I'm not so sure "none" were killed or mauled.
More people die by Hippo than by lion. But google and see how many trophy hunter deaths you run into.
But, I wasn't really worried about the hunters being mauled and killed by lions, although they certainly have been over the years. I was thinking more of the people that try to live where they live. To say nothing of the poor innocent big brown eyed gazelles etc.
What's the rate of attacks on people by lions in general? How does it compare to, say, sharks?
Actually, if it wasn't for the huge fees these rich guys pay for the hunts, conservation efforts would not be ongoing.
The average hunter does a great deal for the environment through fees and the like, but the trophy hunter only tends to impact where you have a government partnership and oversight in play, using some of the funds generated to impact the animal populations (Nambia appears to be a great example of that), but a study by National Geographic Africa noted a photographic safari generates three times the total revenue of more traditional "hunts". And unlike the traditional hunting economy, photographic safaris would see benefits extended to the general population, instead of a much smaller of wealthy land owners, as is the case in South Africa, where much of that hunting is going on.
And then there are the less exceptional nations, like Zimbabwe, where local populations have been hunted to non existence due to a lack of institutional controls by the government and conservancies and parks are being hunted.
Or, it's complicated.
Here's a bit from a recent New Yorker article, examining the claim of positive economic impact from big game hunting:
"In practice though, studies have shown that only about three per cent of these fees actually reaches the local communities. Most of the money is siphoned off by the hunting industry and government officials. Meanwhile, in the eight sub-Saharan countries that currently sell permits allowing hunters to target lions, the animals’ numbers are dwindling alarmingly. Only thirty-two thousand to thirty-five thousand lions are now believed to live in the wild, down thirty per cent over the past twenty years. The decimation of African savannah elephants and other big game species is more alarming still, suggesting that leaving the free market to protect endangered species is a fatal fallacy."
Does Zimbabwe Really Need Trophy Hunting? BY Jane Mayer
