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). PROJECT PROPOSAL CONCERNING LION RESAERCH PROJECT General: The business-plan describes the financial part of this project. But in the end our organisations in Europe (Pantera and Panterra) will guarantee the sustainability of this project. If required we will confirm this by contract. 1. Exhibitions centre & Endangeredspecies breeding facility/Rescue Centre: Mission statement: Through education and the rescuing of wild animals we want to contribute to their survival. Most importantly, we want to educate the general public to the Eco-system degradation as a result of man’s activities, which will also eventually endanger humankind itself. Animals listed under the appendices of CITES will be bred in captivity and learned how to live in the wild in conjunction with the IUCN rules. The purpose wille be to make protocols how to bring them back to nature. Project execution: A terrain of c.300ha will be developed for this purpose, the landscaping will be done like an arboretum. An exhibition centre that will portray the functioning and importance of ecosystems, through the displaying of birds, reptiles, fishes, mammals and ungulates in their simulated natural habitats will be constructed. An integral part of this display will be that of the predators of the world, be it cats, crocodiles or birds of prey. A CITES breeding facility that will be accessible to the public in certain instances. On request the animal hospital will be accessible to the general public. This hospital will also receive injured or confiscated animals for the rehabilitation centre. Origin of animals: Purchased. Donated by other institutions. Animals from the CITES breeding facility that can no longer be part of the breeding project. Confiscated by conservation authorities. From Pantera and other centres in Europe. Animals that cannot be rehabilitated. 2. Rehabilitation centre: Mission statement: Animals that come from nature cannot spend their entire life in captivity and must be released if it is fit again to survive. The rest will be euthanased on advice from a veterinary surgeon. Only endangered animals such as the Martial Eagle etc. will be used for breeding programmes. Execution of project: On a terrain of ca.4000ha the facility for rehabilitation will be developed. Boma’s for ungulates and non-ungulates. Large flight cages for birds of prey. Large flight cages for other birds. Cages for the gradual acclimatisation of animals to be released. Different type cages will be built for tree and ground living animals. Origin of animals Donations of injured and /or poisoned animals from public. confiscated animals. This facility will be used for acclimatisation of animals to be released on the reserve e.g. Nyala, Common Reedbuck, Rhino, Hippopotamus, Cape Buffalo etc. Rehabilitation area Lions Need Only 22.000 lions are left in the whole of Africa (Bauer/van der Merve, may 2002). Viruses (Journal of Clinical Mocrobiology 3:554-563, www.AWF.org, www.lionresearch.org,), TB (Sunday Times, 14 febr.,1999) and small gene-diversity are known threats to lions in Africa (www.african-lion.org). There is little time left before the fate of the lion will be as bad as for the tiger. We have to look at all possible alternatives to save the lion. Research has never been done on the successful reintroduction of captive-bred lions.(see for more internet info about lion threats see at the end of this paper). Mission statement An answer needs to be found if it is possible to place lions bred for generations in captivity back into the wild. If possible, it also needs to be established how many generations it will take to accomplish this reintroduction. Execution of project: a) General: The last stage of the project will have been reached when the Lions would exist as a self- sustaining wild population in an area of ca. 2000 ha, and can hunt for themselves (have multiple hunting strategies). The development of a vocal repertoire, which may be different from the captive lions, is another important aspect to study. Also, importantly, the Lions would have respect for people again. The project will then terminate. It will not be attempted to actually release these animals back into the wilderness per se. b) Execution of project Laboratory-phase We will work with three groups of lions bred in zoos in Europe. The age of the animals in the experiment will be between 3 and 6 months. Every group will exist of 1 male and 2 female animals. Two groups have to learn how to hunt by e.g. the hands-on method. The third group will be the control-group. This phase ends when the young animals, from the first generation, have learnt from their mother how to hunt. According to our estimation, this will take four years. Maximal offspring in four years will be about six cubs. The accommodation of these Lions will initially be in an enclosure of 1 – 3 ha of land with Lion proof fences. ‘Team-building’ phase Two of the three groups of lions (male/female/cubs) in phase 1 will be sold to zoos somewhere in the world, or will be sterilised and brought into the exhibition area. In this phase, one group will continue to live as a normal pride and continue hunting its own food. The moment they have been taught to hunt, their camp will be