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ALBERT
AGAINST LION BREEDING
AND ECOLOGICAL RE-INTRODUCTION TOURISM
A CON-CONSERVATION CAUSE?
KEY INFORMATION
ALERT Information Pack (pdf)
ALERT Supporters Pack (pdf)
ALERT Lion Release Program (pdf)
ALERT Newsletter April 2009 (pdf)
BACKGROUND
The Lion Rehabilitation & Release into the Wild Program
The following is taken from the Envsol Consultants document in notification of the Zambia Scoping Meeting (May 2007) - sourced from LIONSCAM!.
"The reintroduction of lions into their natural habitat is very difficult, and previous attempts have had limited success. The reasons for this are suggested that:
- firstly the lions had no experience of their natural environment
- that their reliance on humans wasn’t sufficiently removed
- thirdly, they were released as individuals with very little social organization,
- and finally they had no experience of predatory and competitive species.
The program was developed in 1999 at Antelope Park in Zimbabwe. We are seeking to solve those previous problems by using a four stage rehabilitation program.
In stage one, lions born in our breeding centres, are removed from their mothers at three weeks old. This allows us to train them only to the point that they’re safe for us to walk with them in the African Bush. When the cubs are six weeks old they’re taken out into their natural environment on walks. They’re accompanied by experienced handlers and volunteer workers who act as dominant members of the lions’ pride. As their experience grows over the following months they’re introduced to the game species in the Park, and by 18 months they’re quite capable of stalking and taking down some of the smaller prey here in the Park. By 2 years old they’re seasoned hunters, and we give them every opportunity to hone their hunting skills.
[Within Stage One, lions are used in the tourist interaction 'Walking with Lions'. Many of the lions are drugged and transported 7 hours by road to Victoria Falls for use in the tourism operation there - this happens at less than 6 months old. At 18 months old they are then drugged again and transportsed back to Antelope Park. We know of at least one young cub who died at a young age after undergoing these translocations."
As an additional part of Stage One, the lions are then used in 'night encounters', where again tourists get the opportunity to follow the lions, this time by vehicle, whilst they practice their hunting skills. Here's David Youldon's description (Facebook):
"Night Encounters" are where the lions are taken out at night to give them an opportunity to hone their hunting skills. They are followed by a vehicle so that we can record their behaviour and successes for research purposes. Guests can join our research team on these encounters. For more information about joining one of our "Night Encounters", and perhaps being lucky enough to see a lion kill, please visit www.antelopepark.co.zw, or if you would like to work with them on a longer term basis, why not become a volunteer. Visit www.africanimpact.com for more information. Money raised by people joining the activities goes to pay for stage one of the rehabilitation program as well as a significant donation to ALERT to pay for the stage two, three and four release areas, as well as supporting local conservation programs and various community development programs."
Back to the description of the project:
"In stage two the lions have the opportunity to develop a natural pride social system in a minimum 500 acre enclosure. They have plenty of game to hunt, and are monitored closely. Importantly, all human contact is removed. The lions will remain in stage 2 until we’re happy that they have a fully self-sustaining and socially stable pride.
In stage three the lions will be radio collared and translocated as a pride into a managed ecosystem of around 10,000 acres or more,
• There will be no other lions, no resident human beings
• They’ll have a broad range of prey species to hunt
• but they’ll also have competitive species such as hyena
The lions in Stage 3 will give birth to cubs that will be raised by the pride in the managed ecosystem, very close to their natural environment. These cubs will develop skills that will enable their re-introduction into appropriate National Parks and reserves across the African continent.
In stage four the lions born in stage three can be released into the wild where their numbers have been most diminished. We‘re able to provide complete, self-sustaining prides; or female only groups that can be integrated with existing wild prides. We can also provide male only coalitions which can add a natural gene flow to an existing population.
All four stages of the rehabilitation & release into the wild program have the potential to generate much needed income for the lion project as well as funding research, conservation and community programs. Hence, the lions themselves are also a fundraising ambassador for Africa’s wildlife and its people."
