Dataset Information

Quantifying lion (Panthera leo) demographic response following a three-year moratorium on trophy hunting.

ABSTRACT: Factors that limit African lion populations are manifold and well-recognized, but their relative demographic effects remain poorly understood, particularly trophy hunting near protected areas. We identified and monitored 386 individual lions within and around South Luangwa National Park, Zambia, for five years (2008-2012) with trophy hunting and for three additional years (2013-2015) during a hunting moratorium. We used these data with mark-resight models to estimate the effects of hunting on lion survival, recruitment, and abundance. The best survival models, accounting for imperfect detection, revealed strong positive effects of the moratorium, with survival increasing by 17.1 and 14.0 percentage points in subadult and adult males, respectively. Smaller effects on adult female survival and positive effects on cub survival were also detected. The sex-ratio of cubs shifted from unbiased during trophy-hunting to female-biased during the moratorium. Closed mark-recapture models revealed a large increase in lion abundance during the hunting moratorium, from 116 lions in 2012 immediately preceding the moratorium to 209 lions in the last year of the moratorium. More cubs were produced each year of the moratorium than in any year with trophy hunting. Lion demographics shifted from a male-depleted population consisting mostly of adult (?4 years) females to a younger population with more (>29%) adult males. These data show that the three-year moratorium was effective at growing the Luangwa lion population and increasing the number of adult males. The results suggest that moratoria may be an effective tool for improving the sustainability of lion trophy hunting, particularly where systematic monitoring, conservative quotas, and age-based harvesting are difficult to enforce.

SUBMITTER: Mweetwa T

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5962075 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Quantifying lion (Panthera leo) demographic response following a three-year moratorium on trophy hunting.

Mweetwa Thandiwe T Christianson David D Becker Matt M Creel Scott S Rosenblatt Elias E Merkle Johnathan J Dröge Egil E Mwape Henry H Masonde Jones J Simpamba Twakundine T

PloS one 20180521 5

Factors that limit African lion populations are manifold and well-recognized, but their relative demographic effects remain poorly understood, particularly trophy hunting near protected areas. We identified and monitored 386 individual lions within and around South Luangwa National Park, Zambia, for five years (2008-2012) with trophy hunting and for three additional years (2013-2015) during a hunting moratorium. We used these data with mark-resight models to estimate the effects of hunting on li ...[more]

PMID: 29782514

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Project description:It is argued that trophy hunting of large, charismatic mammal species can have considerable conservation benefits but only if undertaken sustainably. Social-ecological theory suggests such sustainability only results from developing governance systems that balance financial and biological requirements. Here we use lion (Panthera leo) trophy hunting data from Tanzania to investigate how resource ownership patterns influence hunting revenue and offtake levels. Tanzania contains up to half of the global population of free-ranging lions and is also the main location for lion trophy hunting in Africa. However, there are concerns that current hunting levels are unsustainable. The lion hunting industry in Tanzania is run by the private sector, although the government leases each hunting block to companies, enforces hunting regulation, and allocates them a species-specific annual quota per block. The length of these leases varies and theories surrounding property rights and tenure suggest hunting levels would be less sustainable in blocks experiencing a high turnover of short-term leases. We explored this issue using lion data collected from 1996 to 2008 in the Selous Game Reserve (SGR), the most important trophy hunting destination in Tanzania. We found that blocks in SGR with the highest lion hunting offtake were also those that experienced the steepest declines in trophy offtake. In addition, we found this high hunting offtake and the resultant offtake decline tended to be in blocks under short-term tenure. In contrast, lion hunting levels in blocks under long-term tenure matched more closely the recommended sustainable offtake of 0.92 lions per 1000 km2. However, annual financial returns were higher from blocks under short-term tenure, providing $133 per km2 of government revenue as compared to $62 per km2 from long-term tenure blocks. Our results provide evidence for the importance of property rights in conservation, and support calls for an overhaul of the system in Tanzania by developing competitive market-based approaches for block allocation based on long-term tenure of ten years.

Dataset Information

Quantifying lion (Panthera leo) demographic response following a three-year moratorium on trophy hunting.

Publications

Quantifying lion (Panthera leo) demographic response following a three-year moratorium on trophy hunting.

Similar Datasets

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