Why Are Africas Wildlife Populations Dwindling?

The purpose of this document is to examine declines in Africas wildlife populations,

identify contributing factors, and draw inferences about the significance of each.

PREFACE:
By Charlie Kelly

The world is asking where Walter Palmer is but should be asking why are Africa's wildlife
populations dwindling?

Following the death of "Cecil" the lion, many members of the American media and public became
aware of the degradation of Africa's wildlife, and rightfully expressed outrage. However, many of the
reports and much of the public outrage has wrongfully identified legal and permitted hunting as the
sole culprit responsible for Africa's declining wildlife populations.

In order to stop Africas wildlife population declines, it is first necessary to identify all contributing
factors and measure the significance of each, before pushing for productive change. In an attempt to
spread awareness of these factors, I've attached links to articles, as well as quotes and some personal
inferences below. What follows is by no means a comprehensive analysis, but rather a starting point
from which one may begin to assess the problems wildlife face in Africa. It is my hope that you will
spend the time to read the cited articles, formulate your own opinions on the issues they present, and
make educated efforts to help restore the amazing habitats and wildlife populations of Africa.

THE POPULATION PROBLEM:

When President Theodore Roosevelt came to east Africa in 1909 an estimated 300,000 rhinos
roamed the region, now there are perhaps 2,000.1 Today Black Rhinos are critically endangered with
an estimated population of 5,055, while White Rhinos have recovered from near extinction to an
estimated population of 20,405.2

There may have been as many as 3-5 million African elephants in the early part of the 20th century,
but today there are an estimated 470,000 to 600,000 African elephants in the wild.3

In 1975 there were an estimated 250,000 lions in Africa, yet today the continent wide population
stands at a mere 30,000 lions. More recently, the lion population is inferred to have undergone a
reduction of approximately 42% over the past 21 years (approximately three lion generations, 1993-
2014).4

http://www.economist.com/node/16941705
https://www.savetherhino.org/rhino_info/species_of_rhino/white_rhinos
3 http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/endangered_species/elephants/african_elephants/
4 http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/15951/0
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THE THREATS TO WILDLIFE

Human Encroachment
Habitat Loss
Prey Loss
Human Wildlife conflict
Trophy Hunting
Poaching
Disease
Inbreeding

1. THE HUMAN FACTOR

Population Growth and Control in Africa
https://www.stratfor.com/the-hub/population-growth-and-control-africa

In 2009 the UN Population Fund announced Africa hit the one billion mark and had therefore doubled
in size over the course of 27 years.5 Today, Africa is the second-largest and second most populous
continent on earth with an estimated population of 1.166 billion people in 2015.6

5
6

World Population Review http://worldpopulationreview.com/continents/africa-population

United Nations The World at Six Billion http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/sixbillion/sixbillion.htm

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While Africas population density is low relative to other continents, Africas fertility rates are
staggeringly high. Throughout the world the total number of births per woman is declining;
according to the UN, Since 1970-1975 world total fertility has declined by 37 percent: from 4.5
births per woman to the 1995-2000 level of 2.8.7 While the worlds replacement rate is dropping,
Africas total fertility rates (TFRs) remain the highest in the world; in 2014 the CIA World Factbook
listed 40 of Africas 54 countries with TFRs of 4+ births per woman.

What do these TFRs mean for the future of Africa? In the next 35 years UNICEF estimates 1.8 billion
births. By 2050, one out of every three children born in the world will be an African, and Africa will
have almost 1 billion children under age 18 making up 40% of children worldwide. The TFRs also
indicate Africas demand for natural resources, poverty, and loss of wildlife habitat will increase.

United Nations: Fertility Levels and Trends in Countries With Intermediate Levels of Fertility (2001)
http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/events/pdf/expert/4/population-fertilitylevels.pdf
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2. HUMAN POPULATION GROWTH & POVERTY

Rural Poverty in Africa
http://www.ruralpovertyportal.org/region/home/tags/africa

In Sub-Saharan Africa, more than 218 million people live in extreme poverty. Among them are rural
poor people in Eastern and Southern Africa, an area that has one of the worlds highest
concentrations of poor people. The incidence of poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa is increasing faster
than the population. Overall, the pace of poverty reduction in most of Africa has slowed since the
1970s.

...Three fourths of poor people in Western and Middle Africa an estimated 90 million people live
in rural areas and depend on agriculture for their livelihoods.

...Rural poverty is deepening in Eastern and Southern Africa, where most of the regions 130 million
poor people live in rural areas. Ten of the 21 countries in the region have an average annual per
capita income of less than US$400."

