A primary school pupil has reportedly been attacked by a cheetah at a game reserve in Pietermaritzburg.

News of the attack first emerged on Twitter after BloodLions, the organisation behind the controversial canned lion documentary, re-tweeted: “The dangers of wild animal interaction. Young Pmb pupil allegedly attacked by a cheetah at KwaCheetah, Nambiti Reserve.”

Headmaster of Cowan House Preparatory School, Robin Odell confirmed to News24 that a student was bitten by a cheetah, after the animal managed to “partially force its way through a game fence” during an education tour on Thursday.

“The school’s Board of Governors and Management have been in constant contact with all the relevant parties as well as the parents of the pupil,” Odell said.

“The pupil received immediate and appropriate medical attention for his injuries and is expected to make a full recovery from the bite wounds.”

The incident has raised questions over the breeding habits of wild cheetahs at the game reserve.

Wildlands Conservation Trust CEO Dr Andrew Venter says that the breeding practises at Nambini game reserve could have been avoided, as cheetahs are not being released into the wild after breeding.

“The facilities are there, so why are the animals not being released into the wild?”

“How did a cheetah get that close? The Endangered Wildlife Trust has forecast that this could happen, and now we see it is starting to happen. We’ve had a cheetah attack a child.”

Traveller24 contacted Desmond Gouws, a manager of the The KwaCheetah breeding project, Nambiti Game Reserve but he was unable to confirm the incident.

A new documentary on ‘canned hunts’ shows that Cecil and other wild lions represent just a fraction of the animals Americans kill each year.

Cecil the lion’s death at the hands of an American dentist last month was not an isolated incident.

According to a new documentary called Blood Lions, foreign hunters kill two to three lions every day in South Africa. Unlike Cecil, however, these aren’t wild lions. They are captive cats, born and bred in cages solely for the purpose of selling them for “canned hunts”—excursions in small, walled-in encampments where hunters can easily shoot the semi-tame animals without having to stalk them across the savanna.

Prices for these canned hunts start at about $17,500 and go as high as $50,000. Hunters get to take the heads and skins home, while many of the bones reportedly make their way to China and other countries for use in traditional Asian medicine.

Blood Lions follows South African conservationist Ian Michler and American hunter Rick Swazey as they investigate the trade, getting rare footage of crowded breeding facilities and putting their lives on the line as dealers threaten to shoot them for trespassing.

The film has earned praise from conservation groups. “Blood Lions is perhaps the most in-depth and significant look inside the insidious world of South African canned hunts,” said Adam Roberts, chief executive of Born Free USA. (The Born Free Foundation provided funding for the film.) “It shows how nefarious these operators are and visually depicts the massive cruelty of canned lion hunting in grotesque detail.”

Like Walter Palmer, the Minnesota dentist and big game hunter who killed Cecil, most hunters who pay to shoot captive lions come from the United States. Born Free recently analyzed legal lion exports from South Africa and found that 5,000 of 8,318 lion trophies exported between 2000 and 2013 were sent to the U.S. “That means that roughly three out of every five lion trophies were imported into the United States,” Roberts said. Watch the trailer for the film below.

The American portion of the trade has increased in recent years. In 2013, Born Free found that 84 percent of lion trophies were sent to the U.S.

Although official counts of the number of lions in captivity in South Africa are not available, the documentary estimates that between 6,000 and 8,000 big cats live in breeding facilities, waiting to be shot. South Africa officially labels them “education and conservation facilities.” Michler, however, told National Geographic that these cats could never be released into the wild because they are too acclimated to humans.

Roberts, meanwhile, said the legal trade of lion parts from canned hunts hurts wild populations and “can potentially mask an illegal trade of wild, poached lions.” He noted that the growing lion bone trade—which has emerged over the past few years to replace the flow of products from tigers, which are even more endangered than lions—places additional demand on wild and captive lions.

The filmmakers have said they hope the documentary will expose the lion trophy-hunting industry and shame South Africa into shutting it down.

Blood Lions premiered at the Durban International Film Festival in last month and will screen throughout South Africa starting Aug. 14. International and U.S. distribution is in the works.

Debate is intensifying in South Africa over the practice of hunting captive-bred lions. Ian Michler, maker of a documentary film called “Blood Lions,” has estimated that close to 1,000 lions bred in captivity in South Africa are fatally shot every year by trophy seekers.

Critics, who refer to the custom as “canned hunting,” say lions that are bred in captivity are not afraid of people, making them easy targets for shooting in relatively confined areas. While hunting operators in South Africa describe their industry as well-regulated, a key hunting association has called for a review of captive-bred lion hunting amid growing public criticism.

The practice is an “extreme and a brutal form of trophy hunting,” Michler said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press on Monday.

In neighboring Zimbabwe, authorities have said two American hunters were involved in illegal lion killings in separate cases in the area of Hwange National Park in April and July. The cases have put fresh scrutiny on hunting in Africa at a time when poaching has vastly reduced wildlife numbers, including threatened species such as lions, rhinos and elephants.

South Africa has had success in the conservation of wild lions. Last month, however, South Africa’s environment minister, Edna Molewa, held a meeting to discuss concern about alleged irregularities at what she called “the fringe” of the “legal, well-regulated” lion breeding and hunting industries.

It is time to review captive-bred lion hunting, Hermann Meyeridricks, president of the Professional Hunters’ Association of South Africa, said in a July 24 letter to association members.

“Broader society is no longer neutral on this question and the tide of public opinion is turning strongly against this form of hunting, however it is termed,” he wrote.

In the aftermath of the anger that followed the killing of Cecil, the lion from Zimbabwe, debate is intensifying in neighbouring South Africa over the practice of hunting captive-bred lions.

Ian Michler, maker of a documentary film called Blood Lions, has estimated that close to 1,000 lions bred in captivity in South Africa are fatally shot every year by trophy seekers.

The practice is an “extreme and a brutal form of trophy hunting”, Michler said in a telephone interview with the Associated Press news agency this week.

Those who oppose the practice and refer to the custom as “canned hunting” say lions that are bred in captivity are not afraid of people, making them easy targets for shooting in relatively confined areas.

While hunting operators in South Africa describe their industry as well-regulated, a key hunting association has called for a review of captive-bred lion hunting amid growing public criticism.

In neighbouring Zimbabwe, authorities have said two American hunters were involved in illegal lion killings in separate cases in the area of Hwange National Park in April and July.

The cases have put fresh scrutiny on hunting in Africa at a time when poaching has heavily reduced wildlife numbers, including threatened species such as lions, rhinos and elephants.

South Africa has had success in the conservation of wild lions.

Last month, however, Edna Molewa, South Africa’s environment minister, held a meeting to discuss concern about alleged irregularities at what she called “the fringe” of the “legal, well-regulated” lion breeding and hunting industries.

It is time to review captive-bred lion hunting, Hermann Meyeridricks, president of the Professional Hunters’ Association of South Africa, said in a July 24 letter to association members.

“Broader society is no longer neutral on this question and the tide of public opinion is turning strongly against this form of hunting, however it is termed,” he wrote.