On 7th October, MSNBC will present the American television premiere of Blood Lions, a compelling documentary which takes audiences inside the so called “canned lion hunting” industry in South Africa. Blood Lions will air at 22.00 on the East Coast and at 23.00 on the West Coast.

Blood Lions follows environmental journalist and safari operator, Ian Michler, and American hunter, Rick Swazey, as they expose the multi-million dollar industry of canned hunting – where lions are bred and raised in confined areas for trophy hunting. Also known as captive bred lion hunting, canned hunts allow hunters to select their lion ahead of time and complete a hunt in a matter of days. Canned hunts provide a cheaper and faster way of hunting predatory animals compared to wild lion hunts.

It’s a world many Americans do not know exists and yet, Americans are in large part the ones fuelling the industry. In the wake of the hunting and death of Cecil the lion, the film reveals a dark dimension to trophy hunting in Africa.

The documentary includes the perspective of both proponents of this practice who say that hunting helps preserve Africa’s lion population and conservationists who are quick to dispute that claim.

Senior Producer for MSNBC, Tim Smith, commented that, “Blood Lions is a revelatory and sad tale that demands to be told – and we are pleased to be able to bring it to our viewers.”

Ian Michler, environmentalist and a lead character in Blood Lions, had this to say: “While it is true that the majority of trophy hunters coming to South Africa are from the USA, and that many of them are going after captive-bred lions, it is equally true that Blood Lions is also receiving significant support in the USA. This support ranges from donors and the wider citizenry who are concerned or outraged about what is going on to decision-makers and politicians. I would like to thank all of you – the millions of Americans who have been so outspoken and vociferous about predator breeding and canned hunting – your support has been vital to raising the profile of Blood Lions around the world. For all of us, the first screenings of the film here are very exciting and we so look forward to getting actively involved in the campaign across your great country.”

Producer, and driving force behind the film, Pippa Hankinson said, “We have been overwhelmed by the extraordinary response that Blood Lions has received from so many across the USA, and are immensely grateful to MSNBC for the incredible opportunity to premiere this important story on American television. The film exposes the cruel exploitation of South Africa’s lions which are being intensively bred on farms resembling large scale puppy mills.   These magnificent animals are being bottle fed and hand reared simply for the bullet – for vast profits – in an industry which is not open to public scrutiny. Blood Lions is a call to action – a call to all who view it to make conscious choices around our responsibilities towards our planet and the amazing creatures with whom we have the privilege to share it. Our hope is that our film will help make the changes that are so needed, to ensure that our children’s children will be able to see these majestic animals roaming free in the wild – where they rightfully belong!”

On 7th October, MSNBC will present the American television premiere of “Blood Lions,” a compelling documentary which takes audiences inside the so called “canned lion hunting” industry in South Africa. Blood Lions will air at 22.00 on the East Coast and at 23.00 (West Coast).

“Blood Lions” follows environmental journalist and safari operator, Ian Michler, and American hunter, Rick Swazey, as they expose the multi-million dollar industry of canned hunting – where lions are bred and raised in confined areas for trophy hunting. Also known as captive bred lion hunting, canned hunts allow hunters to select their lion ahead of time and complete a hunt in a matter of days. Canned hunts provide a cheaper and faster way of hunting predatory animals compared to wild lion hunts.

It’s a world many Americans do not know exists and yet, Americans are in large part the ones fuelling the industry. In the wake of the hunting and death of Cecil the lion, the film reveals a dark dimension to trophy hunting in Africa.

The documentary includes the perspective of both proponents of this practice who say that hunting helps preserve Africa’s lion population and conservationists who are quick to dispute that claim.

Senior Producer for MSNBC, Tim Smith, commented that: “Blood Lions is a revelatory and sad tale that demands to be told – and we are pleased to be able to bring it to our viewers.”

