Support the Minister

Almost a decade has passed since the horrors of canned hunting were first exposed to the world. Brought to our attention with shocking images of caged lions being shot from close range by shameless hunters and their clients, few could have imagined back then that these scenes were in fact not an isolated incident, but rather the beginning of a dark and disgraceful period for South Africa’s wildlife industry. I for one expected these scenes to galvanize the wildlife community, hunting bodies and the authorities to act. Instead, an apparent lack of will (or was it tacit approval in some quarters?) during the ensuing years brought indecision and no clampdown of any sort. Yes, there were official statements of disapproval from DEAT and various hunting bodies, but nothing concrete and constructive to stop the industry flourishing into a multi million dollar one. Emboldened by this display of inertia, a second horror began unfolding. Those involved began establishing large breeding facilities and farms, predominately in the provinces of Free State, Limpopo, North West and Gauteng, to supply the trophy hunters and the animal traders with a sufficient number of captive bred predators.

I have been closely monitoring these industries over the last five years, much of which has been reported through this magazine. It has been an awful task, made all the worse by nagging doubts of whether it would ever be possible to have these practices stopped. Without fail, after leaving every property, my mind would swirl with images of caged predators pacing a maze of wire fencing, and the pack of lies I had just been fed by the owner or guide. The result would be wild swings of reason between absolute outrage and an attempt to understand a chosen livelihood based on an entrenched hunting culture justified by perverse borrowings from the language of conservation and sustainable utilization. Inevitably, I was always left with same conclusion; that of doubting the possibility of any change.

But I now find myself thinking and believing differently. For the first time, and based on the actions and words of Marthinus van Schalkwyk, the Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, I firmly believe there is hope for a full ban on canned hunting and major restrictions to be placed on those wanting to breed large predators. These measures are also likely to be accompanied by stricter regulations governing the hunting industry and the wildlife management industries in general. Why my change in heart? Firstly, Van Schalkwyk has seemingly recognized these industries for what they are, secondly he has accepted that there are major structural, operational and regulatory deficiencies in the hunting industry in general and thirdly, he appointed a ‘Panel of Experts’ earlier this year to review all of the above.

The Minister must be applauded for taking such a proactive stance, but more importantly, he and the Panel of Experts should now be given full support during this period when the laws and regulations are being formulated. The Panel has completed their work and these findings have been delivered to the Minister for review. With regards to canned hunting and the captive breeding of wildlife, the main recommendations of the panel are as follows:

  • “In general, the practice of hunting captive bred animals should not be allowed”.
  • “The Panel recommends that the Minister place a ban on the import of all alien species for hunting purposes”.
  • “The Panel recommends the prohibition of the translocation of species outside their range zones”.
  • With regards to put-and-take hunting and canned hunting, “the Panel recommends that both these practices should be prohibited as they compromise the principle of fair chase and the humane treatment of animals”.

It needs to be stressed that at this stage these are merely recommendations, and any changes to the law are unlikely until mid year sometime at the earliest. In the interim, there is no doubt that the industry heavyweights will be lobbying government against any bans, and if their activities are heavily curtailed, one can expect a full array of legal threats to be introduced.

While the legal challenges are pressures the government should be able to deal with, there are more serious concerns to begin pondering if an outright ban is to be implemented. What do we do with approximately 3 000 human imprinted lions, 500 cheetah, 250 wild dog, 60 tigers and countless other predators that breeders will surely look to abandon?

Kill the Canned Hunting Industry (2002)

The canned hunting industry has again been in the news lately. For those readers who have not been following the debate, the State President has before him a policy document that awaits his signature. First drafted in 2002, the document aims at legislating the cowardly and abhorrent practice of shooting captive bred animals, mostly large predators, that are kept in cages and confined areas, sometimes drugged and feeding from a bait. The policy has already been approved at various levels of government, including parliament. As it stands, it should not be allowed to receive his signature. There are obvious loopholes – policing the legislation, it does not provide for exotic species, there are weak definitions of what constitutes human-imprinted animals and the lack of public participation amongst others.

