The slaughter of Sahelian wildlife by Arab royalty

Abstract

Once the Sahel supported healthy populations of wildlife. Today only remnant populations exist, survivors of the ravages of drought, desertification, excessive hunting and competition for pasture. In the past few years the problems for these animals and for the people trying to conserve them have been exacerbated by a new wave of hunters. Arab princes and their retinues, having exterminated most of the prey species in their native land, are invading the Sahelian countries in search of new hunting grounds. The author, who has worked for 20 years in the Sahel, here describes what is happening in Niger and Mali and urges that steps be taken to stop the slaughter.

A phylogeographic framework for the conservation of Saharan and Arabian Dorcas gazelles (Artiodactyla: Bovidae)

“…The primary reason is certainly intensified hunting, which has become far more efficient since the introduction of firearmbased hunting from motorized vehicles (Newby 1988(Newby , 1990Smith 1998;Mallon and Kingswood 2001). Furthermore, habitat loss or deterioration as well as competition with domestic livestock has had a major impact on many migratory ungulates (Smith 1998;Mallon and Kingswood 2001;Beudels-Jamar et al 2006).…”

Can landscape use be among the factors that potentially make some ungulates species more difficult to conserve?

“…I hypothesize that mountain gazelle's use of more accessible landscapes makes the species potentially more vulnerable to vehicular hunting and anthropogenic disturbances and are among the reasons why mountain gazelles have historically been more difficult to conserve than Nubian ibex in the Ibex Reserve. Habitat accessibility and vulnerability to hunting and anthropogenic disturbances may also apply to other endangered ungulate species that occur in open deserts, which have experienced drastic population declines and local extinctions (Ryder, 1987;Saleh, 1987;Newby, 1990;Thoules et al, 1991;Loggers et al, 1992;Magin and Greth, 1994;Hammond et al, 2001). Ibex and other species such as the Barbary sheep, Ammotragus lervia, probably have persisted in many of the same areas, despite population declines, because of their use of more rugged, inaccessible terrain (Loggers et al, 1992;Habibi, 1994;Wacher et al, 2002).…”

Dispersal pattern of mountain gazelles Gazella gazella released in central Arabia

“…Ungulate populations in the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East declined dramatically during the second half of the 20th century, mainly as a result of excessive hunting (Thesiger, 1959;Newby, 1980Newby, , 1990. Recently, reintroduction programmes have attempted to reverse these declines (Stanley Price, 1989;Cano et al, 1993).…”