Ian Michler, environmentalist and a lead character in “Blood Lions”, had this to say: “While it is true that the majority of trophy hunters coming to South Africa are from the USA, and that many of them are going after captive-bred lions, it is equally true that Blood Lions is also receiving significant support in the USA; And this support ranges from donors and the wider citizenry who are concerned or outraged about what is going on to decision-makers and politicians. I would like to thank all of you – the millions of Americans who have been so outspoken and vociferous about predator breeding and canned hunting – your support has been vital to raising the profile of Blood Lions around the world. For all of us, the first screenings of the film here are very exciting and we so look forward to getting actively involved in the campaign across your great country.”

Producer, and driving force behind the film, Pippa Hankinson said: “We have been overwhelmed by the extraordinary response that “Blood Lions” has received from so many across the USA, and are immensely grateful to MSNBC for the incredible opportunity to premiere this important story on American television. The film exposes the cruel exploitation of South Africa’s lions which are being intensively bred on farms resembling large scale puppy mills. These magnificent animals are being bottle fed and hand reared simply for the bullet – for vast profits – in an industry which is not open to public scrutiny. “Blood Lions” is a call to action – a call to all who view it to make conscious choices around our responsibilities towards our planet and the amazing creatures with whom we have the privilege to share it. Our hope is that our film will help make the changes that are so needed, to ensure that our children’s children will be able to see these majestic animals roaming free in the wild – where they rightfully belong!”

Today in Africa, there are approximately 32 000 lions. 11 000 of those are found in South Africa. That’s the good news. The bad news is that approximately 8 000 of those are in breeding captivity. To further the bad news, of those 3 000 that remain in the wild, approximately 2 500 are diseased: they carry feline AIDS or TB, both of which are easily transferred and are virtually impossible to eradicate.

Most of these captive predators live in appalling conditions with inadequate protocols in place to protect them or regulate either their welfare or the genetic integrity of their bloodlines. The breeders of these animals claim they are involved in conservation, educational and research initiatives and that the captive-bred population will be the saviour of wild lions. However, recognised and respected lion ecologists, conservationists and animal welfare experts advise that almost all of these claims are, in fact, far from the truth.

Desperate to make a contribution and passionate to save the lion, young volunteers sign up for programmes where they can come to South Africa and nurture these ‘abandoned’ cubs. After all, who can resist adorably cute cub lions which are only a few weeks old? What would be more appealing than coming to South Africa on a volunteer programme to bottle-feed and cuddle these cubs, under the misapprehension of ‘helping and saving the lion’? In reality, what is happening is that these cubs are taken away from their mothers just days after birth to force the lionesses into intensely repetitive reproductive cycles. In the wild, a cub lives with its mother for two years.

Breeders squeeze as many cubs from their adults as possible, five litters every two years. These cubs are then used in a variety of income streams from petting and ‘walking with lions’ facilities, to luring unsuspecting volunteers, who pay large sums of money, to work on the farms. These animals are being factory produced to feed the volunteer tourism industry. It is a massive con.

Breeders argue it is better that hunters shoot a captive-bred lion than further endanger the wild populations, but conservationists and animal welfare groups dispute this. Wild populations of lions have declined by 80 percent in 20 years, so the rise of lion farms and canned hunting has not protected wild lions. In fact, according to Fiona Miles, Director of Lionsrock, a big cat sanctuary in South Africa run by the charity Four Paws, it is fuelling it. “The lion farms’ creation of a market for canned lion hunts puts a clear price-tag on the head of every wild lion,” she says. “They create a financial incentive for local people, who collude with poachers or turn a blind eye to illegal lion kills. Trophy-hunters who begin with a captive-bred lion may then graduate to the real, wild thing.”

Once they reach adulthood, many lionesses are shot for their bones to be shipped to Asia as supplements to the rapidly burgeoning ‘tiger wine’ and ‘tiger cake’ industries. Almost all the male lions become victims of the ‘canned’ or ‘captive’ hunting industry: a so-called sport, where tame lions become targets in the sights of wealthy trophy hunters.