While these oversights are serious, I believe there is a more menacing aspect to the industry that needs to be introduced into the debate, and that is the process of domestication. Are the canned operators not in the process of creating a domesticated version of the wild lion? And for that matter, the same could be asked about a number of the other species being bred by canned operators and wildlife ranchers. Do we understand the biological, behavioural and philosophical implications of what is actually going on behind the fences and cages on these farms? One can distinguish three broad categories of interaction between Humans and wild animals. Habituation occurs when wild animals become familiar with our routine movements, taming occurs when we control their feeding behaviour, and domestication occurs when we control their breeding behaviour. The managed hunting industry is all about supplying animals that offer sufficiently attractive trophies. Larger, heavier, longer and more colourful equates to higher prices paid by the hunter, and in order to achieve this, breeders will control and manipulate the breeding behaviour of animals. With the large predators, one-week old cubs are often removed from their mothers in order to induce another estrus cycle; lions will be mated with their own offspring (particularly in the case of white lions); lions and tigers are being cross-bred producing what are known as ligers. By consistently doing this, the reproductive capacities of the females are placed under stress as they will be reproducing at rates that exceed the normal circumstances in the wild. The cubs on the other hand are being reared outside of their natural social pride dynamic. With plains game species for example, blesbok and bontebok are crossbred to achieve longer horns and springbok and impala are bred for recessive genes. One need only consider the mutations that have occurred in domestic dogs and cats to accept that there will be critical future consequences to this reckless practice.

Controlling the breeders in South Africa is only half the solution as they are only half the problem. The hunters, who come from all over the world, also need to be targeted. Much like the illicit drug industry, effective legislation needs to be aimed as much at the user and abuser as at the dealer. The ultimate control would be to put a blanket ban on the export of all trophies. This would also be an interesting acid test as to why people hunt in general. This measure should not materially affect the overall experience of genuine hunters, who claim that they are primarily involved in conservation and the fair chase!

And while discussing the distinction between wild and domestic animals, the hoary? old story still put forward by hunters and breeders to justify their practices by comparing them with the domesticated animals is simply outlandish. The majority of domesticated animals is the result of a process that has taken place over thousands of years – when Humankind was inexplicably linked to the natural world for food, clothing and survival. Our relationship with the environment has fundamentally and unquestionably changed, and to argue otherwise is both foolish and self-serving. If there is any doubt, lets ask the hunting world a question in a paradigm they will understand. Do they ever come to Africa to shoot our prize cattle and horses to hang these trophies on their walls? Or conversely, when last did they pop down to their local butcher to order a kilogram of prime lion or zebra ribs? The fair treatment and slaughter process of domesticated animals is another issue altogether. Ultimately, by carrying out these practices with wild animals and attempting to link the argument to domestic animals, they defeat the very purpose of what they say is central to their sport – that of the thrill and challenge of pitting ones hunting skills against the instincts and survival strategies of wild animals.

Canned hunting has no conservation status whatsoever! How can we trust canned hunting operators with the gene pool of Africa’s wild species. The canned hunting industry must be completely killed. It has no place in a forward-thinking society.

Op-Ed: Playing with Words While Captive Lions Die

In an article published in the Sunday Times a week ago [May 31], Edna Molewa, the minister of environmental affairs, admonishes conservationists to “put the lid on” what she believes are unfounded claims of canned lion hunting in South Africa that are “damaging our reputation for species conservation”. By ANDREAS WILSON-SPÄTH.

At issue is a semantic disagreement over exactly what is understood by the term ‘canned hunting’. When Minister of Environmental Affairs Edna Molewa accuses opponents of “a deliberate strategy to conflate canned lion hunting with captive breeding of lions” she is engaging in a play on words entrenched in the policy documents that regulate lion hunting in South Africa.

The National Norms and Standards for the Sustainable Use of Large Predators, which falls under the National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act, defines canned hunting as “any form of hunting where a large predator is tranquilised, artificially lured by sound, scent, visual stimuli, feeding, bait, other animals of its own species or another species, or any other method, for the purpose of hunting that predator”.

Molewa conveniently ignores the second part of the definition, which states canned hunting also includes any form of hunting where “captive large predators are hunted”.

Over 99% of all lions killed by trophy hunters in South Africa are animals that have been bred and raised in captivity. If hunting such animals is regarded as canned hunting according to the official definition, how can the minister insist that the practice is outlawed and does not happen in South Africa?

The answer to this apparent dilemma is positively Machiavellian: the National Norms and Standards do, in fact, allow for the legal hunting of captive-bred lions, provided that “they have been certified as rehabilitated to wild status”. The rules which determine what it takes for such captive-bred lions to be rehabilitated rest with provincial authorities.

In practice, this is what happens: if a trophy hunter shoots a captive-bred lion in the facility where it was raised and kept, they would be engaging in an illegal canned hunt. If, however, that same lion was transported to and released into an appropriate area, the same hunter can legally kill it within as little as four days, depending on the province where the hunt takes place.

