Three young lions shot at Tsutsubega. Paying farmers later does not stop this.
Three young male lions have been shot and killed by farmers at Tsutsubega, on the southern edge of the Okavango Delta, according to local reporting by Dikgang Newspaper. The killings sit a short distance from Nxaraga, where a pack of endangered African wild dogs was poisoned only weeks ago.
Tsutsubega is a small cattle-keeping community on the buffalo fence, north of Maun. Livestock and wildlife share the same ground. When a cow is taken, a household loses food, savings and standing. If the next thing that happens is a gun or a poisoned carcass, three lions die, and so do wild dogs, eagles and vultures. That is not a run of bad luck. It is what happens when people are left to settle the bill alone, after the animal is already dead.
What has been reported
Dikgang says the three lions were young males, shot in an outbreak of human-wildlife conflict close to Nxaraga. We have not used the photographs circulating with that report. They came off social media, and they show a dead animal. The picture with this piece is one of ours, of living lions, to illustrate the story. Thank you Martin Fowkes for use of one of your lovely pictures.
The same stretch of bush has already had a grim month. Botswana’s Department of Wildlife and National Parks recorded 20 African wild dogs poisoned in the NG30 concession along the Nxaraga area, about ten kilometres from the village: ten adults and ten puppies, together with two eagles. The carcasses were found on a regular patrol. Four men have been arrested. The acting regional wildlife coordinator for the North West, Thebeyakgosi Horatius, called the loss a serious blow. This was the department’s second poisoning case of the year, after 30 vultures died near Phuduhudu in June.
You can read the official account in the Botswana Daily News.
Paying 40 percent, eight months later, does not stop a shooting
When stories like this break, the likely offer from other organisations is a government or private payout scheme. A farmer whose cow has been killed waits, possibly eight months or could be even more, and then receives a percentage of the market value of that animal. That percentage could perhaps be around only 40 percent of its market value. The household is still well out of pocket. The next lion that walks through the cattle post is still a threat. Nothing about that arrangement keeps livestock alive through the night, so nothing about it keeps lions alive either.
LionAid does not promote that model, and we will not pretend it is the answer at Tsutsubega.
What we do instead
Our work is built to stop the attack in the first place. At Merrueshi, on community land bordering Amboseli National Park in Kenya, the Maasai community and LionAid put solar predator lights around the perimeter fence of the manyattas (villages) plus a light in each household. Predators hunt in the dark. They do not like those lights, and they stay away.
The villages did not get the lights as a free gift. Households pay with livestock (two heads of livestock per household), and those animals go into “an insurance herd” that the community keeps itself, differentiated by a special ear tag. If a household in any of the villages loses an animal, the insurance herd can replace the animal, one for one, locally and quickly, decided by the elders. It is not a cheque from far away, months later, for a fraction of the value.
The results are not theoretical. Manyattas with the lights have had no predation on livestock. There has not been a single retaliatory killing of a predator since the programme began. The community herd has grown to more than 500 animals. Children in those households have light inside the house for the first time, and the elders say they are doing better at school because they can finish their homework after dark.
Chris is talking about exactly this with BBC South East this week ( this Thursday). The timing is not an accident. Three young males have just been shot on the Okavango edge, and the same old argument will now be wheeled out: pay the farmer, eventually, and hope the killing stops. It does not. Lights around the perimeter fence, a community that runs the response itself, and animals replaced by animals, do.
You can read how Merrueshi has gone here.
Why Tsutsubega matters
Young dispersing males are the ones who walk the fence lines. They leave their natal pride, travel along floodplains, and step straight into cattle country. Three of them will not be coming back. The people who shot them were protecting a livelihood. Until that livelihood is protected overnight, the next three will go the same way.
Merrueshi is in Kenya, not Botswana. The principle travels. Equip the night enclosure, let the community set the rules, and stop asking a delayed, partial payout to do a job it has never done. That is the LionAid initiative. It is the one we will keep putting in front of anyone who asks what should happen after Tsutsubega.
Photo credit: Martin Fowkes