A fully-grown, captive-bred lion is taken from its enclosure to an area of limited size: the lion is not in the wild and knows nothing about survival, as he has been hand raised in captivity. He will wander listlessly for a short time before being shot dead by a hunter with a gun, standing safely on the back of a truck or shooting from very close range. These men and women pay anything from US$5 000 – $48 000 for a trophy in order to shoot the king of beasts in circumstances which are anything but wild or sporting. And it is all completely legal.

HOW CAN THIS BE LEGAL?

Tourists from all over the world flock to South Africa for sightings of the Big Five and a host of other wildlife in the country’s many reserves. Millions of photographs and hundreds of thousands of happy visitors attest to the ongoing allure of the African wilderness, but for those that visit the private farms, have they been conned? There is darkness at the heart of this picture, something is rotten in the country’s wildlife kingdom and it is the king himself who is in the crosshairs!

In 2007 the South African Government attempted to regulate captive lion breeding and canned hunting by passing new legislation in parliament. The Predator Breeders Association of SA took the government to court, and while they lost the first ruling, their appeal was upheld and the proposed legislation was overturned on a technicality.

Since that landmark decision, the predator breeding and canned lion hunting industries have thrived.

BLOOD LIONS THE MOVIE

Blood Lions™ was recently launched at the Durban International Film Festival and follows internationally acclaimed environmental journalist and safari operator, Ian Michler, onto the breeding farms to witness the results of battery-farmed lions, a stark contrast to their wild cousins.

Aggressive farmers resent his questioning, but the highly profitable commercialisation of lions is plain to see: cub petting, volunteer recruitment, lion walking, hunting, and the new lion bone trade are on the increase, and all are being justified under the guise of conservation and research.

In parallel, the movie follows Rick Swazey, an American hunter, who volunteered his services after seeing footage of canned hunts. Rick purchases a lioness online from his home in Hawaii and then travels to South Africa to go on the path canned hunters follow: to kill it.

Blood Lions™ explores in intimate detail how lucrative it is to breed lions for the bullet. It illustrates how the authorities and most professional hunting bodies have become complicit and how simple it is to set up a canned hunt. There is also hope in the story, as the very latest developments with the Australian government are shown, announcing a complete ban on the importation of all African lion trophies into Australia. The film is a compelling call to action and shows how one can get involved in a global campaign to stop lions being bred for the bullet.

 

The playgrounds of trigger-happy trophy hunters are far removed from the fertile fruit farms of the Western Cape and Eastern Cape. But a recent television expose of driven hunting has established a disturbing link between the agricultural and hunting sectors. The link is Anton de Vries – a Dutch businessman and fruit exporter whose companies SAFE & BONO are strategic partners in the government’s agrarian land reform policies.

De Vries owns or manages over 20 fruit, livestock and game farms in South Africa, including three in Alldays, Limpopo, where the driven hunt took place. Unlike traditional hunting, in which target animals have a reasonable chance of escape, all the shooters had to do was take pot shots at the traumatised targets who were chased into their sights.

Like canned lion hunting, in which the animals are caged and drugged, driven hunting is not illegal in South Africa. Unlike canned hunting however, this unethical sport has until now never been exposed in South Africa. It comes in the wake of the recent killing of Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe and the release of Blood Lions – a documentary exposing the brutal underbelly of canned lion hunting.

The fact that De Vries has been implicated in this hunt adds further fuel to an ongoing investigation by the SABC into the Dutch businessman’s activities in allegedly swindling farmworkers and farming co-operatives out of their profits and thus depriving the rightful beneficiaries of the government’s land reform policies.

Through its BEE company, BONO, whose CEO is the politically connected Evans Nevondo, SAFE is mandated to provide infrastructural and economic empowerment on the farms it manages. On its website, BONO advertises its certification by Fairtrade, an international body that sets standards for exports, based on adequate labour and living conditions for farming communities.

