3 Arrested for Poisoning Famous Lions in Kenya

Posted on December 8, 2015 by Exposing the Big Game

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESSDEC. 8, 2015,

NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenyan authorities have arrested three Maasai herdsmen for allegedly poisoning a famous pride of lions, killing two, in the Masai Mara Game Reserve after the lions killed two of their cows, officials said Tuesday.

A fourth suspect is still at large, said Moses Kuyioni, the reserve’s chief warden.

The lions attacked the herdsmen’s cattle in the park in western Kenya on Sunday night, Kuyioni said. The men are suspected of setting out poisoned meat for the lions. Two lions from a pride known as the Marsh Pride died, said the Kenya Wildlife Service.

The Marsh Pride was featured in the popular BBC television series “Big Cat Diary” which aired from 1996 to 2008. Zoologist Jonathan Scott, who co-presented the series and has been following the pride since 1977 mourned the deaths in a post on his website titled “The Marsh Lions: End of an Era.”

The poisoning not only affected the lions but will move through the food chain, said wildlife expert, Paula Kahumbu. Six vultures were found dead near the poisoned meat. Other scavengers such as jackals, hyenas, and smaller predators will be feeding on the dead animals, too, Kahumbu said.

Land division and urbanization have reduced the traditional grazing lands of the Maasai herdsmen who have responded by allowing their cattle to browse on the plains of the game reserves.

Kenya’s lion population has declined to about 2,000, largely because of human wildlife-conflict, said Kahumbu.

“Lions generally cannot coexist with humans, which is why protected areas are so vital. Sadly in Mara the pastoralists are entering the reserve nightly to graze livestock, so of course lions get killed,” Kahumbu said.

In order to conserve Kenya’s remaining lions, Kahumbu said, there should be zero tolerance for cattle grazing in parks.

More: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/12/08/world/africa/ap-af-kenya-lions-poisoned.html?_r=0

MT Wardens seeking information on elk poaching at Montana game range

Posted on November 28, 2015 by Exposing the Big Game

http://helenair.com/news/crime-and-courts/wardens-seeking-information-on-elk-poaching-at-montana-game-range/article_6db2e2a9-7871-53a5-a5a7-09bf1c3e7833.html

PERRY BACKUS For the Independent Record

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HAMILTON – Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials are hoping the public will help them track down people who killed two elk on a game range and left one to rot Wednesday.

FWP Warden Capt. Joe Jaquith said someone killed two elk on the Three Mile Game Range northeast of Stevensville either late Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning.

The poachers drove behind a closed sign to retrieve one of the elk and left the other cow elk behind.

“We are hoping to talk with anyone coming in or out of the game range (Wednesday) morning who saw a vehicle with an elk in the back,” Jaquith said. “We are interested in getting any information that people might be able to provide about that.”

Jaquith urged anyone with information to call the TIP-MONT hotline at 800-847-6668.

Anyone providing information that leads to an arrest in the case will be eligible for a reward. Those providing information can remain anonymous.

Donald Trump defending sons’ sport killing of exotic African animals may finally doom billionaire blowhard’s campaign

Posted on November 26, 2015 by Exposing the Big Game

BY Linda Stasi

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/stasi-hed-article-1.2311902

HuntingLegends.com/Hunting Legends

Brothers Donald Trump, Jr. (l.) and Eric Trump (r.) are pictured with a leopard that they killed on their trip to Zimbabwe. And now their father is defending them, which may doom his presidential campaign.

Bad press has so far been like fertilizer to Donald Trump’s popularity. But his defense of his sons’ sport of slaughtering exotic African animals could be the kill shot to his presidential aspirations now that possibly both Cecil the lion and his brother Jericho have been slaughtered.G

GIRAFFE HUNTER SAYS SHE’S ‘MOST HATED WOMAN IN THE WORLD’

In case you don’t know, the Trump boys went on a kill safari in 2012, and proudly posed with the African leopard and water buffalo they had slaughtered. Another photo shows them laughing beside a noose from which hangs an alligator. Does it get worse than two great white hunters and an animal noose in Africa?

