Cape Town – Blood Lions has been shining a much-needed spotlight on the canned lion hunting industry in South Africa.The release of Ian Michler’s film at the Durban Film festival in July, blows the lid off all the conservation claims made by the predator breeding and canned hunting industries in South Africa.

The release of the film also coincided with the news that one of Zimbabwe’s most famous lions, Cecil, was shot in a supposed legal hunt on a private reserve just outside of Hwange National Park – globally fueling debate around the practice.

For 15 years Michler has researched and campaigned against the canned lion hunting industry in South Africa and after watching the Cape Town screening of the documentary, here are 6 harsh truths that hit home and make Blood Lions an essential film for all South Africans to see.

1. Canned lion hunting is ‘damaging brand South Africa’

South Africa is one of the few countries in the world that breeds lions for the purposes of hunting, another being Texas in the US. Michler says the issue of canned breeding cannot be addressed without looking at the trophy hunting industry in its entirety, since it “ultimately all ends with bagging this trophy animal”.

“There is no justification for breeding lions, it is merely an exploitative commercial activity that is damaging brand South Africa and our reputation as a conservation country with a proud history, as well as our reputation as an eco-tourism destination,” said Michler.

Michler said government needs to ask itself if it is prepared to allow this and then put the necessary legislation in place in order stop it since there is absolutely no conservation value as the film Blood Lions reveals – deconstructing the “fraudulent message of the industry”

South African Minister of Tourism Derek Hanekom also says in an interview in the film,  “My feeling is I’m not proud of it. The industry has certainly damaged Brand South Africa.”

2. Approximately 1 000 lions are being shot in canned hunts yearly in SA

In less than 15 years the number of lions in captivity has increased from less than 200 to an estimated 8 000.

Statistics reveal that around 1 000 lions are shot while in captivity in South Africa each year. Hunters pay half the price to shoot a lion that has been bred for canned hunts.  Michler says the hunts cost about $5 400 (about R70 902 At R13.13/$) to kill a lioness to $48 000 (about R600k) for a black maned lion – with a US hunter going undercover in the film to detail the process from the start of booking and selecting ‘his lion’ online to the on-site induction ahead of the kill.

3. Botswana is doing a much better job of managing its wildlife resources

Botswana’s government has put a total ban in place on trophy hunting. Its Environment Minister, Tshekedi Khama is also interviewed in the film and says the country sees more long-term value in its photographic safaris.

“We don’t get second chances,” says Khama.

Travel and tourism contributes an estimated 9% to South Africa’s struggling economy. Revenue generated from the canned hunting industry is estimated to be in excess of $200m (about R2.6bn) yet it is said to make up less 0.1 percent of SA’s overall tourism income. When compared to the canned hunting industry, photographic safaris are more sustainable and have more long-term value for conservation and the South African tourism industry as a whole.

4. Volunteers come to SA with good intentions but are getting pulled into the canned hunting industry cycle unknowingly

Michler states that unethical lion breeders are confusing the message and are in fact high jacking potential conservation funding. He says organisations such as Panthera, Endangered Wildlife Trust, Wilderness Foundation, Wildlands Conservation Trust are at the heart of conservation in South Africa and not a single one of them work with these breeding or petting facilities.

It is important for volunteers and those seeking to have an enriching, eco-tourism experience to ask those uncomfortable questions if they have any doubts about the conservation practices at the establishment they’re visiting.

“Ask to speak to their resident lion ecologist, ask which conservation programmes they’re working with,” suggests Michler, “You’ll very soon discover they don’t have one.”

When you have an understanding of what an apex predator is about and to see them reduced to these commodities in enclosed areas is shocking says Michler, as is the ” fraudulent message being used to justify the trophy hunting industry”.

“Lions are in trouble across Africa as the numbers indicate but the conservation community is not involved in breeding lions up on farms. They are involved in securing habitat, involved in stopping the fragmentation of habitat and in stopping the human animal conflicts that result in lions being poisoned or shot in wild areas,” said Michler.

As a result canned hunting has created a number of spin-off revenue streams such as Lion cub petting and walking with lions activities that in no way benefit the conservation of lions.