But BONO was decertified in July 2015 for non-compliance.

The driven hunt in Limpopo was justified on the grounds that it gives work and food to impoverished rural communities where unemployment is rife and job opportunities scarce. In this hunt, occurring over five days, 83 ‘beaters’ were employed to chase antelope, baboons and warthogs toward the shooters. Over 100 animals were gunned down in what the NSPCA has condemned as a ‘massacre’. That’s not taking into account the scores of animals that were wounded in the process.

After De Vries was exposed on television for the driven hunt in Limpopo, the SAFE and BONO website was shut down.

At the time, neither De Vries nor Nevondo were available for comment. But shortly after their activities were exposed on SABC News, their PR firm made contact, requesting that their clients be given the right of reply to the serious allegations leveled against them.

SABC will afford them the opportunity to defend themselves.

The full version of this investigation will be broadcast on Special Assignment, Sunday 4th October at 8.30pm on SABC3.

Travel conference organizers have decided not to screen a documentary that raises critical questions about key tourist attractions their event promotes

Travel conference organizers have decided not to screen a documentary that raises critical questions about key tourist attractions their event promotes.

Local delegates to the World Youth and Student Travel Conference (WYSTC) 2015 asked the hosts to include a screening of the film ‘Blood Lions’ in their programme. The documentary shows young, conservation-minded volunteers from around the world paying thousands of rands to work at South African facilities that offer tourists the opportunity to pet lion cubs and go for bush walks with juvenile lions.

What most of the volunteers don’t know is that the majority of the lions they help to raise are destined for the bullets of wealthy trophy hunters.

“Wildlife volunteering in Africa is huge. Kids from all over the world want to come here to help animals,” says ‘Blood Lions’ director Bruce Young. ”The organisers of the conference are key players in this whole industry and given its location, timing and content you would have thought that sharing ‘Blood Lions’ with delegates would be a valuable exercise. We’re not trying to discourage volunteering, but we do want youngsters who end up at lion breeding facilities to ask themselves some crucial questions: where do all of these cubs come from and where do they end up?”

According to Wendy Morrill, one of the conference organisers, “several discussions were had regarding if and how to share relevant content from the film with WYSTC 2015 delegates. Unfortunately the involved parties were not able to come to terms of mutual agreement”.

“We are, however, running a session on lion programmes and volunteer organisations for registered delegates”. This workshop will be hosted by Dr Jackie Abell of the African Lion Environmental and Research Trust (ALERT), which claims to focus on lion conservation through research, education and responsible development. It promotes operations that allow tourists to walk with lions in Zambia and Zimbabwe, and bases much of its work on the suggestion that captive-bred lions can be successfully re-introduced into the wild.

South African conservationist Ian Michler, who is the central character in ‘Blood Lions’, has criticised ALERT for attempting to “legitimise their lion captive-breeding programmes and money-spinning tourist operations” “under the banner of conservation, science or education”, while a group of researchers who examined ALERT’s assertions found that “the lion encounter industry relies on animals so habituated to human presence that they can never be released”, that “untrained volunteers are placed in extraordinarily dangerous situations that have resulted in attacks, including fatalities”, and that “captive-origin lions have no role in species restoration”.

One of the sponsors of WYSTC 2015 is African Impact, “a Cape Town based volunteer experience organisation” which “helped establish” and has a “strong partnership” with ALERT.

Conference delegates have been invited to an unofficial, free screening of ‘Blood Lions’ on Tuesday 22 September at 5:30pm at the Cullinan Hotel, across the road from the conference venue.

Ahead of the World Youth and Student Travel Conference (WYSTC) to be held in Cape Town next week, Fair Trade Tourism today announced that it is collaborating with global and local NGOs to develop additional certification criteria that will address the potential exploitation of children and captive-held wildlife within the volunteerism sector.