GUIDE IN CECIL THE LION SLAY BREAKS DOWN

There’s even the horrific photo of Donald Jr. smiling while holding the bloody, severed tail of, yes, the elephant he shot.

This elephant slaughter “sport” they love, is, surprisingly even more prolific than the barbarism of lion killing.

HUNTER KILLS LARGEST AFRICAN ELEPHANT AND POSONS DOZENS MORE

Take a wild guess at the number of elephants killed by terrorists (yes, terrorists) — hunters and poachers in Africa every day.

The shocking truth is that 96 African elephants are killed each day by not just poachers, but by scum terrorists like Joseph Kony and his “Lord’s Resistance Army.”

Donald Trump, Jr. is pictured holding the tail of an elephant he shot.

These vicious beasts trade the ivory from the gentle beasts in exchange for “bush currency” to buy guns and weapons. Terror supporting terror. According to John Calvelli, executive vice president of the Wildlife Conservation Society, which runs the NYC zoos and aquariums as well as those in 60 other countries, “Thirty-five thousand forest elephants a year — one every 15 minutes — are killed in Africa, which means they will become extinct in our lifetimes. The numbers have gone from 1.2 million elephants in Africa in 1980 to fewer than 400,000 now.”

MALAWI TO BURN $7.5M WORTH OF IVORY TO STOP POACHERS

And life is as dangerous for the park rangers assigned to protect the beasts of the bush. One ranger is killed every three days.

Calvelli helped found “96 Elephants,” an organization whose function is to stop the killing, trafficking and demand for ivory. Last August, Gov. Cuomo made the sale of ivory illegal in New York State and a similar ban is now in effect in New Jersey.

So who are zookeepers to talk about animal rights?

Justice for Cecil Act Passes!

Posted on November 3, 2015 by Exposing the Big Game

BREAKING: The US House of Representatives just voted to pass H.R.2494, the Global Anti-#Poaching Act. Special thanks to House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce and Ranking Member Eliot Engel for introducing the Act and championing it through to a vote. Building off the momentum from the Enough Project’s event on the Hill last week, this act is a crucial step in the effort to break the links between wildlife trafficking networks and mass atrocities. This is an incredible victory, and one YOU made happen! This is truly Justice For Cecil The Lion!

A savage end for the elephants killed by men who were supposed to protect them: Slaughtered beasts’ remains lie scattered after rangers poisoned them in pay dispute

Posted on October 31, 2015 by Exposing the Big Game

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3295044/A-tragic-savage-end-elephants-killed-men-supposed-protecting-Slaughtered-beasts-remains-lie-scattered-rangers-poisoned-pay-dispute.html#ixzz3q6RhD4BV

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
Elephants were slayed using cyanide in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe
Poachers made off with three ivory tusks after the killings, officials said
Deaths bring total number of elephants poisoned in October alone to 62

By Simon Tomlinson for MailOnline

Published: 07:35 EST, 29 October 2015 | Updated: 12:59 EST, 29 October 2015

Lying slaughtered on the ground with their heads barbarically hacked off, these elephants are believed to have been killed by the very men who were meant to be protecting them.

They are among 62 elephants who have been killed in Zimbabwe in the last month alone, not by poachers, but poisoned by disgruntled rangers.

Staff at Hwange National Park have reportedly not received their already low wages and it is feared that the elephant killings in the park may be a form of ‘protest’ against management.

Horrific pictures which emerged today show their remains scattered across the dusty ground after they were mutilated for their tusks. Some are too graphic to show in full.

Elephants lie slaughtered on the ground after reportedly being poisoned and mutilated by disgruntled rangers at Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe in a reported pay dispute

The most recent attack, which took place earlier this week, saw 22 elephants, including babies, poisoned using cyanide hidden in salt stones and oranges.

Rangers working in the park are notoriously badly paid for a job where they are at constant risk, fighting off heavily armed poachers.