6. If Hunting is made illegal,  many lions in captivity would need to be euthanased

In 2005 there were an estimated 3 000 lions in captivity. Currently there are about 8 000 lions in breeding facilities across South Africa.

Michler says if the growth rate continues there will be about 15 000 by 2020. In his opinion it is essential to stop the problem in its tracks, before looking at what will be done with them if the practice is banned.

He admits a ban could result in a wholesale of the existing lions for discounted hunts during any window period provided to hunting organisations by the government, should such a ruling take place.

“The reality is that genuine sanctuaries have limited space and budget, meaning in some instances, especially the lions that have been genetically contaminated would need to be euthanased,” said Michler.

There will be two more screenings of Blood Lions at the Labia theatre on the 28th August and 1st September, as well as a screening in Plettenberg Bay on the 28th August, A second-round screening in Durban is also being planned with dates still to be confirmed. Screenings are also planned for Bloemfontein and Port Elizabeth. Keep an eye on the Blood Lions website and Facebook page for more details.

“Powerful footage and a compelling narrative from a number of world-renowned conservationists and welfare experts will leave viewers in little doubt as to what is taking place on many private farms across South Africa. Other than greed and ego, there are no reasons to be breeding lions in captivity to be killed in captivity. We believe the film can be a global tool for meaningful change,” said Michler.

 

According to the latest International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) figures there are less than 20,000 wild African lions left – yet in the ten years leading up to 2013, 10,000 lions were legally hunted and exported as trophies.

The vast majority of these lions were bred in captivity for the purpose of hunting. The mostly American and European sports hunters took the lions to their home countries as trophies – mounted heads or skins for their collections.

The tally for hunted lions is likely even higher than 10,000, says Dereck Joubert, wildlife filmmaker and National Geographic explorer-in-residence, because not all hunters take trophies. Some hunt just for the sport.

Six African countries where lions still range freely – South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, Namibia and Tanzania – were analysed using the official CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) trade database, which lists animal and plant products exported and imported internationally.

Kenya and Botswana are two lion-range countries notably omitted from this list. Both countries have outlawed trophy hunting in an effort to boost lion populations, although Botswana only recently adopted this measure.

Even though the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species lists lions as Vulnerable (facing a high risk of extinction in the wild), African range lions in all six countries are listed by CITES under Appendix II, which means lion products may be exported under a permit system. Permits are granted “if the relevant authorities are satisfied that certain conditions are met, above all that trade will not be detrimental to the survival of the species in the wild.”

Of the six nations, South Africa ranks highest in terms of most trophies exported. The country has registered a staggering average of 748 lion trophies exported per year.

Tanzania is next with an annual average of almost 150 lion trophies, followed by Zimbabwe and Zambia (each between 60-70 a year), Mozambique (22) and Namibia less than 20 a year). Botswana, before banning trophy hunting in January 2014, tabled an average of 10 trophies each year.

The figures are not 100 percent accurate as there are a number of discrepancies that creep into the database, such as countries reporting the number of permits issued but not the actual permits used. However, the figures give a general idea of just how impactful trophy hunting is on lions.

Country	Exported Trophies 2003-2013	Estimated Wild Lion Population	Estimated Captive Lion Population
South Africa	7487	2100	Approx. 7000
Tanzania	1408	15600
Zimbabwe	688	850
Zambia	635	1150
Mozambique	219	2700
Namibia	185	600

[1] Based on latest figures from LionAlert.org

South Africa tops the list but most of the lions hunted for trophies (two thirds of the country’s total lion population) are what the government terms “captive bred” or “ranch” lions. According to a spokesperson for the South African Department of Environment, less than 10 wild lions are hunted in South Africa a year.

Currently in South Africa there are almost 200 breeding facilities where lions are raised exclusively for trophy hunting. The big cats are kept in small enclosures and are habituated to humans, making them easy targets for hunters. The practice has come under fire recently with the release of the film Blood Lions. As Ian Michler, the documentary’s main narrator, says “it’s about breeding wildlife as intensively as they can, as quickly as they can, to make as much money as they can.”

