A campaign around the new documentary film, Blood Lions, has gone global, threatening to bring down South Africa’s lucrative captive lion breeding industry.

London comedian Matt Lacey rocketed to fame when his Gap Yah sketch, which poked fun at posh young Brits volunteering in the developing world, received over five million YouTube views. But when Lacey embarked on his own volunteer experience at Ukutula lion-park in South Africa, he was rather more earnest. Writing in the UK’s Daily Telegraph, Lacey described Ukutula as “dedicated to conservation and research”. The lion cubs he cared for were “cute and playful” while the older lions “soon lose their tameness, enabling them to be released into the wild”. Four large males in a separate pen, “were due to be sent off to Congo to help replenish the stocks of lions there that had been devastated by war”.

Sadly and ironically, Matt Lacey was conned. Like thousands of other well-meaning volunteers, he bought the story that his efforts helped conserve lions. Yet according to leading conservation NGOs such as Wildlands, Endangered Wildlife Trust and Panthera, captive lion-breeding centres do nothing for conservation. Indeed, not a single captive-bred, hand-reared lion has been successfully released into the wild. Instead, every day in South Africa, two to three captive-bred, effectively tame, lions are killed in canned lion hunts. And helping to fuel this industry are thousands of eager volunteers who unwittingly pay +-US$1,000 per week to look after lion cubs that are bred for the bullet. The volunteers believe they are orphans, yet the cubs are deliberately removed soon after birth, forcing their mothers back into oestrus and ensuring that they become continuous breeding machines. The scale of the industry is huge, with some 4,000 lion cubs born in captive breeding facilities in South Africa each year.

In 1997, ITV’s The Cook Report exposed South Africa’s canned lion hunting industry, eliciting a wave of outrage that prompted government to ban the practice, determining that captive-bred lions must fend for themselves for 24 months before being hunted. However, in 2010 the SA Predator Breeding Association won a High Court Appeal to overturn this legislation and today canned lion hunting is legal, generating some US$10 million per year. This, coupled with exponential growth in the volunteerism sector, has created a highly lucrative industry, with lion breeding centres generating up to US$100,000 per month from volunteer fees alone.

More recently the massive growth in Asian demand for lion bones (used as a proxy for tiger bones in the making of tiger bone wine) has created yet another revenue stream – an estimated 1,000 lions are now killed annually for the burgeoning lion bone trade. With three major sources of revenue, the lion breeding industry has grown exponentially – today there are 6,000-7,000 lions in cages in South Africa, representing a quarter of all lions remaining in Africa.

Over the past few weeks however, there have been growing signs that the industry’s hey-dey may be over. The shocking new South African documentary film, Blood Lions, hit global television screens on MSNBC and Discovery Channel in early October, unleashing a storm of outrage. The social media tsunami that ensued not only crashed the Blood Lions website but triggered a domino effect that could prove to be unstoppable.

In the few weeks since Blood Lions went live on international screens:

– #BloodLionsSa has become one of South Africa’s top twitter trends, with hundreds of angry messages calling for a ban on captive lion breeding. The tweet storm included messages from Hollywood actors Ellen DeGeneres and Ian Somerhalder who sucked in millions of fans, while Facebook and twitter sites such as Volunteers in Africa Beware, #talktotheclaws, #WheresRicky, and #BredForTheBullet were bombarded.

– A petition was launched on advocacy site www.change.org, calling on RealGap, the Association of British Tour Operators and TUI to stop sending volunteers to lion breeding programmes, garnering thousands of signatures. It warned of possible legal action against RealGap and its holding company, TUI, by misled volunteers.

–  Global hotel group Marriott found itself in the middle of a tweet storm over its Protea Ranch Resort and Lion Park, one of 116 hotels acquired when Marriott bought the Protea Hospitality Group last year.

– Johannesburg’s Lion Park, one of South Africa’s top tourist attractions, announced that it would stop tourists interacting with lion cubs from 2016.

– In the USA and Europe, several tourism companies cancelled programmes or diverted groups that were destined for lion encounter programmes, while South African Tourism board member Colin Bell warned of the captive lion industry’s damaging impact on “Brand South Africa”.

– The Australian Government implemented a ban on the import of wildlife trophies, with Federal Labor Member Melissa Parke calling predator breeding and canned hunting “a moral failure on the part of the human race”.

– Fair Trade Tourism announced it would tighten its certification criteria for volunteer programmes – aiming to promote best practice, safeguard the safety of children, animals and volunteers, and eradicate false marketing.

Dr Luke Hunter, president of the global wild cat conservation organisation Panthera, this week described the captive lion breeding industry as “ethically miserable” and said: “The bottom line is the lion encounter industry does nothing to conserve wild lions.” Kelly Marnewick, head of Endangered Wildlife Trust’s carnivore conservation programme, said: “Captive breeding is not a conservation recommendation for carnivores. We are extremely concerned at the number of facilities holding predators for financial gain.” And Dr Andrew Venter, CEO of Wildlands, accused the captive lion breeding industry of doing damage on multiple fronts and added: “We will not rest until this industry has been completely transformed.”

