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This seems a little sad. 2nd November was warm and sunny since then it's been rainy, windy and now cold. Here's a memory from those few days ago.
Bachman's hunt was set up by the Maroi Conservancy. They've released this statement on their Facebook Page about the "controversy": Maroi Conservancy is getting a lot of hate mail from all around the world regarding the Melissa Bachman lion hunt. If I can clarify a couple of facts:Maroi Conservancy is based in the Limpopo Province, 30 km from Musina, right next to the Limpopo Border. We are operating on 8500 hectares. All the game on the conservancy is free roaming and occur here naturally.Our motto is “conservation through sustainable hunting”.We do ethical hunting and all meat from animals hunted is distrubuted to the local community. Funds generated from hunting goes towards fixing the border fence that was washed away in the 2013 floods; combating poaching which is excessive in this area due to close proximaty to ZImbabwe and running a sustainable conservancy. We have lost 2 eland, 4 giraffes and numerous other animals in the past 2 months that were killed by spears and dogs. We control our game numbers to prevent starvation of animals.We have hunters from all over the world and all game hunting is done ethically on Maroi as per guidelines from Nature Conservation.We had Melissa Bachman hunting plains game at Maroi in the past month. She was assisted by our PH Julious Heyneke. On her wish list was a lion. There are no lions on Maroi as they do not occur here naturallly. We contacted a outfitter in the North West Province and we faciltated the hunt for Melissa. We paid over the monies for the hunt to them and Melissa was tranported to Zeerust. We did not benefit financially by this hunt.All documentation were in place for this hunt eg permits etc as required by Nature Conservation. The lion was not drugged or enclosed in a camp. It was free roaming on more than 2000 hectares. Melissa is a professional hunter and in no way is she involved in dubious practices.We are not apologising for facilitating the hunt. As for all the negative commentary towards us, please consider how much you have contributed to conservation in the past 5 years. If you are not a game farmer and struggling with dying starving animals, poaching and no fences in place to protect your animals and crop, please refrain from making negative degoratory comments. It is so easy to judge if you are staying in cities and towns, buying your meat at ‘woolies’ and going to game reserves maybe once a year.It is a fact, that due to the hunting industry and money generated out of this industry, there are more animals in South Africa than 100 years ago."Comments on positive impacts of hunting in South Africa: South Africa’s government is strengthening relations with the multi-million dollar industry, which it says has increased populations of wild animals and is vital for conservation.“Sustainable utilisation in the form of hunting, ecotourism, game sales, and translocations have resulted in an increase in a number of scarce game species, including bontebok, roan and sable antelope,” SA’s Minister for Environmental Affairs, Edna Molewa, said. But perhaps hunting’s greatest success was encouraging the white rhinoceros population to increase by more than 10 times since hunting of the animals began in 1968, when only 1800 were left in SA. By 2010, there were 18,800.“The generally positive role that sport hunting has played in the increase in white rhino numbers in South Africa is also recognised by the International Conservation Union,” Ms Molewa said.“Hunting, together with live-sales and ecotourism, has assisted in giving the white rhino value that has generated incentives. This has played a critical and positive role in the successful conservation of this species in South Africa, and helped encourage the rapid expansion of range and numbers.“Game farming and hunting contributes significantly to conservation, tourism development, job creation and sustainable development, especially in rural areas, and is part of the broader biodiversity economy,” she added.
