Farming lions in the name of sport

Canned hunting has become a highly contested and debated subject not only in South Africa but worldwide. It is defined as a trophy hunt in which an animal is kept in a confined area increasing the likelihood of the hunter obtaining the kill.

It is difficult to obtain the precise numbers but between information sourced from the South African Predator Association, The Convention for the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the various government and provincial bodies – the statistics indicate that between 800-1000 lions are being shot annually in South Africa.

Over 50% of the hunters originate from the United States.

Isabel Wentzel, Unit Manager for the National Council of SPCA’s Wildlife Unit explains that the wild lion population in South Africa has declined dramatically through poaching and hunting, with only about 2100-2500 wild lions left.

In less than 15 years, the number of lions in captivity has increased from less than 200 to an estimated 8000 with hunters paying half the price to shoot a lion that has been bred for canned hunts. A male lion will cost you $25 000 and a female $8 000 whereas a white lion male will be around $30 000.

“In terms of the trade, to take anything out of the country you will need an export permit. So there are different laws.

More protected animals like rhino and lions fall under CITES, an international agreement between governments.”

Wentzel clarifies that an international hunter would need a permit to possess the animal in the first place, before being able to obtain an export permit to take the animal trophy out of the country.

Depending to which country they are travelling, they will then need an additional import permit.

“So there are things in place to help control and regulate but it’s the illegal poachers who will try and smuggle the animal trophies out – they are not even going to bother to go for a permit. Lions are the only animal which is used in all stages of its life; From cub petting they go on to walks with lions and then on to canned hunting and then finally the remains are taken as trophies and the trade of lion bone sales is heavily on the increase,” says Wentzel.

Lion bones are highly sought after as ‘tiger bones’ in traditional Chinese medicine. Just as rhino are senselessly butchered for their horn to be used for unproven medicinal purposes, so too is the fate of the bones from lions.

South Africa is one of the few countries in the world that breeds lions for the purposes of hunting.

Drew Abrahamson a forerunner in big cat conservation explains that there is no way that canned hunting can be classified as conservation,

“Breeders are taking the cubs away from the mother when they are about three days old. They then bring her into oestrus to mate again with a male and then another three months down the line she will have more cubs and the cycle will go on.”

Abrahamson was speaking at the Captured in Africa Foundation launch in Johannesburg. Founder of the foundation, she has set out to completely stop the lions bred in captivity industry which is a major cause of inbreeding within the South African lion population. The severe inbreeding leads more and more to big cats developing squints, deformities and bone disorders, etc.

“The first step is to educate the public and another major thing is we need to educate international volunteers who come over to South Africa to interact and work with the cubs at these breeding farms. They tell the volunteers that the cubs have been rejected by the mother which is simply not the case,” says Abrahamson.

International volunteers are enticed to come over to South Africa to look after cubs bred by these farms and in doing so help ‘domesticate’ the lions so that the beasts are habituated and human friendly.

“From cub petting as the lion grows older they are moved to walks with lions which is another bad step and obviously makes them a lot easier to hunt because they are so used to people. They get fed off from the back of a vehicle so if the lions see a vehicle drive into the enclosure their immediate reaction is to seek out that human interaction or they think its food,” says Abrahamson.

The South African Predator Breeders’ Association contests this idea, and firmly believes that the breeding of lions in captivity has a crucial role in the preservation of lions.
In 2010 the SA Predator Breeders’ Association won a Supreme Court Appeal case regarding canned hunting. This had a ripple effect on the conservation of lions today.

In the high court the organisation challenged the inclusion of lions as a listed large predator in the Threatened or Protected Species Regulations and the 24-month period in which captive-bred lions had to fend for themselves before they could be hunted.

Wentzel, of the National Council of SPCA’s Wildlife Unit, says that this means that the 24-month rewilding period as stipulated in the Threatened and Protected Species Regulations to prevent canned hunting, cannot be enforced.

“Environmental Affairs created the laws in which they wanted the lions to be free for 24months. When they lost the court case, Environmental Affairs turned around and said that welfare is not their problem – so it’s had a knock on effect on all the provinces. Now the conservation guys will get to a place where the animals are thin and have no food but they will say it’s not their problem, it’s welfare, phone the NSPCA, so it’s a difficult one,” says Wentzel.

Nature Conservation is the organisation that issues permits for the holding of animals, however they do not necessarily take animal welfare into consideration.

The NSPCA does not issue permits and comes across many animal welfare issues where an existing permit has been issued. This causes a massive clash between legislation and animal welfare.

Wentzel elaborates, “They are getting a permit to hold the animal and there are no conditions of how they must hold it, or what they must do with the animals – so in that sense we work with conservation but we clash because there is no welfare consideration in the conservation legislation.“

Botswana on the other hand is actually doing a much better job of managing its wildlife resources.

Marnus Roodol, Founder of Walking with Lions in Botswana, explains that their organisation is specifically about resolving human-wildlife conflict.

“We’re trying to assist local communities in Botswana to try and deter them from killing the lions when they attack the livestock. It’s very important to educate the younger generations. Your actions have to speak louder than words.”

In addition Botswana’s government has in a move to preserve their wildlife put a total ban in place on trophy hunting.

Tshekedi Khama, Botswana’s Environmental Minister, was interviewed in the documentary on canned hunting ‘Blood Lions: Bred for the Bullet’ and says the country sees more long-term value in its photographic safaris.

Travel and Tourism contributes an estimated 9% to South Africa’s ever struggling economy, with revenue generated from the canned hunting industry estimated to be about R2.6bn.

However, it is said to make up less than 0.1% of South Africa’s overall tourism income.

