I have been studying the whole lion hunting situation a bit... Sorry for the length of my rant on the subject but it gets my dander up.
I am admittedly not any kind of expert but rather just an ordinary guy who was curious about lion hunting and wanted to learn what I could. It seems to me there are really 3 major categories of lions with some overlap and variation within each. I offer this only as observation and rational assumptions.
1. There are lions in parks and zoos who will live their life being photographed and will likely always be fed whether actually hand fed or provided circumstances where they are sure to have easily caught game available. Of course those in the largest parks are the closest thing to truly wild lions, but they will likely always have some humans present and looking out for them at least on a pride basis so cannot truly be considered fully wild and independent. I am assuming that if the politics play out as expected and the anti hunters get their way... These will soon be the only lions left in the World. In the interest of "saving" the lion, they will soon ensure that all other lions are soon eliminated from the face of the Earth. That is assuming illegal poaching can be controlled within the parks, otherwise this population will be endangered as well.
2. Truly wild lions in the few wild places of Africa still left. It cost a LOT of money to hunt these lions. And this type of controlled hunting appears to be the only way this category of lion will survive more than a few short years. In the rapidly expanding human population of Africa, and the ensuing final encroachment into all areas of the continent, people will eventually take president over lions. As other game is replaced by livestock (especially without an economically viable hunting industry to support local economies)and lions kill livestock and people to survive, the local population will resort to poaching, retaliatory killing of them, and outright poisoning to eliminate entire prides. Of course a result of this will likely be the extinction of vultures and other scavengers... (Cape Vultures are apparently already very endangered but get little or no International attention).
With controlled hunting, problem cats not only can be removed efficiently, but a large amount of money comes with that that can go towards reimbursement for livestock and other local losses but it is also a boon to the local economies (as is all paid trophy hunting) thus providing incentive for tolerating local, controlled lion populations. Furthermore, hunting can provide pro-active control of potential problem cats, such as old males kicked out by the pride or replaced by a younger/stronger male.
3. Captive bred lions for commercial use, probably mostly for trophy hunting but potentially also to provide animals to repopulate where needed and to provide animals to zoos, etc. With a strong market, such as trophy hunting, this population my likely be the most stable and constant way to ensure lions will always exist. Effectively a reserve supply. However, without a market, I doubt many of these will remain. They will simply become to expensive to feed. If there is not a good market for them, how will the bills be paid?
Of course these operations get a bad rap from a few bad operators.... However, all the ones I have researched appear to have very high standards in their methods of managing the lions and conducting the hunts.
I would contend that if a person could try to envision themselves in a situation where your children, parents, brothers and sisters, spouse or best friend are walking down the road or sleeping in your bed, and are in real danger of being killed by a lion. (Or an Elephant) ... And even if your sole source of livelihood are a few head of cattle, sheep, goats, etc.... And lions (or other predators) are killing them... I would contend that most people would do what they could to protect their loved ones and their ability to feed them. Pretty easy for a bunch of people who don't know anything more than going to a supermarket or shopping mall for what they need to have opinions about hunting and preserving wildlife..... I suggest that they volunteer to get off the Planet to make room for everyone else and all the wildlife in their idealist view of how the World should be.
I have explained this to some of my non hunting acquaintances and after contemplating what I explained, they have all come around to seeing the need to hunt lions.