David Youldon has expanded on the latter stages of the project (from Facebook discussions):
"The captive bred lions are released ultimately into stage three of the program, a large, managed, wild environment with a variety of species, including competitive ones, completely free of humans, but fenced so that they cannot interact with humans. Within that area the pride will give birth to cubs. These cubs will grow up in a wild environment, raised naturally by their pride and will have no contact whatsoever with humans, and will therefore have natural avoidance behaviours. It is these wild-born cubs that can be released into stage four, which is a release into National Parks or reserves that need them."
"ALERT has stated many times that the control of breeding in all stages of the program is possible in response to fluctuations in demand for lions in stage four, and we have also stated that we will shut down any stage if necessary to ensure that over-production is not a feature of the program. In years to come when we have several stage three locations producing sufficient cubs, we can shut down stages one and two completely, but we will have proved a method which can be restarted should it become necessary to do so. "
We think its time ALERT shut down the ongoing captive breeding and Stage One of its programme, with over a hundred lions having been used, and none yet to make it into Stage Three, the project is already over-producing lions!
Andrew Conolly himself claims "we have no doubt that this programme will offer a partial solution to the continued decline in the number of African lions" (African Encounter Newsletter May/June 2006). This statement is directly opposed by many of Africa's leading lion scientific researchers, for example Dr Sarel van der Merwe, Chair of the African Lion Working Group, who states:
"The ALERT Project has no conservation value at all. Wild, free-ranging lion populations cannot be saved from extinction through this method. We should rather spend our money and expertise to find ways of protecting existing wild lion populations."
History and Development
Antelope Park was established in Gweru, Zimbabwe in 1972 and taken over by Andrew and Wendy Conolly, the current owners, in 1987. Captive lion breeding has always been a key element of Antelope Park, and they developed their lion walking programme during the 1990's, with over 10,000 tourist walkers claimed during this time.
In 2005 their project expanded to Victoria Falls, where they have probably done a similar number of lion walks. This part of the project has already resulted in another copy-cat lion walking operation (but without the conservation claims) becoming established in the Falls, operated by Shearwater Adventures with lion cubs rented from the Harare Lion & Cheetah Park.
The ALERT project was conceived at Antelope Park in 1999 although they would like us to think it started in 2005 when they established it in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe (so that it doesn't include the lions which were sold to South Africa amongst other reasons). This stage was developed in joint partnership with Safari Par Excellence under the name Lion Encounter.
From African Encounter Newsletter (Feb 2007) - available on their website:
"ALERT’s primary goal is to support the 4-stage rehabilitation program of the African Encounter Lion Rehabilitation & Release into the Wild Program by raising awareness and funds to source, secure and prepare suitable release sites for the lions. Alongside this is the aim of research into lions, including means and modalities of lion rehabilitation and release, assessments of population numbers and trends, disease prevalence, reproductive parameters, and suitability of prey base."
After nearly ten years since the projects conception at Antelope Park, tens of thousands of paying tourist lion walkers, and a substantial number of paying 'volunteers', have supported this project. Most of their visitors at Antelope Park and Victoria Falls are young European, American and Austrailian 'overlanders' travelling through Africa on organised trips. They have no choice over their route, and often stay at Antelope Park for a couple of nights. We estimate well over a hundred lions have gone through the project and yet still to date NONE have been released into the wild.
African Encounter is the 'parent' company operated by Antelope Park's owners, including Lion Encounter, African Impact and Pathfinders - their own volunteer agencies, which along with other popular internet based volunteer agencies sell their highly successful 'conservation' programme to paying volunteers. However we understand African Encounter used to be a hunting safari operation, and has been re-branded and re-marketed as part of the 'conservation' metamorphosis at Antelope Park.
Here's David Youldon's explanation of their volunteer project (Facebook):
"The volunteer program is operated by our sister organization African Impact. Self-funded volunteers can join our lion, conservation and community projects in a number of countries to assist in furthering our work. Aside from the time that the volunteer spends on the project, a significant portion of their project fee goes towards funding the project itself as well as a donation to ALERT to further the work of the lion release program."