Fair Trade Tourism is the first certification scheme to develop specific criteria for the multi-billion dollar global volunteerism industry. The social and economic contribution of volunteers in developing countries is potentially huge, yet there is little oversight of this burgeoning industry, which largely targets the youth.

A recent Human Sciences Research Council report warns of voluntourists crowding out local workers and of unstable attachments and losses experienced by children who bond with short-term, foreign caregivers. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund, in some African countries the rise in volunteerism is associated with a boom in unregistered orphanages where children’s welfare is secondary to profits. Leading environmental NPO, Wildlands, has warned of the proliferation of captive lion breeding outfits where volunteers sign up to hand-rear cubs that have been forcibly removed from their mothers and are destined to be sold for canned lion hunting.

In 2009, Fair Trade Tourism played a pioneering role by developing certification criteria for voluntourism, focusing on the involvement of local communities, the fair share of benefits, adequate screening and training of volunteers, and preventing child labour. By end 2015, it will develop additional criteria to specifically protect volunteers, as well as children and wildlife involved in volunteer programmes, from exploitation or abuse.

Fair Trade Tourism Managing Director Nivashnee Naidoo said responsible voluntourism players wanted to differentiate themselves by adopting best-practice standards that avoided the exploitation of local communities, wildlife or the volunteers themselves. “We believe we have a leading role to play in setting the best-practice benchmark”.

Non-executive director Jane Edge said Fair Trade Tourism was consulting with a range of concerned NGOs, including Tourism Watch, Akte, ECPAT, Wildlands and Endangered Wildlife Trust. “Our new criteria will focus more carefully on the way volunteer programmes market themselves, whether programmes are responsible and sustainable, and how carefully volunteers are prepared. With programmes involving children, such as orphanage or school placements, we will look at issues around child protection and well-being, including the risk of bonding abnormalities and of sexual exploitation.

“With captive wildlife programmes, we will look at issues around the well-being of animals, the level of human-animal interaction, potential dangers to volunteers, and the verification of conservation claims made.”

Dr Andrew Venter, CEO of Wildlands, said: “There is a cynical relationship between programmes that offer cub petting and walking with young lions and their eventual demise in canned lion hunts.” Kelly Marnewick, carnivore conservation manager for the Endangered Wildlife Trust, said the containment and breeding of lions was usually done under the banner of conservation, “but the bottom line is that the lion encounter industry does nothing to conserve wild lions”.

Fair Trade Tourism Programme Development Manuel Bollmann said while European Governments support the volunteer services of young adults in developing countries, this support is linked to obligations, with increasing pressure for volunteer organisations to subject themselves to due diligence and for volunteers to attend comprehensive preparation programmes. “Fair Trade Tourism certified organisations will receive increasing market support in future as the need to differentiate the credible players grows.”

Fair Trade Tourism plans to release its revised certification criteria by December 2015 following a period of consultation with relevant NGOs and the volunteer tourism sector.

 

Nearly 100 animals were recently killed on a property in South Africa, shot dead in an activity so unseemly that even those who paid top dollar to participate in it couldn’t bear to show their faces.

Last week, 13 wealthy European tourists descended on three farms near the rural town of Alldays, where one of the most shameful events ever conceived had been planned for their amusement — a “driven hunt.” Unlike traditional hunting, in which target animals have a reasonable chance of escape, all the group had to do was aim and shoot at the terrified targets who were forced into their line of sight.

“No hunting actually took place in the practical sense of the word,” Paul Oxton, founder of the Wild Heart Wildlife Foundation, told The Dodo. “There’s really no sport in it.”

Wild Heart Wildlife Foundation Wooden platforms were built along corridors in the middle of the bushland for the hunters to stand on as 83 brightly-dressed event staffers did their job to make animals appear for them. These individuals, called “chasers,” walked shoulder to shoulder in a kilometer-wide sweep through the surrounding area, forcing wildlife to flee in the direction of the corridor where the hunters were waiting with guns leveled.