Zimbabwe’s situation is worse because trophy hunting involves vulnerable wild lion populations.Researchers, co-ordinated by a team at Duke Universty’s Nicholas School of the Environment and partially funded by National Geographic’s Big Cats Initiative (BCI), revealed in 2012 that wild lion populations in that country “are in trouble”.

Almost 700 lion trophies were legally exported during the decade under review, but the current population, according to the 2012 survey, stood at only 850. This suggests that, at the current rate and if lion numbers don’t increase, which is unlikely, in another decade trophy hunters alone will have wiped out nearly all remaining lions in Zimbabwe.

In Zambia an average of 65 trophies are exported each year. According to another 2012 research paper, most parks are registering free-falling numbers of lions. A park like the 1,500-square-mile (3,866-square-kilometer) Liuwa Plains National Park has just 3 individuals.

The collapse of their lion population prompted Zambian authorities to ban trophy hunting of big cats in 2013. Zambian Tourism and Arts Minister, Jean Kapata, cited big cat numbers “too low to have a sustainable hunting industry.” However, the country lifted the ban earlier this year. According to a recent CNN report, it was “because the government needed the money to fund conservation.”

Things look only marginally better in Mozambique and Namibia. Namibia exports less than 20 lion trophies per year. But that country’s lion population is considerably smaller at just 600 individuals. It indicates hunting still has a detrimental impact on the population as a third of the current total number during the decade was exported as trophies.

In Mozambique, lion numbers in the Niassa Reserve, the country’s largest game park, may be increasing. This is according to Colleen Begg of the Niassa Carnivore Project, an NGO working to conserve large carnivore populations there. She said in an email to the Associated Press in July that it was because of the heavy poaching of elephants, which has provided “the carnivores with a bounty of carcasses to eat as well as vulnerable elephant calves to hunt.”

Rapid Decline

However, farther south lions are disappearing rapidly. A study of lions in the northwest Tete Province of Mozambique in 2013 suggests 185 lions in the region, down from the 2009 survey of 295 lions. The Gorongosa National Park that once had over 200 lions now has less than 30 individuals. In recognition of the country’s fast declining numbers due to trophy hunting, CITES has enforced an export quota on lions since 2012.

Tanzania has the largest wild lion population of all African nations. Still, almost 1,500 lion trophies have been exported in the decade following 2003 with overall numbers declining alarmingly. In the Katavi National Park, for example, 1,118 of the big cats were counted in 1993. By 2014 there was not a single lion remaining.

Lion expert, Professor Craig Packer of the University of Minnesota, found the results of their research in 2009 that the trophy hunting rate of big cats throughout Tanzania “had consistently been too high.” Packer predicted that the future population of lions in Tanzania would be seriously decimated unless fewer big cats were killed by trophy hunters each year.

Another problem with trophy hunting, as Jeffrey Flocken, North America Regional Director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), says, is that “hunters are not like natural predators. They target the largest specimens, with the biggest tusks, manes, antlers, or horns.”

According to Andrew Loveridge of the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCru) at Oxford University, a scientific group specializing in wild carnivores,

sport hunters go almost exclusively for adult lion males. This has caused a decline in numbers of adult males in the total lion population. Loveridge says that “hunting predators on the boundaries of national parks causes significant disturbance and knock-on effects” such as infanticide when new males entered the prides.

According to the 2015 IUCN Red List analysis on lions, which Packer co-authored, there is concern that current management regimes in terms of trophy hunting have contributed to an astonishing decline of 42 percent of the continent’s total population.

The CITES listing of lion is currently undergoing a Periodic Review. The IUCN survey for 2015 has recommended a change in categorization for African lions from Vulnerable to Endangered. If that happens CITES may be prompted to list lions under Appendix I but as is the case with the other species on the same listing, it does not guarantee the days of hunting lions for trophies will soon be over.

Since the atrocious killing of Cecil the lion, people around the world have been up in arms vying for justice. The death of the iconic lion has brought to light the lucrative, fast-growing industry of canned hunting. For many, including myself, the coined term had not been a part of my vocabulary until recently. Blood Lions is a call-for-action documentary with its hard-hitting revelations on the commercialized trade of lion breeding.