Note how African Impact's volunteer project falls outside the ALERT charity operation (as with the 'Walking with Lions' and 'Night Encounters' aspects of the project), allowing it to become a profitable business element of the project. Most of the payment goes towards operational costs ('funding the project itself' - ie. salaries, administrative costs and whatever else the owners decide is a legitimate expenses). ALERT (African Lion Environment Research Trust) has been established by Antelope Park as the not-for-profit element of the project, raising funds and project profile. ALERT registered for charitable status in the UK, which it received in August 2007. However all funds raised by volunteers and 'Walking with Lions' are carefully passed through the business operation first before a 'donation' is made to ALERT. We wonder how much of a paying voluteers contribution is recieved by ALERT, and how much of the USD $100 'Walking with Lions' fee goes to the charity?
Maverick lion researcher, Dr P Kat, is the scientific advisor for ALERT. In nearly 10 years of research in Botswana, Dr P Kat has published surprising few scientific papers, and he sits outside conventional scientific theory on many lion related issues. It is also understood that Dr Kat has recently lost his research permit in Botswana.
Recently Dr Don Heath has joined ALERT as an 'ecological' consultant - he is more widely known as editor of African Hunting Magazine.
There are 'full-time' consultant vets who have been working with the project since early 2006 (African Impact website news):
"[Dr] Keith Dutlow and [Dr] Lisa Marabini from Harare have agreed to become the consulting veterinarians for African Encounter. They will therefore be consulting for Antelope Park, Lion Encounter Zim, Lion Encounter Zambia and other African Impact Programmes. Both Keith and Lisa have dangerous drugs licenses..."
Jean Dubach of the Chicago Zoological Society performed DNA testing on 19 lions from their 'breeding group' and 14 of their lions due to be released into stage two, in mid 2007. It was stated "Whilst African Encounter has lion breeding records going back for over 20 years, we needed to be 100% certain of the DNA and family relationships of all the lions destined for release... very little is known about the genetics of Zimbabwe’s lions... the DNA samples, while being a vital part of our release exercise, will also provide very important information for African lion research on the whole". However this work has yet to be published within the scientifc community or by Antelope Park or ALERT. (African Encounter Newsletter May/June 2006)
Sir Ranulph Fiennes has been appointed as Patron for ALERT, and visited the project for the release of the first group of lions into Stage Two (Dollar Block) in August 2007. He also gave ALERTs first fundraising talk in the UK in London on in January 2008.
Conflicts of interest?
Regarding the relationship between ALERT and Antelope Park and its other commercial organisations, I recently wrote to ALERT to ask about their Trustees, and received the following reply:
"The Trust is currently registered in the United Kingdom, Zambia & Zimbabwe. The trustees for ALERT UK are Mr Clive Ronald Needham, Mr Charles Arthur Cain and Miss Lisa Walker as you discovered for yourself from the Charity Commission. In addition Andrew Conolly and Kevin Liddle have been added as directors of the company and are in the process of being added as Charitable Trustees.
Andrew Conolly is however a trustee of ALERT Zambia and ALERT Zimbabwe."
Reference has also been made recently on their Facebook support group to "ALERT trustees Steve McCormick and Andrew Conolly" - presumably in reference to ALERT Zambia/and or Zimbabwe.
We believe that Andrew Conolly, as the owner of Antelope Park, 'chairman' of African Encounter and founder of the ALERT project, has a conflict of interests in acting as a Director and Trustee for ALERT (either in the UK, Zimbabwe or Zambia), whilst still also heading up the business interests of African Encounter and its associated organisations. We also understand that Trustees cannot be paid by the Charity or receive any financial benefits - so we look forward to seeing ALERTs financial statements which are required to be submitted to the UK Charity Commission for public scrutiny.
Other ALERT Projects
Again taken from the Envsol Consultants document in notification of the Zambia Scoping Meeting (May 2007) - sourced from LIONSCAM!.