Following the premier screening of Blood Lions at the Durban International Film Festival, Hermann Meyeridricks, president of the Professional Hunters Association of South Africa, wrote to members: “The tide of public opinion is turning strongly against this form of hunting. Even within our own ranks, respected voices are speaking out publicly against it…. I have come to believe that, as it stands, our position on lion hunting is no longer tenable.” The South African Predator Breeding Association has scrambled into action, approaching North West University to investigate the value of the captive lion industry in preparation of its defence.

The cat, so to speak, is firmly out of the bag.

 

Waterberg, South Africa  – Something moves in the thicket. Hunter Stan Burger and his tracker approach quietly, set the rifle up on a tripod to ensure its stability, and take aim.

A shot rings out. Moments later, the two South Africans emerge from the bush, carrying the carcass of a bush pig covered with coarse yellowish hair, a wound bleeding in its neck.

“A clean kill,” Burger says. “He was eating grass, and he was stone dead the moment the bullet hit him. Fortunately, the wind held for us” – coming from a direction which did not allow the prey to smell human presence.

The hunt took place in northern Limpopo province in an area measuring 2 700 hectares, one in approximately 10 000 private game ranches in South Africa, where wealthy foreigners pay thousands of dollars to hunt some of the continent’s most emblematic animals.

The trophy hunting industry run by professionals like Burger is worth more than 1 billion rand (77 million dollars) annually, according to government figures.

But after the killings of GPS-collared lion Cecil and of an unusually large elephant in neighbouring Zimbabwe sparked international outrage, and amid reports that some of the trophy hunters in South Africa target half-tame lions, the reputation of the industry has suffered.

It is “morally indefensible” to hunt animals for trophies, lion rights campaigner Linda Park said. “It is a relic from colonial days, with the great white hunter.”

Several airlines have announced that they will no longer transport big-game trophies, while Australia banned the import of lion trophies and the European Union toughened restrictions on trophy imports earlier this year.

Foreign hunters exported about 44 000 trophies from South Africa in 2013, according to the Professional Hunters’ Association of South Africa (PHASA).

The vast majority of the hunters come from the United States, while other markets include Europe, Australia and Japan.

The prices of the animals range from $400 (about R5 304 @ R13,26/$) for an impala antelope to up to $80 000 (about R1.06 million @ R13.26/$) for a rhinoceros.

Many hunters buy a seven-day package allowing them to hunt five animals for $7 000 to $8 000, according to Burger, who will take up the presidency of PHASA in November.

Those aiming for the “big five” – lion, elephant, buffalo, leopard and rhinoceros – may pay $200 00 for 21 days.

The hunters often stay in luxury tents at game lodges from where they go out in four-wheel drive vehicles, scanning the landscape for game to stalk on foot with their guide.

When the animals the hunter wants are not available on the game ranch, the organizer may take him or her to South African provincial wildlife reserves, or to Zimbabwe or Mozambique.

The US dentist who killed Cecil only wounded him with an arrow, allowing him to flee and suffer for 40 hours before he was found and finished off.

South African trophy hunting organizers admit that some of their clients need to be trained at shooting, but say that many are experienced hunters.

“They come here for an African adventure they have long dreamed of,” Burger said.

The industry says the high fees paid by the hunters have rehabilitated natural habitats, allowing the numbers of wild animals in South Africa to increase. Game ranches now contain an estimated 16 million animals on 20 million hectares, according to PHASA.

The industry also says it gives direct employment to more than 100 000 people.

The meat of hunted animals is often donated to ranch employees or local communities, while ranch owners prevent poaching by hiring rangers and by encouraging locals to see wildlife as an economic asset, according to PHASA.

Such arguments do not convince animal rights campaigners.

Ainsley Hay from South Africa’s National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals says the rise in numbers of “animals confined to small unnatural camps or captive situations … is not a true reflection of an increase in biodiversity.”

Trophy hunting has not reduced poaching in South Africa, while “merely giving communities the meat and offcuts from trophies is not benefiting them in the long run,” Hay said by e-mail.

Campaigners also dispute statements by hunters that they mainly target older animals.

Trophy hunting “is unnecessary and not in the interest of the individual animals or the species as a whole,” Hay said, calling for a ban on the practice.

Such views however get no support from South Africa’s government. Trophy hunting makes a “substantial contribution” to the economy and “promotes private investment in wildlife,” said Magdel Boshoff from the Department of Environmental Affairs.

“Hunting is not just about killing,” but about the experience of being in the wild, Burger said, criticizing hunters who pose for photographs with their foot on the dead animal.

“The life of something has just been taken,” he said after shooting the bush pig. “You have to show a little respect.”