Produced by Pippa Hankinson and conservation journalist Ian Michler, the film is unparalleled to any documentary of its kind. While taking account of the advantages of the industry – in terms of improving on conservation, having sustainable use and uplifting communities through job creation, Michler and his team are able to denounce these arguments by exposing a stark, macabre reality.

Whether it be through lion farms or sanctuaries, the life span of these captive-bred lions are wholly unnatural. From three days old, lions are taken from their mothers to be hand-reared by humans. Reasons for doing so are two-fold; to intensify the breeding patterns of the lioness(who would normally look after her cubs for a period of 18 months in the wild) and to habituate the cubs with humans.

Under the guise of conservation, volunteers are led to believe that they’re playing a part in rehabilitating ‘orphaned’ cubs, but are unknowingly rearing them to be bred for the bullet.

What falls under the umbrella term canned hunting often appears a little blurred and open to interpretation. According to the National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act, the term is defined as ‘any form of hunting where a predator is tranquillised, artificially lured by sound, scent, visual stimuli, feeding, bait… for the purpose of hunting that predator’. In essence, the lion is ensnared by physical barriers or through deception without the possibility of escape. Furthermore, a kill is a guaranteed outcome.

While canned hunting is outlawed in South Africa, gaping loopholes have allowed for the continued guaranteed kills of so-called rehabilitated captive lions. After giving them a mere four days to adapt to the wild, hunters are able to easily track down and legally hunt the weakened predators. Breeding in captivity has left these lions unmatched to a new, foreign surrounding.

The film is fuelled by candid scenes which sees Michler and his team in precarious situations while attempting to uncover the whole truth. From near-explosive stand offs between canned-lion farmers who accuse them of being undercover ‘greenies’ to Rick The Hunter’s first-hand experience of the sport and hunting conventions in America, the film sheds light on a dirty little secret which has evaded the public eye for too long.

 

• Fresh outcry expected over fate of greatest of Africa’s big cats as new movie is released about ‘canned hunting’
• Blood Lions will be screened next month on PBS and shows how hundreds of lions are raised to be shot as trophies
• They spend their lives in cages then taste just a few days of ‘freedom’ inside reserves enclosed by electric fences
• The animals are so used to humans that when they hear vehicles and pick up the hunters’ scent they think they are going to be fed
• Hunting a lion costs up to $30,000 and an estimated 500 Americans are among the trophy hunters who come to South Africa for the ‘canned hunt’

A new international outcry at the treatment of Africa’s lions is about to hit just weeks after the furor over the killing of Cecil by Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer.

A movie will air next month that claims to blow the lid off big game hunting in South Africa, saying that 99 percent of the lions bagged in the country are hand-reared and specially bred for the bullet.

The movie, Blood Lions, has already been shown in South Africa, and is expected to bring new outrage down on the heads of wealthy Americans who travel to the Dark Continent with one thing in mind — bringing back a lion’s head so they can mount it on their wall and boast how they killed it in the wild.

 ‘There are roughly 1,000 lions killed by hunters in South Africa every year,’ Blood Lions executive director Andrew Venter told Daily Mail Online in an exclusive interview. ‘Of those, around 10 are genuinely wild.’

The movie, to be broadcast on PBS next month, follows American hunter Rick Swazey to Benkoe, a hunting lodge near Vryburg in South Africa’s North West Province.

There he is guaranteed that for a payment of $5,400 he will get to shoot a lioness he has picked out of an online catalog of potential targets.

‘We were offered 14 lions with the images and prices attached,’ documentary maker Ian Michler told Daily Mail Online.

Moviemakers claim that the lioness was raised by hand in the booming so-called ‘canned hunting’ trade, although the lodge’s owner strenuously denied that to Daily Mail Online.

‘Benkoe Safaris do not engage in any canned lion hunting activities,’ owner Ben Duminy said. ‘Our clients do not shoot tame lions in small enclosures as the Blood Lions video tries to portray.

‘We are proud to be accredited by the South African Predators Association as a world class lion hunting destination, which means our clients hunt wild and dangerous lions on a fair chase and walk-and-stalk basis.

‘On several occasions a hunt ended with near catastrophic results for the hunter as a result of the viciousness and aggression of the quarry,’ Duminy added.