...As elsewhere on the continent, poverty in Northern Africa is concentrated in rural areas. The
percentage of rural poor people living below the national poverty line varies dramatically, from 6 per
cent in Tunisia to 90 per cent in Somalia and 87 per cent in the Sudan.

3. HABITAT LOSS
Loss of Habitat and Natural Prey
https://lionalert.org/page/loss-of-habitat-and-natural-prey
Expanding human populations have appropriated land that used to be available to wildlife. Such land
was either converted to another land use that was: more economically viable, not protected for
wildlife in any way, minimally protected, lost effective protection status by lack of enforcement, or
was abandoned by wildlife authorities unable to operate during times of civil strife or other factor
leading to a lack of resources. The lions prey species are also attractive for human consumption, and
utilization of game species is rife throughout Africa. Such utilization is largely illegal, but has
assumed commercial proportions; whilst prosecution is practically non-existent.
As habitat is lost lion populations are becoming increasingly fragmented within insular reserves
closed to natural immigration. Whereas previously natural re-colonization had been possible the
opportunities for such events today are greatly reduced or non-existent. This trend increasingly
applies even within countries with previously substantial lion populations outside protected
areas. Natural re-colonization increasingly requires emigration from an occupied area through an
inhospitable habitat matrix.
Kenya, Tanzania, Botswana, Mozambique and possibly other lion range states still maintain many
lion populations living outside strictly protected areas. As individual lions in protected areas
naturally disperse, such movements often mean those lions move into surrounding areas that have
no connectivity to other habitat patches and/or into marginally suitable habitat, bringing them into
conflict with human populations in those areas.
In reality, local communities are often against the maintenance of any predator or other species that
threatens human lives and livestock, crops and agriculture.

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4. HUMAN WILDLIFE CONFLICT

Lions Approach Extinction in West Africa
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/01/140108-west-african-lions-endangeredconservation-science
The lion's historic range in West Africa was drastically reduced by large-scale land use changes,
Henschel said. As people planted farms, cut down trees, and hunted wildlife, the big cats had
few places to go. The small islands of protected parks became their only hope.
But in the past few years, lions in those parks have been killed by local people in retaliation for
killing some of their livestock. An even bigger problem, Henschel said, is poaching of the lions'
prey to supply local bushmeat markets. With the economy in the region depressed and fish
stocks off the coast depleted, hungry people have increasingly turned to hunting animals in
protected areas.
"Bushmeat has become so valuable that it is becoming international," Henschel said. "In
Burkina Faso we saw poachers coming from Nigeria, 100 miles [160 kilometers] away, to shoot
big animals and carry them across the border in pickup trucks."

Human Wildlife Conflict: the Issues

http://www.fao.org/docrep/012/i1048e/i1048e03.pdf

FACTORS PRESENTED:
Requirements for human development
Migration of peoples for reasons of security of food safety
Attitudes and perceptions
Impact on human activities

HUMAN FATALITIES
Large mammalian carnivores are responsible for numerous fatal attacks on humans, and large
herbivores, such as elephants, are also involved in human deaths every year, albeit more rarely.
Elephants and hippopotamuses will rarely deliberately attack humans; in most cases deaths occur
while people are protecting their crops against raiding animals (usually at night); when people
accidentally come into close contact with the animals, especially on paths near water at night; or
when people encounter injured animals whose normal sense of caution is impaired.

In the United Republic of Tanzania, home to the worlds largest lion population, lion attacks are
widespread. Between 1990 and 2004, lions killed at least 563 people and injured more than 308. The
problem has increased dramatically over the past 15 years, with the majority of cases occurring in
the southern part of the country (Packer et al., 2005). A few lions are known to eat humans, such as
the notorious Osama which killed at least 34 people along the Rufiji River (Baldus, 2008).

CROP DAMAGE
Crop damage is the most prevalent form of human-wildlife conflict across the African continent. The
occurrence and frequency of crop-raiding is dependent upon a multitude of conditions such as the
availability, variability and type of food sources in the area, the level of human activity on a farm, and
the type and maturation time of crops as compared to natural food sources.

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In the area around the Kakum National Park in Ghana, approximately 80 to 90 percent of crop-
raiding is attributed to elephants (Osborn and Parker, 2002). Every year the 500 households living
close to the Kakum Conservation Area lose about 70 percent of their food crops to elephant raids
alone (Barnes et al., 2003).