This is the same sentiment from Abrahamson who through Captured in Africa offers tourists safari packages throughout Africa. She explains how, through the public raising their voice on social media, they have been able to save wild lions who have outwitted their camps and escaped through the fences.

“Nobody really knows too much about it, but a lot of the time the lions and the leopards get out of the reserves due to pressures from other leopards or other male lions, or cases where fences washed away because of rain and flash floods.”

Recently three-year-old Sylvester the lion had Social Media in a buzz with #SaveSylvester trending as the big cat escaped the Karoo National Park for a second time.

Four days after he was found wandering the Karoo and classified a danger causing animal, SANParks’s spokesperson Wanda Mkutshulwa said there was no reason to end his life.

“Euthanasia is not an option at this stage,” Mkutshulwa said.

The lion was darted from the air in tough terrain high up in the mountains at about midday on 31 March 2016. About 200 people gathered in Cape Town to protest the possibility of putting him down.

This is a major turning point if you take into consideration that recently two wandering lions were killed as the animals strayed from Kenya’s Nairobi National Park during a road construction project.

Kenyan wildlife rangers shot dead a male lion named Mohawk after he strayed from the National Park and attacked and injured a resident.

The following day the rangers found the body of another lion outside the reserve after it had been speared to death in a township south of Nairobi.

Jurg Olsen from Ubuntu Spirit of Africa Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation Sanctuary says that the biggest obstacle that comes into play when relocating and rehabilitating big cats is finding a suitable habitat. Relocating and capturing a big cat is a long process with a lot of red tape and bureaucracy.

“If you look at the Sylvester situation, that’s a perfect example of how things can go almost wrong but with public involvement they can go right. The future is public involvement. If you think of it all the animals in these parks they belong to us, they belong to you, to me and to everyone standing here. Sylvester belongs to all us, the lion that we don’t even know belongs to all of us.”
Garreth Patterson, Author and Environmentalist shares this idea, and says that people world-wide who weren’t necessarily even interested in lions became voices through the power of the internet when the horrors of trophy hunting was exposed through Cecil the lion’s trophy hunt.

For more than a decade Cecil was a tourist attraction to Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park until an American dentist shot him, and images of him standing over the carcass of Cecil went viral.

“I think people are changing, there’s fantastic awareness that’s happened. We’re aware of canned ion hunt, trophy hunting and people are making a difference, there’s the situation with Sylvester the lion in the Karoo and the authority wanted to put him down but they won’t put him down because the public is so strong and that make a huge difference.”

The public has a very important role to play in the debate of Canned hunting as Abrahamson concludes. “Last year on the 21st of March we protested at the Lion Park in Joburg – out of that they have decided to stop cub petting which is fantastic. Not because they’ve had a change of heart and think it’s immoral, but because of public pressure. The public just need to realise that their voice is extremely powerful.”

For now Canned Hunting is here to stay and alongside it the mismanagement of trophy hunting and the illegal trade in animal trophies which remain a threat to South Africa’s wildlife population.

The South African government has however imposed a year-long ban on leopard hunting in 2016 as the Department of Environmental Affairs was acting on recommendations from South Africa’s Scientific Authority.

The size of South Africa’s leopard population remains a mystery.

Hunting film pokes a sleeping lion

Discovery Channel buys local documentary about canned lion hunting

The anxiously awaited screening of the expose Blood Lions — Bred for the Bullet, at the Masque Theatre, on Thursday March 31, was met with gasps of horror and expressions of anger.

The theatre had an excellent turnout of patrons who were committed to learning the uncomfortable truth about the canned lion industry. It was raw, emotive and shocking.

But it did not leave one paralysed with the idea that nothing could be done. Quite the opposite, the documentary deeply fuels the desire to act, to stand up and demand that this deceitful and macabre industry be shut down.

And that is precisely what the team who put the movie together was hoping for.

The documentary is evenly balanced with information and insight.

Director and script writer, Bruce Young, joined author, poet, activist, psychiatrist and Marina da Gama resident, Ian McCallum — who is featured in the documentary — on stage after the screening, to answer questions from the audience, and to share information about what has happened since the first screening last year.

Mr. Young said that while our own government showed little interest, international outrage is rising.

There have been 50 screenings (worldwide) of this documentary and the Discovery Channel has bought it and screened it across 185 countries and territories — it has also had enormous exposure on social media and the team who put it together have been hugely gratified by the response, Mr. Young said.

He said that comedienne Ellen de Generes, who alone has 48 million Twitter followers, American singer Mylie Cyrus and British comedian Ricky Gervais have spoken about this documentary to their followers.

“This movie you saw tonight is in an international conversation,” he said.

“Ultimately the South African government and the South African tourist board, who have resisted acknowledging that this is a problem for us, and that it is damaging our country’s reputation, will eventually hear us,” Mr. Young said.

Mr. McCallum said that after seeing Blood Lions, the Professional Hunter’s Association voted 60 to 40 percent against canned hunting, ” which is an encouraging part of the momentum”, he said.

“Our film came out at exactly the right time, just when the world was horrified about the shooting of Cecil the lion, and has given seasoned rational and balanced information about and around the situation, so that viewers could make up their own minds,” Mr. Young said.

 “Our hope was that it would encourage viewers not just to feel but to think, and lastly to act,” Mr. Young said.

Woolworths has had a reusable bag made for sale which includes a copy of the Blood Lions DVD.

“What you can do is raise awareness of this — educate those who do not know. You can also choose not to support any programmes that encourage petting of lion cubs, or walking with lions, as no lion bred in captivity can be successfully released into the wild,” Mr. McCallum said.

Ian Michler, the storyteller and environmental journalist who presents the information, is personally taking it to Washington to have it screened there.