Yet he said he would not try to sue the moviemakers. ‘Legal action is not an appropriate strategy to combat the lies and propaganda of the animal rights lobby,’ said Duminy. He said hunters in South Africa have their own program ‘aimed at putting the true facts about the captive breeding industry across to people and institutions that really matter.’

Venter and Michler believe their movie can have the same effect on the canned lion trade in South Africa that the 2013 documentary Blackfish had on SeaWorld and other marine parks in the United States. That movie exposed the way that orcas were kept in captivity. Since it came out SeaWorld shares have dropped by about half, CEO Jim Atchison was forced out and attendance has fallen off dramatically.

‘Our world is changing and whether it is orcas in ponds or lions in cages, these are exploitative activities that progressive societies no longer sanction,’ Michler told Daily Mail Online.

Venter, Michler and Swazey are all convinced that Benkoe’s hunts are fake. ‘The fact the lion hunting is inside an electrified fenced enclosure speaks volume,’ Swazey, an aircraft dispatcher who lived in Hawaii at the time the movie was made, told Daily Mail Online.

But the hunting industry in South Africa is trying to promote the term ‘captive hunting’ to get away from the negative connotations of ‘canned hunting.’

‘Before coming to South Africa, I found that there is a ‘Put and Take Law’ in the province where Mr. Duminy has his hunting camp,’ added Swazey.

‘This law requires that the animal to be hunted must be released into the hunting enclosure for a minimum of four days before being shot.’

That requirement is to give time to allow any drugs that may have been used to calm the beast to transport it to the hunting ground to wear off.

‘I challenge anyone to tell me how a four-day release constitutes a wild lion hunt,’ said Swazey.

‘My questions to Mr. Duminy are: ‘What exactly is the difference between captive and canned hunting? Why is there a need to blur the line between the two? Why is captive hunting acceptable and canned hunting not?’

‘The end result is the same: a lion is raised in captivity for only one purpose — to be shot.’

African lion hunting has been under intense scrutiny since Walter Palmer shot and killed Cecil the black-maned lion with a high-power crossbow in Zimbabwe last month. Cecil was not part of a canned hunt — which are virtually unknown outside South Africa.

Instead Cecil was allegedly lured from safety of the Hwange National Park by two guides trailing meat behind a vehicle. Palmer only injured the animal which suffered in intense agony for 40 hours before being tracked and finished off.

The hunting team then hacked off Cecil’s head so Palmer could take it back to his home. But Zimbabwean authorities confiscated it leaving Palmer with nothing to show for the $55,000 he spent for the kill.

Swazey’s fee was less than one-tenth of the size paid by Palmer because lionesses are not considered such good trophies as they don’t have the iconic full mane that male lions have.

One of the advantages hunters find in shooting hand-reared animals rather than genuinely wild ones is that they are unlikely to have been scratched up in fights that occur naturally in the wild, and therefore the head they get to show off will be in better condition, explained Venter.

Michler estimates there are around 200 facilities in South Africa breeding predators, mainly lions. He says there are between 6,000 and 8,000 animals currently in these facilities.

As well as providing relatively tame animals as shooting targets, these places also make money from tourists who are allowed to pet the cubs and walk with the carnivores and they also provide for a growing Far Eastern market in lion bones, which supposedly have medicinal properties, and have largely taken the place of tiger bones in China, due to restrictions on importing tiger parts.

‘Nearly all justify what they do by claiming conservation, educational or lion awareness arguments,’ said Michler, a former Cape Town stockbroker who has worked in conservation for the past 25 years.

‘And then, of course, they point to the economic contributions such as job creation.’

But, he said, his documentary exposes those arguments. ‘The film clearly shows how lions, an apex predator that in the natural world requires ample space, are being subjected to intensive agricultural breeding practices in confined areas.

‘It also shows how the breeders and farmers mix species such as lions and tiger and you also get to see and understand the considerable welfare concerns.’

He said Swazey came on board after watching a promo clip the movie makers had circulated. ‘Rick is a genuine American hunter,’ he said. ‘The practices of canned hunting offended every hunting sensibility he knew and so he volunteered to be part of the project.