ATTACKS ON DOMESTIC ANIMALS
Another adverse effect of the human-wildlife conflict is the killing of domestic animals by predators.
The number and type of domestic animals killed by wildlife varies according to the species, the time
of year, and the availability of natural prey. In the savannah and grasslands where pastoralism
remains the main source of livelihood for many people, attacks on livestock are an issue. On a
national level the losses are hardly significant, but for the individual stock owner, they can be
catastrophic. For a small-scale herder, losses to wildlife can mean the difference between economic
independence and dire poverty.8

TRANSMISSION OF DISEASE TO LIVESTOCK AND/OR HUMANS
Serious diseases are known to be transmitted by wildlife to domestic livestock and possibly also to
humans (i.e. rabies). Scavengers and predators, such as spotted hyenas, jackals, lions and vultures,
also play a role in disseminating pathogens by opening up, dismembering and dispersing parts of
infected carcasses. For example, predators ingest anthrax spores together with carcass tissue; the
spores are then widely disseminated in the predators faeces (Hugh-Jones and de Vos, 2002).

LONG TERM: CONSERVATION OF WILDLIFE
Human-induced wildlife mortality not only affects the population viability of some of the most
endangered species, but also has a broader environmental impact on ecosystem equilibrium and
biodiversity preservation.

Conflict between people and wildlife today undoubtedly ranks among the main threats to
conservation in Africa alongside habitat destruction and commercially motivated hunting of
wildlife to satisfy the demand for bushmeat and represents a real challenge to local, national and
regional governments, wildlife managers, conservation and development agencies, and local
communities (Kangwana, 1993; Conover, 2002; Treves and Karanth, 2003).

Conservation of wildlife outside protected areas cannot be achieved merely by protecting animals
and avoiding the issues of peoples needs and rights and their conflict with wildlife. Human-wildlife
conflict, rural poverty and hunger, the prohibitive costs of wildlife law-enforcement arising from land
use practices; all severely limit wildlife conservation outside Africas national parks.

5. LEGAL TROPHY HUNTING

The Significance of African Lions for the Financial Viability of Trophy Hunting and the Maintenance of
Wild Land
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3256150/

If lion hunting was effectively precluded, trophy hunting could potentially become financially
unviable across at least 59,538 km2 that could result in a concomitant loss of habitat. However, the
loss of lion hunting could have other potentially broader negative impacts including reduction of
competitiveness of wildlife-based land uses relative to ecologically unfavourable alternatives.

Restrictions on lion hunting may also reduce tolerance for the species among communities where
local people benefit from trophy hunting, and may reduce funds available for anti-poaching. If lion
off-takes were reduced to recommended maximums (0.5/1000 km2), the loss of viability and

Human-wildlife Conflict: the issues http://www.fao.org/docrep/012/i1048e/i1048e03.pdf

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reduction in profitability would be much lower than if lion hunting was stopped altogether (7,005
km2).

We recommend that interventions focus on reducing off-takes to sustainable levels, implementing
age-based regulations and improving governance of trophy hunting. Such measures could ensure
sustainability, while retaining incentives for the conservation of lions and their habitat from hunting.


Trophy hunting just part of the story behind declining lion numbers in Africa
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/29/trophy-hunting-just-part-story-behinddeclining-lion-numbers-africa
Lions are grossly over-hunted in Zimbabwe concessions, lured out of national parks and there is
corruption. Quotas are exceeded. It is highly unsustainable, said a spokesman for Lion Aid, following
the illegal killing of a 12-year-old lion known as Cecil who was lured out of Hwange national park by
an American hunter.
But many conservationists say that without trophy hunting there would be no lions at all.
The land would be used for farming and this would accelerate the loss of wildlife. We dont like
trophy hunting but it slows the rapid decline of populations. It is a necessary evil, said Guy Balme,
director of the leopard programme in Africa for US-based conservation group Panthera.
Governments encourage hunting because most of the land used for hunting is not suitable for
tourism. The problem is we dont have the alternatives to hunting. In many areas where lion hunting
takes place there is no other wildlife-based industry. I dont condone it. The shooting industry uses
the excuse that hunting is better than the alternatives, but it can only be a short-term solution, said
Balme.

6. ILLEGAL HUNTING BLACK MARKET TRAFFICKING

PROBLEM
The illegal trafficking of wildlife is now ranked as the third largest criminal industry in the
world9
Throughout Africa, on average 50 rhinos are killed for their horns each month10
From 1998 to 2011, demand for ivorywhich now fetches about $1,000 per pound
increased by 300 percent.11
Rhino horn, despite being the medicinal equivalent of eating fingernails or hair, now fetches
its weight in goldabout $30,000 per pound. If that business continues as normal, rhinos
will be extinct by 2020.
Up to $13 million in ivory annually passes through LiveAuctioneers.com
Ivory estimated to weigh more than 23 metric tonsa figure that represents 2,500
elephantswas seized in the 13 largest seizures of illegal ivory in 2011.12
In Kenyan Maasailand, Maasai people are spearing and poisoning lions at a rate that will
ensure local extinction within a decade. Lion killing is embedded within Maasai perception