enlarged to 10 ha and later to 50 ha, depending on the growth of the pride. Eventually the pride and offspring will be released in a 250ha area (preferably more). During this phase the group will grow to the normal (social/cultural) behaviour. They also have to increase their hunting strategies. In this phase the vocalisation-research will start. After this experiment the last generation of this group has to live with the normal respect for humans and not see them as food-providers. When all these phases have been completed, the project will end. All the lions will be sterilised and will stay on the 250 ha piece of ground until their deaths. Guarantees To the people concerned, the falsification of genes would be the most important problem bringing captive bred lions to South Africa. However, until now, the real problem has not been researched. That is why we started (together with the University of Gröningen) a pilot-study of the DNA-diversity of European and South African lions. We will work with the blood samples of three groups of 15 lions. Two of these groups are of African origin and the last one will be of European origin. The results of this study will give a good indcation of the relevance of this problem/danger. Depending on these results, we will consider starting with a DNA-research for the total of Africa (PhD). All the blood samples will also be used for biological research. We will work with the healthiest group of lions from the same bloodlines, but animals of unknown genetic origin can be used as a last resort. The prerequisite is that the lions must have lived in captivity for generations. We consider the use of Lions of genetically unknown origin as unimportant for the purposes of this project only, since the project should be seen as a laboratory experiment and there is actually no plan to release the Lions into the wild per se. The project as far as the lion research concerns will terminate when the question has been answered! The lions we bring into Africa will be tested for illnesses like TB and FIV. We will breed our own food/game for the lions and these will also be screened in our laboratory. The Lion fence will be constructed so that the lions will not be able to escape at all. In the unlikely event of escape the animals will be darted or shot. All the lions will be micro-chipped and the offspring will be reported to the Mpumalanga-board when they reach the age of 3 months. Every matriarch will be radio-collared in the most modern way. Tigers For tigers the same sort of programm can be started. For a self substaining area is minimum 2000 ha needed, where 1 male en 4 solitair living tigers can live. Several waterspots, together with a self substaining game population of a equavalent of 180 buffelo offspring a year are neccesary. This area must be tiger-proved fenced. Reasons to work with this project: The project will be a community based project and the benefits will be considerable in terms of employment and infrastructure. This is a preparatory project that would pave the way for animal introductions into the wild elsewhere in the world. Captive breeding projects can thus contribute to putting endangered animals back into the wild. This is thus an academic project to establish the viability of such actions. This project is needed to get more knowlegde about e.g. threats like TB and FIV and weak genetic pools. Are these called threats realy such a problem? Are the separate living populations of lions genetically to small? Questions which must te answered to face populare opinies. The project will be a co-operation project between Panterra and also the “Vrije Universiteit van Amsterdam”, the University of Leiden, the Rijksuniversiteit Gröningen in the Netherlands and the University of Natal in South Africa more interesting parties can always be involved when they contribute . Breeding programmes of Pantera/Panterra. The aim of the breeding programmes of Pantera and Panterra is to bring animals back into the wild or keep them in conservation for the minimum time that is necessary. In doing so we respect the IUCN guidelines in this regard, of course careful scientific research on any particular species to be bred will be conducted before attempting to breed it. Guarantees: Thus, offspring of animals of unknown genetic origin will never be allowed back into the wild, except where an animal has been totally exterminated e.g. the Arabian Oryx in the North African desert. No animals from this project will be released in Africa except indigenous animals bred from endangered animals such as f.i. the Martial Eagle. A. van der Valk (Chairman Pantera Foundation) For more information about extiguishing threads for lions see on www The total number of lions in Africa http://www.african-lion.org/research.htm http://www.afrileo-foundation.org/site/walk/ Threads by diseases http://www.afrileo-foundation.org/site/walk/ V.I.F. (Cataids) http://www.aegis.com/news/nv/2000/NV000501.html http://www.pbs.org/edens/etosha/conser_1.htm TB( Bovine Tuberculose) http://wildnetafrica.co.za/wildlifenews/2001/01/1020.html http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/stories/s488497.htm http://www.abc.net.au/btn/scripts/2002/03-12/lions.htm Cancer http://www.afrileo-foundation.org/site/walk/ |