According to an inside source, rangers have only just received their pay due last month and management have failed to pay for fuel for the pumps for the park’s watering holes, The Telegraph reported.

‘I am afraid there are serious management problems within parks,’ an unnamed source from Zimbabwe’s National Parks and Wildlife Authority told The Telegraph.

‘Some of the rangers are very dissatisfied with their remuneration and say that they are not getting some allowances they believe they should get.

‘So many of us believe that some of the poaching at the moment is organised and executed by some rangers in parks, and we don’t know how this will be sorted out.’

Monday’s discovery of 22 elephant carcasses were made in the in park’s Sinamatella area alongside 35 tusks, said Caroline Washaya-Moyo, spokeswoman for the parks and wildlife management authority.

Barbaric: Staff at Hwange National Park have reportedly not received their already low wages and it is feared that the elephant killings in the park may be a form of ‘protest’ against management

The poachers, who apparently killed the elephants with cyanide, escaped with three ivory tusks.

The grim finding – made by park rangers Monday morning – brings the number of elephants poisoned by poachers in the southern Africa country in October alone to a staggering 62.

‘We recovered 22 elephant carcasses in the Sinamatela area and so far we have also recovered 35 tusks,’ Washaya-Moyo told AFP. ‘Initial investigations indicate that there was cyanide poisoning.’

She added: ‘We continue to lobby for deterrent penalties for people found with poisonous substances such as cyanide. We can’t continue to lose wildlife at such a rate.’

Rangers are now investigating how many of the elephants – who resided at the same park as Cecil the lion, who was shot dead by dentist Walter Palmer in July – had fully developed tusks.

Speaking to the Associated Press, Washaya-Moyo said: ‘We are now trying to check how many elephants had fully developed tusks because babies are among those killed.

‘The rate at which we are losing animals to cyanide is alarming.

‘Many other species are also dying from the cyanide used by poachers to target elephants.

‘We are appealing to people in communities close to national parks to cooperate with authorities.’

Germany may block import of tusks from giant elephant shot by hunter in Zimbabwe

Posted on October 18, 2015 by Exposing the Big Game

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/zimbabwe/11937439/Germany-may-block-import-of-tusks-from-giant-elephant-shot-by-hunter-in-Zimbabwe.html
“Import of trophy tusks from one of Africa’s largest elephants could
be illegal, warns Germany, as reward offered for hunter’s identity”
“Germany will consider blocking the import from Zimbabwe of the tusks
ofone of Africa’s biggest elephants killed by one of its nationals, it
said on Friday amid growing global outrage over the hunt.
“The country’s nature conservation agency said it had in the past
refused entry for animals killed in trophy hunts and would not
hesitate to do so in this case if the hunt had infringed German
wildlife regulations.”

What Fresh Hell Is This?

Posted on October 17, 2015 by Exposing the Big Game

What do you call a war waged on unarmed opponents? Considering the rate and frequency of shooting I’m hearing out there now, there’s a massacre going on. If the victims being slain were human, it would be called mass murder. A pre-dawn ambush. All-out insanity. Evil incarnate.

But to the hunters on opening day annihilating ducks and geese, it’s tradition; harvesting nature; business as usual.

Text and Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson

Someone must have signaled “charge” to an entire platoon waiting to attack at dawn, and a mindless barrage of semi-automatic shotgun fire shattered the morning air. Now it’s 7:30 a.m. and only the random explosions break the stillness. The blitzkrieg has been going on steadily for over forty-five minutes—since before first light (sunrise today is officially at 7:35, according to the NOAA weather radio).

I wasn’t sure if the “enemy,” no, “opponent,” no, victims were the elk herd who occasionally visit the neighbor’s hayfield, the stray black-tail deer who keep themselves mostly out of sight around here for fear of poachers, or the ducks and geese who are starting to gather on their customary wintering grounds. Judging by the constant rapid gun fire, the victims must be the “waterfowl” whose “season” started today.