“Any animals in the middle get shot dead,” said Oxton. “They literally just stand there and take pot shots. There is no fair chase whatsoever. It’s a completely different way of killing animals. It’s highly unethical. ”

An estimated 98 animals were killed using this method, including baboons, antelope and warthogs. The hunters were not selective, but instead seemed to fire at any creature big or small. Critics have dubbed the incident a “massacre.”

Wild Heart Wildlife Foundation Despite the disturbing nature of the “driven hunt,” there is evidently no legislation on the books prohibiting it. In fact, the Environmental Affairs Department says it was all above-board, which has come as a shock to local animal welfare groups and traditional hunters alike.

Such hunting methods have been used by South African safari lodges for over a decade, says Oxton, but operators have been successful in keeping them under wraps. This recent incident was only brought to the public’s attention due to the fact that some of the wooden platforms were visible from a roadway.

The director of the National Council of SPCAs (NSCPA) in South Africa has urged for “driven hunts” to be banned on account of being cruel to animals.

Wild Heart Wildlife Foundation Little is known about the 13 tourists who participated in the hunt, other than that they include nationals of Belgium, Holland and possibly Denmark — and that they have enough extra money to throw around on killing sprees in lands abroad.

“It is the wealthy who are doing this,” said Oxton. “It is people who can afford to go out and kill for fun. I don’t object to people having money, but to choose to spend it on killing wildlife in this manner is disgraceful. It’s only when something like this is brought to light that it can be stopped. It’s not that people ever approved of this — they just didn’t know about it. ”

Wild Heart Wildlife Foundation Regardless of the fact that the massacre was legal, the hunters apparently understood that their bloody pastime was nothing to be proud of. As the group was being shuttled from killing field to killing field, Oxton had the opportunity to snap a few pictures of the gun-toting group of foreign tourists. They were less than eager to receive the attention.

“They all started putting jackets and hats over their faces,” Oxton said. “They were ashamed. These people were ashamed. They obviously don’t care, but they care enough to where they don’t want to be seen for having done this shameful thing.”

Wild Heart Wildlife Foundation With the added awareness of “driven hunts” that has been raised in the wake of the Alldays Massacre, it may only be a matter of time before government officials are forced to act. Meanwhile, the exposure of those folks who participated in it will hopefully dissuade others like them from doing the same.

“These people are going to be identified, and they’re going to have problems,” Oxton said. “I can see that there’s going to be some major fallout for them. In my mind, that’s the price they have to pay. My goal was to show the unethical manner of what they were doing. People shouldn’t be allowed, just because they have enough money, to pay to kill animals using this method. It’s terrible.”

 

Acclaimed South African documentary Blood Lions has been making waves both at home and internationally.

Along with attending a screening of the documentary, we spoke to Ian Michler, the documentary’s specialist consultant and lead character

Here are some things the documentary team hopes that viewers learn from the film.

1. The scope of captive breeding
“There are approximately 200 facilities holding somewhere between 6 000 and 8 000 predators in captivity,” Michler told iafrica.com.

The majority of these, around 7 000, are lions.

This number could increase past 12 000 in the next few years.
But what’s the problem with this?
The mass breeding of lions leads to overcrowding in confined spaces. Lion breeders only need to obtain a permit by meeting minimum standards for fencing and enclosure sizes. Most of these farms are on private property.
Footage from Blood Lions shows the overcrowding on several farms, with large groups of lions kept in small enclosures.