Michler estimates that around 1,000 hunters travel every year to South Africa to bag lions. Of those, roughly half are American.

Swazey remains a committed deer and white-winged dove hunter in the United States. ‘The hunting I do is to put food on the table,’ he told Daily Mail Online.

But he agreed to take part in the movie because he found himself repulsed by the idea of killing a captive animal solely for its trophy value.

‘What bothers me most about “hunting” a canned animal is that the animals are in an enclosure, often baited to present a shot to the shooter and sometimes shot from a vehicle.’

Making it worse, he said, the lions are used to ‘the sight, sound and scent’ of humans.

‘When a vehicle approaches a lion that was bottle-fed and raised in captivity, that sound usually means it is mealtime.’

Swazey and his team had never intended to kill the lioness and were still working out a way to make their exit while leaving the animal alive when Duminy discovered they were making a movie. Although many hunters take teams along to film their exploits, both sides agree that Swazey’s ruse was discovered because his crew appeared too professional.

Instead of capturing a lion killed on camera, the filmmakers caught Duminy threatening to kill Swazey after he is uncovered. Swazey insists the game lodge owner meant what he said, and he believed his life was in genuine danger.

‘How would you feel if someone twice your size threatened to kill you?’ he asked.

‘I trusted Mr. Duminy about as far as I could throw him. I think he had every intention of causing us serious harm if we had not left when we did.’

As for the fate of the animal that Swazey was supposed to kill, it is still unclear. ‘After we left the farm, we tried to arrange for the lioness to be moved to a sanctuary,’ said Michler.

‘But negotiations between Benkoe and ourselves broke down. We got a partial refund and have no idea what happened to the lioness.’

Cape Town – South Africa has about 7 000 lions that have been bred in captivity to be shot in captivity – and it is completely legal.

The animals are shot by paying clients in a captive hunting industry that turns over about R100-million a year. Many of these lions have already brought in extra income for their owners through “cub petting” tourist ventures when they were young animals.

The government has banned the hunting of drugged lions, or shooting lions that have been attracted by bait, but shooting a captive-bred lion in a fenced area is legal. Now a team of film-makers, journalists and conservationists have banded together to produce Blood Lions, a documentary on captive lion hunting which they hope will get the government to scrap the practice.

One of the movie team, local safari operator and journalist Ian Michler, said on Wednesday there was no conservation value in captive lion breeding.

“The public needs to understand that. You can’t reintroduce a captive-bred lion into the wild. These predator-breeding farms, about 200 of them, are fenced properties and the lions are fed like domestic stock. They are then shot. “The horror of it only really comes home with a visual representation, when you see 20 lions moving around being shot.”

Estimates are that between 800 and 1 000 lions are shot in South Africa every year. Last year only five of these were hunted in the wild by hunters tracking the animals in the traditional “fair chase” method. The rest were shot behind fences where they had little or no chance of escape.

About 10 years ago, when the Department of Environmental Affairs tackled the issue of canned lion hunting, the resultant legislation ruled that captive-bred lions had to be released into large areas for two years before they could be commercially hunted. But lion breeders took the matter to court and this rule was overturned – largely because the ministry’s own advisers had said captive-bred lions could not be rehabilitated into the wild. “There are some reputable private game reserves where they have professional hunting operations, but there are a whole lot of others where farmers and businessmen have cottoned on to the fact that there is money in this captive hunting. There is also a trade in breeding mutants, like white lions.”

The issue is on the agenda for the next meeting of the Professional Hunters Association of SA (Phasa).

Hermann Meyeridricks, president of Phasa, has written to the 1 300 members asking the association to reconsider its stance on captive-bred lion hunting, adopted in 2013. This recognized that the practice was lawful and that there was a demand for it.

Now Meyeridricks said it had become clear those opposed to captive lion hunting were not just a small animal rights group. “Even within our own ranks, respected voices are speaking out publicly against it. Our position is no longer tenable.”

He appealed to members to come up with a policy that was “defensible in the court of public opinion”.

Blood Lions will be screened at the Labia Thursday, Friday and on Saturday.

