It was several decades since the South African government did not forbid the leopard hunting during the safaris that take place in the country of the "black continent". The mammal is one of the five that can be killed together with the elephant, the lion, the buffalo and the rhinoceros (in this case the term is used "Big Five", understood as big game). It is one of the most popular trophies by tourists, but during the 2016 season the gun cannot be aimed at the feline. How can this reverse be explained? The South African National Biodiversity Institute, an institute that deals with biodiversity, has expressly asked the local authorities to ban hunting since the number of leopards in South Africa cannot be precisely quantified.
Each year the country manages to cash in over 6 billion rand (about 300 million euros), but the prohibition of mammal hunting will result in the compensation of tourists who had already purchase the necessary licenses. The institute's findings concern protected areas and national parks, while private land is not included. Precisely this detail gave rise to the Professional Hunters Association, according to which the picture illustrated is completely incomplete and misleading.
The latter association pointed out that in private areas there are many leopards and the data can be provided with a certain simplicity. South Africa suffered one of the worst droughts ever in 2015 and according to experts this factor has been positive for the numbers related to leopards, as predators usually tend to increase when there is little rain. The Professional Hunters Association also recalled how it costs more than $ 20 to shoot such a mammal, therefore it is not difficult to imagine how high are the reimbursements which the association will have to make the protagonist of.
Most of the tourists who go to South African territory for this big game are of American nationality. Hunting for the Big Five has become legal in this part of the world since the XNUMXs, that is, when the slaughter of the white rhino has been "restored". The same expression, among other things, is also used in other African nations, such as for example Tanzania, Kenya, Botswana and Zimbabwe. The variant of the Big Seven ("the big seven") refers in reverse to the five of the Big Five in addition to the whale and the white shark: theAddo Elephant National Park South African hosts the only natural habitat in which they are all present at the same time.