On Saturday February 6 the Worldwide Rally for Cecil took place with over 30 cities from around the world speaking out against trophy hunting. The main rally was held in Las Vegas to coincide with the world’s largest trophy hunting club, Safari Club International, which was hosting a 4 day “Ultimate Hunters’ Market”.

The convention drew about 25,000 members with signs describing the event as the “THE BIGGEST THE BEST”. The Safari Club’s goal was to “auction off a total of 301 mammal hunts across more than 30 countries that will result in the killing of at least 600 animals, according to the Humane Society’s analysis of the convention’s listings. The targets include baboons, grizzly bears, cougars, African lions, coyotes, wolves, jackals and many other mammals.” – The Guardian

Graphic The Guardian (Source: Humane Society International)

Toronto was one of the Canadian cities to host a rally to show support and to speak out against all forms of trophy hunting whether it’s Lions in Africa like Cecil, or wildlife here in North America. The purpose was to inform and educate people on the cruelty of trophy hunting as well as to encourage the changing of laws – in Toronto 650 signatures were gathered on a petition to ask our Government to help by banning the importation of hunting trophies coming in to Canada.

Gathering signatures – Rally for Cecil – Toronto – Image Simi Vadgama Her Vegan Lenses

Participation in this event was important as Canada is connected to the trophy hunting industry by allowing sport hunted wildlife into the country and, by allowing hunting of its own wildlife for sport. While the USA is the largest importer of hunting trophies, a recent report released states that American hunters import an average of 126,000 animal trophies a year or 345 a day, many will be surprised to learn that Canada tops the list as the biggest source of trophies for our neighbors to the south. Our low dollar, easy access and list of coveted species like wolves, bear, moose and mountain lions, make Canada a one stop shop for American trophy hunters.

Rally for Cecil – Toronto – Image Simi Vadgama Her Vegan Lenses

As the main purpose of the rally was to draw attention to all types of trophy hunting, I opted to highlight Canada’s only big cat, the mountain lion or cougar, which is legally hunted in our two western provinces British Columbia and Alberta. The plight of these highly misunderstood and long persecuted cats has all but gone unnoticed and, in a report released in 2011 by the BC based Raincoast Conservation Foundation titled Cougars: BC’s neglected carnivore reveals that we are dramatically failing to protect them from all forms of mortality including trophy hunting.

Numbers of cougars killed by humans due to legal hunting in BC have varied from 127 to 506 per year, and average 257 per year (1976-2008 BC Ministry of the Environment, unpublished data).

“Hunting regulations in BC do little to avoid overexploitation of cougar populations. BC cougars are hunted for trophies with incomplete knowledge of population size and little control over the number and distribution of cougars that are killed. Although illegal to kill a mother when she is in the company of her kittens, killing a mother while she has left her kittens in the safety of a nursery or rendezvous site is legal.” – Raincoast Conservation Foundation Cougars: BC’s neglected carnivore 

Out of the estimated 4000 cougars that live in Canada the largest remaining populations, an estimated 3500, reside in BC which has become the last strong hold for a big cat that once roamed from the west to east coast of Canada. Disappointingly the BC government who is responsible for their conservation has not yet made an effort to properly study or create strategies to protect them. Authors of the Raincoast study state that is a race against time with regards to saving the cougar and ask why trophy hunting of cougars is even allowed as it is not for sustenance, but simply for “sport or trophy”.

Talking trophy hunting and mountain lions – Image Simi Vadgama Her Vegan Lenses

Interestingly, a joint report on newly compiled data was just released by the Humane Society of the United States and Humane Society International and, the analysis for a ten-year period revealed that the USA is the largest importer of foreign mountain lion trophies the majority of which were sourced from Canada.

There are no borders when it comes to wildlife like mountain lions as we saw late last year when a GPS collard female mountain lion named Sandy, being studied by biologists, trekked 450 miles from BC to Montana only to be shot and killed by a hunter. Regardless of who is doing the killing, it is clear that both countries will need to do much better when it comes to protecting North America’s lions if they are to survive. Banning sport hunting of these magnificent cats would be a good first step in the right direction.

The timing as the say has never been better and the ‘Cecil Factor’ has given all wildlife a voice like never before so I was thrilled to be able to participate in Saturday’s rally and help bring much-needed awareness to North America’s Lion. Overall it was a really positive day speaking with many supportive people not just from Toronto but from all over including:

• Ireland
• Los Angeles – which meant I got to talk a little about mountain lion P22
• Saudi Arabia
• Alberta and British Columbia – two individuals who had both seen mountain lions
• Minnesota – a gentleman who had participated in protests at Walter Palmer’s dental office

It is inspiring to know that the overwhelming majority of people, no matter where they were from, could agree on one thing – that killing wildlife for sport needs to stop. What we will lose is far too valuable for us to stand by and do nothing, so reminding ourselves that we are not alone in our fight will help on those days when we are confronted with the seemingly endless cruelty that is trophy hunting.

For more on North America’s Lion and Canada’s only big cat continue to check back and be sure to follow me on Facebok, Twitter, Instagram for more info and action alerts.

A thank you goes out to the California-based Mountain Lion Foundation for providing assistance with putting together information for the rally.