The death of Cecil the lion, who largely lived in a protected game reserve, will likely turn out to have been a case of illegal poaching. But, had the thirteen-year-old black-maned lion lived a few miles away, and had the proper paperwork been in order, it would have been completely legal for an American tourist to behead him. Given the international outrage that the case has stirred, the alleged poachers will likely face criminal charges, but it’s the controversial policy of selling permits to big-game trophy hunters that really ought to be on trial.

The rules are currently nonsensical. I was just in Tanzania, at the Selous Game Reserve, where lions were safe on one side of the Rufiji River but fair game on the other, for those who have paid enough to kill them. The lions, which obviously don’t read maps, are astoundingly acclimatized to humans on the side of the river where they are safe, which leads them to be easily confused and picked off by hunters on the other side.

For years, proponents of trophy hunting have argued that the sport is actually a help to conservation. An organization representing the commercial trophy-hunting industry says that, in Africa, the sport generates revenues of as much as two hundred million dollars a year. If the fees are high enough, proponents claim, the hunting will be limited to a sustainable level, and the revenues will filter back into the desperately poor communities that surround many African game parks, discouraging residents from killing the animals themselves and encroaching on their habitats.

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.

Gorilla trackers like this in the Parc des Volcans, in Rwanda, are paid by the government to spend all day with families of endangered mountain gorillas, radioing their locations to guides who lead tourists into the jungle to see them. PHOTOGRAPH BY H. V. RUSSELL

But there is a counter example that is, for a change, really good news. In Rwanda, the government has taken a different approach to species preservation that appears to be working. Not long ago, the entire population of wild mountain gorillas was believed to have fallen to the extremely low number of some two hundred and fifty individuals, most of which lived in the nearly impenetrable jungle peaks of Rwanda, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Rather than sell hunting permits, Rwanda now sells expensive ecotourism permits, enabling tourists to hike into the endangered species’ habitat with expert guides and see them at close range.

Ecotourism has incentivized the neighboring communities to protect rather than poach the animals, much more effectively than the hunting permits. The Rwandan guides are trained and employed by the government. They are accompanied by local porters, some of whom are former poachers, who earn better wages than they would otherwise by helping the tourists navigate the difficult terrain. Tourists are only permitted to mingle with the gorillas for a total of an hour per day, in order to protect the animals’ privacy. And only a third of the total gorilla population is ever exposed to the human interlopers. Another third is studied by scientists, and the last third is left completely wild. Miraculously, even with these restrictions, the gorillas have become Rwanda’s No. 1 tourist attraction, and tourism is commonly said to be the country’s No. 1 industry. The ecotourism fees are paying for modern schools and electricity in the villages at the entrance to the national park where the gorillas live. And the gorilla population is growing.

This three-month-old mountain gorilla is one of twenty-six known to have been born in the wild this year, contributing to the revival of the desperately endangered species. PHOTOGRAPH BY H. V. RUSSELL

In September, Rwanda is scheduled to hold its annual gorilla-naming ceremony, in which the guides christen the year’s newborn offspring. So far this year, twenty-four mountain gorillas have been born, expanding the estimated total population to some six hundred. For the moment, at least, it appears that ecotourism has proven a win-win situation for the gorillas and the humans.

It’s too late for Cecil, but isn’t it time that Zimbabwe and other countries stopped putting prices on their dwindling animals’ heads, and, like Rwanda, encouraged frustrated American dentists to point a camera instead of a gun? Photo tourism may seem less macho than hunting, but, if the aim is to find the ultimate challenge, it is, as recent trends show, a lot harder to save a species than snuff one out.