What fresh hell is this? Armageddon for avian kind? Or just another opening day for sport hunters?

Zimbabwe will not charge U.S. dentist for killing Cecil the lion

Posted on October 14, 2015 by Exposing the Big Game

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/zimbabwe-will-not-charge-us-dentist-for-killing-cecil-the-lion/ar-AAfmVFd?ocid=ansmsnnews11

“We approached the police and then the prosecutor general, and it turned out that Palmer came to Zimbabwe because all the papers were in order,” Muchinguri-Kashiri told reporters.

Muchinguri-Kashiri said Palmer would be free to visit Zimbabwe as a tourist in the future but not as a hunter. The implication was that Palmer would not be issued the permits a hunter needs.

The environment minister’s comments immediately drew the ire of the animal conservation group Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, which maintained that Palmer had committed a crime and said it planned to pursue legal action against him in the United States.

Palmer could not be reached for comment on the environment minister’s statement to reporters.

The 55-year-old dentist had closed his practice in late July after he was publicly identified as the hunter who killed Cecil, drawing widespread criticism on social media and a large demonstration by animal rights advocates at his office in Bloomington, Minnesota, a Minneapolis suburb.

The practice reopened in mid-August without him. Palmer returned to work in early September to a handful of protesters and some public support from patients.

“The fact is the law was broken,” said Johnny Rodrigues, the head of the Zimbabwe task force, which first reported news of Cecil’s killing. “We are going to get our advocates in America to actually see what they can do to bring justice to him.”

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has said it was investigating the killing of the lion.

Two more people still face charges related to Cecil’s killing. Both allegedly were involved in using bait to lure the lion out of his habitat in Hwange National Park so he could be killed.

Theo Bronkhorst, a professional hunter in Zimbabwe, is charged with breaching hunting rules in connection with the hunt in which Cecil was killed. A game park owner is also charged with allowing an illegal hunt. Both have denied the charges.

Bronkhorst is expected to appear on Thursday in a Hwange court where a magistrate will rule on a request by his lawyers that his indictment be quashed.

Parks officials said prosecutors would bring Cecil’s head, which the hunters took as a trophy, to court as an exhibit if the trial goes ahead.

Palmer has previously said that the hunt was legal and no one in the hunting party realized the targeted lion was Cecil, a well-known tourist attraction in the park.

Wildlife hunting, which earned $45 million last year, is an important source of money for Zimbabwe, which is still recovering from a catastrophic recession between 1999-2008.

Zimbabwe will not charge American dentist Walter Palmer for killing its most prized lion in July because he had obtained legal authority to conduct the hunt, a cabinet minister said on Monday.

Palmer, a lifelong big-game hunter from Minnesota, stoked a global controversy when he killed Cecil, a rare black-maned lion, with a bow and arrow outside Hwange National Park in Western Zimbabwe.

But Palmer’s hunting papers were in order, Environment Minister Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri said on Monday. Consequently, he could not be charged.

“We approached the police and then the Prosecutor General, and it turned out that Palmer came to Zimbabwe because all the papers were in order,” Muchinguri-Kashiri told reporters.

Â© AP Photo/Jim Mone Dentist Walter Palmer, who returned to his practice, Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2015, in Bloomington, Minn., arrives back to his office following a lunch break. Muchinguri Kashiri said Palmer was free to visit Zimbabwe as a tourist but not as a hunter. The implication was he would not be issued the permits a hunter needs.

Two more people still face charges related to Cecil’s killing. Both allegedly were involved in using bait to lure Cecil out of his habitat in Hwange National Park so he could be killed.

Bronkhorst is expected to appear in a Hwange court on Thursday where a magistrate will rule on a request by his lawyers that his indictment be quashed.

Palmer, 55, has previously said that the hunt was legal and no one in the hunting party realized the targeted lion was Cecil, a well-known tourist attraction in the park.

Palmer could not be reached immediately for comment on the environment minister’s statement to reporters. (Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe, additional reporting by David Bailey in Minneapolis; Editing by James Macharia)

Bear Hunt Trial Triggers Protest In B.C.

