “No one in particular is to blame because this is a perfect example of a complex mosaic of responsibilities. The animals (lions) don’t know what they are doing, and our research has shown that lions try and avoid humans and human settlements at all costs.”
But for Hwange villagers like Mehluli Ncube, lion conservationists would never understand what they (villagers) are going through owing to stray lions. “My only bull, Verikom, is no more because of the lions we are told to conserve and live with, yet conservationists make money as they purport to be preserving these lions which stray into our kraals.” [IDN-InDepthNews – 19 May 2017]
Photo: A cow belonging to one of the villagers in Chikandakuvi area in Hwange lies dead on the ground in the bush with about half of its remains already devoured by stray lions after they pounced on the unfortunate animal. In another picture, a hide of a cow eaten by stray lions in Chikandakuvi is spread on the ground in the bush. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo | IDN-INPS
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