2. Many captive-bred lions end up in canned hunts or the bone trade
“Over 800 lions are being shot annually in canned or captive hunts, and another 1 100 plus carcasses are being shipped to Asia in the lion bone trade,” Michler said.
Canned hunting has been condemned worldwide, with many hunters not condoning the practice.
In fact, American hunter Rick Swazey works with the Blood Lions team to help expose the industry in the documentary.
3. Captive breeding serves no conservation value
The vast majority of lions bred in captivity are not bred for conservation and most of these animals cannot be released into the wild.
“There has not been a successful lion reintroduction programme using captive bred and reared lions into any free-ranging park or reserve in South Africa. Lion conservationists warn that captive bred lions are not suitable for reintroduction programmes,” the Blood Lions team explained on their site.
“Not a single recognized lion ecologist or conservation agency is involved with any of South Africa’s lion facilities as they serve no conservation value whatsoever ,” Michler said.
Furthermore, wild lions are used for breeding with the aim of conservation. This is because they’re genetically stronger than captive lions, which are often inbred.
4. How to determine a true sanctuary
Blood Lions is not trying to stop people from viewing wildlife, but rather it aims to lift the lid on unethical practices and fallacies.
With that in mind, there are real sanctuaries in South Africa for lions.
These sanctuaries offer a life-long home to the animals and do not trade lions, so they are not sold off when they reach a certain age.
True sanctuaries also do not offer interaction with or petting of the animals, according to the Blood Lions team.
The problem with cub petting is that the cubs are taken away from their mothers within a few days of being born – when in the wild they stay with their mothers for up to almost two years.
When these cubs become habituated to humans, there is no way to release them back into the wild.
When these cubs become too large to safely interact with tourists, they are often sold to private farms. Their habituation to humans is then often exploited for canned hunting, as the animal will not run away when the hunter approaches.
5. How you can help
The Blood Lions team recommends not visiting any lion parks which allow interaction, petting or the trade of lions.

You can also express your opinions to any tourism, hunting or government body. Go to the Blood Lions campaign page to see who you can contact in this regard.

You can also watch the documentary to learn much more. However, it is not available on DVD yet. Screenings of the film are announced on the documentary’s Twitter and Facebook pages.

15 Sep 19:45 – 22:00 – Stellenbosch
Pulp Cinema- Neelsie

Plant the Seed Education is starting a film festival to engage the Stellenbosch campus , its students and its staff, with the vitally important global conversation about Sustainable Development.

PtS Education has chosen BLOOD LIONS to kick-off the festival and get the conversation going.

What is BLOOD LIONS:

Blood Lions follows acclaimed environmental journalist and safari operator Ian Michler, and Rick Swazey, an American hunter, on their journey to uncover the realities about the multi-million dollar predator breeding and canned lion hunting industries in South Africa.

It is a story that blows the lid off claims made by these operators in attempting to justify what they do. Last year alone over 800 captive lions were shot in South Africa, mostly by wealthy international hunters under conditions that are anything but sporting.

There will be two FREE screenings:

Tuesday 15th of September – 19h45 & Wednesday 16th of September – 17h00

 

Cape Town – The profits of Taylor Swift’s latest music video will go to African conservation, the Hollywood superstar’s video states.

“Wildest Dreams,” the newest Swift song, debuted at the Video Music Awards (VMA) Awards on Sunday, 30 August, and has already been viewed almost 20 million times on YouTube at the time of publishing.

The video concludes with a disclaimer saying, “All of Taylor’s proceeds for this video will be donated to wild animal conservation efforts through the African Parks Foundation of America”.

The video was mostly shot around Maun, Botswana, while the elephant scenes were shot at Meno a Kwena, also in Botswana. Shooting only finished last week, just in time for the VMAs.

Many of the scenes with Swift were added into the wildlife scenes later on.

Regardless of the charity the video supports, Swift has been criticised for fueling a highly westernised stereotype of Africa. The video resembles an old 1950s Utopian view of an ‘African safari’ and many critics have labelled it as racist, saying it romanticizes a white, colonialist Africa.

The African Parks Foundation of America partners with governments throughout Africa to handle the management of parks like Akagera in Rwanda, Garamba in Congo, and Zakouma in Chad.