Posted on October 10, 2015 by Exposing the Big Game

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/10/09/clayton-stoner-bear-trial_n_8271206.html?utm_hp_ref=green&ir=Green

clayton stoner bear protest

VANCOUVER — The case of an NHL player charged in the death of a grizzly bear has become a rallying cry for a British Columbia group against trophy hunting.

About a dozen members of Bears Matter gathered outside provincial court in Vancouver on Friday before a court date for Anaheim Ducks defenceman Clayton Stoner.

Stoner is charged with five counts under the provincial Wildlife Act, including two counts of knowingly making a false statement to obtain a hunting licence, hunting out of season, hunting without a licence and unlawfully possessing dead wildlife.

The bear, which local residents had named Cheeky, was killed in the Great Bear Rainforest on B.C.’s central coast in 2013.

clayton stoner bear

Bear Matters member Barb Murray said a growing number of people are against trophy hunting and that Stoner’s case should draw attention to the practice.

“We really need to make this case stand out above the others so that Premier (Christy) Clark cannot ignore our petitions, cannot ignore our letters and cannot ignore our voices,” she said.

Records from the Environment Ministry show dozens of charges in 2014 related to hunting without a licence and unlawfully possessing dead wildlife.

However, few other cases have been in the spotlight.

“Clayton Stoner, he’s recognized internationally, he’s an NHL hockey player, he makes millions of dollars,” Murray said. “He’s supposed to be an example of what a sportsman (embodies). And he’s not.”

Stoner has never denied the hunt, which sparked debate two years ago when pictures published in a Vancouver newspaper showed him holding a grizzly’s severed head.

Stoner, who is from Port McNeill on Vancouver Island, defended his hunting trip with his father, an uncle and a friend after the photos were publicized.

“I grew up hunting and fishing in British Columbia and continue to enjoy spending time with my family outdoors,” he said in a September 2013 written statement, adding he would continue those activities in the province.

Stoner should apologize for hunting bears, said Murray, her voice choked with emotion.

“I’m hoping they slap a very big fine, and he could also contribute to conservation in this province, big time.”

Stoner was not in court Friday. Ricky Bal, a lawyer who appeared on his behalf, said he does not know how the hockey player intends to plead.

The case was put over until Nov. 13.

DNR finds illegal hunting suspects through Facebook

Posted on October 2, 2015 by Exposing the Big Game

http://www.register-herald.com/news/dnr-finds-illegal-hunting-suspects-through-facebook/article_209475e7-d12a-5ede-9c3e-a28c7b6acbc0.html

The illegal killing of an albino deer in Boone County has been solved thanks to social media, according to the West Virginia Natural Resources Police

Natural Resources Police Officer Dakoda Chattin got a call Monday from Boone County 911 about an albino deer killed in someone’s yard along W.Va. 17.

The incident was posted on the National Resources Police Facebook Page where it was seen by nearly half a million people and was shared by more than 7,000. Information received following the post helped Officer Chattin locate three suspects.

Suspects have been charged with hunting without a license, hunting during closed season, carrying a loaded firearm in a motor vehicle, shooting from a motor vehicle, shooting from a public road and illegal firearm for deer hunting.

“We continue to be impressed with how we’ve been able to solve crimes with the public’s help,” Natural Resources Police Col. Jerry Jenkins said. “The response has been beyond what we anticipated when we began using Facebook earlier this year. It’s become a valuable tool for us to gather information about crimes and suspects. It shows how deeply the community of hunting and fishing enthusiasts in West Virginia cares about protecting wildlife and enforcing laws.

“We encourage anyone who sees anyone violating the state’s wildlife laws to call 911 or their closest DNR district office.”

— Sarah Plummer

Exposing the Big Game

Forget Hunters' Feeble Rationalizations and Trust Your Gut Feelings: Making Sport of Killing Is Not Healthy Human Behavior

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