In essence, South African regulations allow for lions that have been born in captivity, have lived there for virtually their entire lives, have always been fed by humans, and are incapable of surviving on their own in the bush, to be magically “rehabilitated” and transformed into “wild” animals that can be legally killed by trophy hunters.

What Molewa doesn’t appear to understand is that critics of the South African lion hunting industry do not just object to hunting of tranquilised or artificially lured or baited lions, but to the very concept of industrialised captive breeding and farming of an undomesticated wild species – the continent’s apex predator and an animal with considerable ecological and cultural significance no less – predominantly for the purpose of trophy hunting and financial profit.

The false dichotomy between “canned” and “captive” lion hunting is mere wordplay. Whatever you want to call it, lions are being bred and held in captivity for the express purpose of being killed for trophies. Unlike the minister, many of her critics are extremely uncomfortable with the fact that this industry already hosts more than twice as many captive-bred lions than there are free-roaming lions left in the wild.

Molewa argues that “some” captive-bred lions, “including cubs”, are making a contribution to lion conservation, when this is clearly not the case for the vast majority of these animals who cannot fend for themselves in the wild and outside of zoos have no conservation value whatsoever.

The onus is on the minister to show exactly how the captive-bred lion industry contributes to lion conservation, financially or otherwise, by providing concrete answers and figures. How many captive-bred lions have been “sold to start new conservation areas of free-roaming lions” and where?

What scientific evidence is there that trophy hunting of captive-bred lions is a source of “job creation, community development and social upliftment”? How many jobs have been created and how much money has gone to communities?

While the breeding and trophy hunting of lions has produced various revenue streams, few can be justified as genuinely benefitting lion conservation and some are likely to impact negatively on wild lion populations, for example through stimulating the trade in lion bones to Asia, where they are replacing tiger bones which are associated with supposed medicinal properties but are increasingly difficult to procure since the Chinese government banned the trade to protect dwindling tiger populations.

Molewa claims “the hunting of captive-bred lions takes pressure off the hunting of the wild lion population”, but offers no concrete evidence for this. Many critics are concerned that the opposite will happen, warning that legal, captive-bred hunting and a trade in captive-bred lions and lion products will stimulate demand and increase poaching of wild lions not just in South Africa but elsewhere in Africa.

Whatever foreign exchange income there is from the lion hunting industry represents a small fraction of the country’s overall tourism earnings and most of it ends up in the pockets of a few individuals. Canned or captive lion hunting is increasingly unacceptable to the world at large. It’s government policies, not tweets and articles by animal rights activists, which are damaging our international reputation for conservation and tourism.

The minister’s assurance that “the African lion is not endangered” is misplaced, especially considering that that there is growing pressure elsewhere in Africa for lions to be listed as an ‘endangered’ species on the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and for them to be included in Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). It’s irresponsible for government to promote the domestic lion breeding and hunting industry without considering the impact this will have on lion populations on the rest of the continent.

At a more fundamental level, the most glaring difference between Molewa’s government and its critics, relates to the interpretation and application of the doctrine of “sustainable use”, which the minister rightly notes as being enshrined in the constitution. She articulates the official position quite clearly when she writes that “lions do in fact form part of South Africa’s indigenous natural resources, and play an important role as an income-generating species”.

The commodification of vulnerable wildlife species, as expressed in a variety of policy documents, is a growing trend in South Africa. Extracting profit from these “natural resources” – alive or in parts – through legalised commercial farming and breeding, trophy hunting and trade, all governed by market economics, is increasingly seen not only as the most efficient mode of wildlife conservation, but also as an effective method to counter illegal wildlife poaching and trafficking.

In contrast, opponents around the world caution that the wildlife-industrial complex which is being created by government and its allies in the hunting and wildlife breeding lobby to generate multi-million dollar profits for a few people under the guise of sustainable economic growth is extremely ill-considered and will have detrimental effects on wildlife conservation.

The crucial question is this: are we willing to let a profit-hungry lion farming industry domesticate the pride of Africa’s wildlife heritage for the benefit of a wealthy hunting elite? DM

Photo: A lion stands in a caged enclosure at a captive breeding centre for large predators at an undisclosed location in South Africa’s Free State Province in an undated picture released 16 November 2005 by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW). EPA/International Fund for Animal Welfare / IFAW HANDOUT FILE