https://beta.healthyplanet.org/about/news/blog/item/751-55the-fight-against-wildlife-poaching-in-africa
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/15/myths-more-tha-traditional-medicine-driving-rhino-slaughter/?_r=0
11 http://www.newsweek.com/2014/11/07/extinctcom-280884.html
12 http://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/illegal-wildlife-trade
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of depredation by lions on livestock, socio-economic factors, and the complex relationship

between Maasai and conservation.13
"Bushmeat has become so valuable that it is becoming international," Henschel said. "In
Burkina Faso we saw poachers coming from Nigeria, 100 miles [160 kilometers] away, to
shoot big animals and carry them across the border in pickup trucks."14
Parks in West Africa have simply not had the resources to prevent retaliatory killings or
poaching
Rural poverty and external markets continue to encourage both subsistence and commercial
poaching of many species within protected areas. Analysis in Zambia suggests that it costs
$200 per km2 per year to effectively control commercial poaching of species such as
elephant and rhinoceros in protected areas (Leader-Williams and Albon 1988).
Unfortunately, few, if any, African countries have such financial resources, and central
governments are unlikely to allocate significantly more funds for wildlife management in the
future, given the many other competing demands for governmental resources.

SOLUTION
Recognize the problem exists and spread awareness.
Correct medicinal myths about rhino horns, tiger bones, ect.
Take action against both sides of the illegal trafficking supply chain.
Stop Internet marketplaces for illegally killed wildlife.
Educate local inhabitants, and ensure they receive material advantages from the game.
Enlarge and link existing protected areas and control commercial poaching by developing
cooperative relationships with adjacent communities.

7. WHY CONSERVATION EFFORTS ARE FAILING

Conserving Wildlife in Africa: Integrated Conservation and Development Projects and Beyond
http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/50/7/585.full

Throughout Africa, protected areas are becoming increasingly ecologically isolated as a result of
agricultural development, deforestation, human settlement, and the active elimination of wildlife on
adjacent lands. This phenomenon, in combination with the small size of most protected areas,
indicates that in the absence of intensive management, most protected areas in Africa will not be
large enough to conserve many species, as illustrated by recent patterns of extinction of large
mammals in Tanzanian parks (Newmark 1996) as well as large carnivores in southern and East
African protected areas (Woodroofe and Ginsberg 1998).

Additionally, rural poverty and external markets will continue to encourage both subsistence and
commercial poaching of many species within protected areas. Analysis in Zambia suggests that it
costs $200 per km2 per year to effectively control commercial poaching of species such as elephant
and rhinoceros in protected areas (Leader-Williams and Albon 1988). Unfortunately, few, if any,
African countries have such financial resources, and central governments are unlikely to allocate
significantly more funds for wildlife management in the future, given the many other competing
demands for governmental resources.

13
14

http://africanlions.wikispaces.com/Human+Poaching+of+the+Savannah+Mammals
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/01/140108-west-african-lions-endangered-conservation-science/

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HOW TO IMPROVE OUR EFFORTS

Conserving Wildlife in Africa: Integrated Conservation and Development Projects and Beyond
http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/50/7/585.full
-

Economic and land tenure policy reform. Such reforms can greatly assist in reducing
external environmental pressures on protected areas, particularly external market forces
and in-migration. For example, the international ban on ivory trading has significantly
reduced elephant poaching throughout Africa.

Landscape-wide conservation planning. Given that most protected areas in Africa are
small and that many are becoming ecologically isolated, it is important that land-use
activities that are compatible with wildlife conservation be encouraged on a landscape-wide
scale adjacent to protected areas, and activities that are incompatible must be actively
discouraged.

Conflict resolution. Promoting dialogue between managers of protected areas and local
communities, involving affected stakeholders in protected-area project planning and
implementation, identifying areas of common interest between protected areas and local
communities, and including community representatives on advisory management boards for
protected areas can greatly assist in reducing conflicts between parks and local people
(Hough 1988, Lewis 1996).

Community-Based Natural Resources Management (CBNRM). Considerable success in
generating compatible land-use regimes around protected areas has been claimed in Zambia,
Zimbabwe, and Namibia through the use of CBNRM approaches, the most notable of which is
the CAMPFIRE program (Murphree 1993, Metcalfe 1994).

Enhancing the management capacity of protected-area institutions. The capacity of
most African protected-area institutions to address complex interactions between protected
areas and local communities is limited (Hough 1994a, 1994b). The development of
scholarships, courses, exchange programs, training manuals, and technical assistance that
focus on ecological and social monitoring, conflict resolution, park planning, and modern law
enforcement techniques would greatly enhance the capacity of protected-area institutions to
address many of the protected-arealocal community conflicts.

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