"The Conservation Centre for Wild Africa (CCWA) conducts research & conservation activities, not only for lions, but for a diversity of Africa’s wildlife that will provide a comprehensive body of work to assist in the preparation of sound management plans in order to conserve a Wild Africa for future generations." [website www.conservewildafrica.org]
"The ALERT Communities Trust (ACT) is our way of giving back to the communities bordering conservation areas so that they receive benefits for supporting those conservation programs. A primary element of this is our community education and awareness program to further understanding of the importance and relevance of sound conservation practice. Local communities are involved in eco-tourism ventures related to the programs, and money generated goes back into community development schemes agreed as priorities with the local community, such as building schools or providing medical supplies." [website www.alertct.org]
ALERT Lion Encounter Project Contact Details
ALERT is a registered charity in the UK, no. 1120572.
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.lionalert.org
Office: Antelope Park
Address: PO Box 1218, Gweru, Zimbabwe
Telephone(s):(+ 263 54) 251949, 251923, 251913, 252012, 250919, 252173
Fax: (263-54) 250374
Note the ALERT website, after nearly ten years in operation, is still just a holding page, and web-addresses for CCWA and ACT are not yet operational.
ANTELOPE PARK AND ALERT RELATED LINKS
ANTELOPE PARK
Bought by the Connolly's in 1987. Development site for lion walks in 1990s. Home of captive breeding and 'walking with lions' programme. Sellers of lions to South Africa and which end up being shot in canned hunts.
ALERT
Developed in 1999, nearly ten years later and still just a holding page with minimal information... and still not one lion released into the wild. Founded by Andrew Connolly.
LION ENCOUNTER
A joint venture between African Encounter and Safari par Excellence promoting 'Walking with Lions' in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, and also the expansion to Livingstone, Zambia.
AFRICAN ENCOUNTER
African Encounter is "a unique and responsible travel group" and "an industry trusted leader when it comes to the authentic African safari experience and travel in Zimbabwe". The 'parent' company to African Impact and Pathfinders. Andrew Connolly is named as 'Chairman' and founder.
Includes African Encounter Newsletters
AFRICAN IMPACT
African Impact offers paying volunteers the chance to participate in working holidays abroad. Founded by Andrew Connolly.
PATHFINDERS
Pathfinders has strong links to its sister company, African Impact, and its parent company, African Encounter. Founded by Andrew Connolly.
A.C.T.S
African Christian Tours and Safaris . Founded by Andrew Conolly and presumably part of African Encounter. Aparently ACT used to offer hunting safaris in Zimbabwe, and yes, you could shoot lions! Very Christian!
CELEBRATE AFRICA
Wedding services. No doubt founded by Andrew Conolly and part of African Encounter. Another excuse to exploit their lions for financial gain...
SAFARI PAR EXCELLENCE
Independent tourist activity provider in Victoria Falls and ALERT Lion Encounter partner.
ALERT DOCUMENT DOWNLOADS
ALERT Information Pack (pdf)
ALERT Supporters Pack (pdf)
ALERT NEWSLETTERS
ALERT Newsletter April 2009 (pdf)
ALERT Newsletter Feb 2009 (pdf)
ALERT Newsletter Jan 2009 (pdf)
ALERT Newsletter December 2008 (pdf)
ALERT Newsletter October 2008 (pdf)
ALERT Newsletter August 2008 (pdf)
ALERT Newsletter July 2008 (pdf)
ALERT Newsletter June 2008 (pdf)
ALERT Newsletter May 2008 (pdf)
ALERT Newsletter April 2008 (pdf)
ALERT Newsletter March 2008 (pdf)
ALERT Newsletter Feb 2008 (pdf)
ALERT Newsletter Jan 2008 (pdf)
Please contact me directly for newsletters and information prior to 2008.
Can you help?
If you have any comments, advice or information which can help us in our work to highlight the issues relating to the ALERT project, please email - emailquentinjones[at]yahoo.co.uk
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