The killing of Cecil the lion made world headlines – now, a new film hopes to blow the lid off the canned hunting industry.

Blood Lions, which premiered on July 22 at the Durban Film Festival to rave reviews, had its first screening in Cape Town last night at the Labia Theatre.

The film documents the investigation of environmental journalists Ian Michler and Rick Swazey’ s into South Africa’s hunting industry.

Michler said: “People can see for themselves the true nature of the industry.

“People need to understand that canned hunting and lions kept in captivity are all the same. They’re being kept in captivity and killed.

“Our goal is to have all exploitative methods exposed and bring an end to hunting.”

Francis Garrard, director of the Conservation Action Fund, said between 600 and 1000 lions are killed every year.

“Industry and the government deny the term ‘canned hunting’ but this film will create awareness.”

Are trophy hunters protectors of biodiversity, as hunting associations and some conservationists claim, providing funds and a reason to protect wild areas? Or are they heartless killers of defenceless wild animals who need trophies to reinforce their fragile egos? The more vexing question – leaving aside for the moment peasant farmers defending their stock, commercial farmers shooting for biltong and poachers harvesting animal parts – is whether the only way to sustain wildlife in Africa beyond its national parks is for rich hunters to be able to kill it.

To make any headway with these questions, we need to ask if hunting protects wilderness, if it’s sustainable and who gets the money? Why hunters take pleasure in killing we’ll leave to their therapists.

Land use

Safari operators are custodians of at least 1.4-million square kilometres of land in sub-Saharan Africa, exceeding the area encompassed by national parks in those countries where hunting is permitted by more than 20%. This is clearly a boon for biodiversity.

There is no certainty about what this land use would be if it wasn’t for hunting. If it was returned to farming the incentives for conservation would undoubtedly decline.

There’s also a good argument that hunting has the lightest footprint. While privately owned hunting areas may be empty of people, most professional hunting outfits have small camps, limited staff and few overheads other than equipment and licences. Any local training is confined to trackers and a camp chef. Apart from the animals they hunt, their footprint on the land is light.

Tourism outfits, on the other hand, build extensive facilities of largely indigenous material, train staff in a variety of skills and maintain areas for photo safaris. With roads and constant vehicle access, however, their footprint is much heavier.

Associated Private Nature Reserves, which borders the Kruger National Park and organises hunts of animals that wander into members’ unfenced lands, generally uses this revenue for conservation. Critics, however, have asked why it requires hunting revenue for this purpose, given the considerable profits it makes from tourism, and query whether hunting simply supplements elitist lifestyles. Does hunting preserve habitat? In limiting development, it undoubtedly it does.

Who gets the money?

In dollar terms, trophy hunting certainly accrues revenue, though it’s often difficult to follow the money. This is partly because of concern in the industry over what are seen as prying ‘animal rightists’ and partly because of intermittent overlaps with poaching and trafficking in animal parts.

Walter Palmer, who illegally shot Cecil the lion in Hwange National Park, provoking an international firestorm of protest, reputedly paid $50,000 to pull the trigger. However none of this would have accrued to the government, communities or conservation as the hunt was illegal and the money paid to the landowner and professional hunter.

South Africa alone hosts around 9,000 hunters a year. The Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa claims this is worth R6.2-billion annually, although a scientific study by Economists at Large puts it at R112-million (a small fraction of tourism revenue).

Roderick Campbell of Economists at Large questions the value of trophy hunting other than to gun shops and hunting outfitters, pointing to a report by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation that found only 3% of hunting revenue went to communities living in the area. “Local communities are key stakeholders for conservation initiatives,” he writes, “yet they receive minimal benefits from trophy hunting.”

In some areas, the limited trickle-down from trophy hunting could, in fact, be fuelling support for poachers, who pay shooters and bearers in cash.

Is trophy hunting sustainable?

Wild populations in Africa have been dropping steadily since firearms tilted the balance in favour of hunters 200 years ago. In the last 20 years, however, species decline has been catastrophic. Most of this is caused by habitat loss from human population increases plus, particularly, massive poaching of elephants, rhinos and lions for Asian markets.

How does trophy hunting feature? The stated ethic of hunter associations is that only animals past breeding prime should be bagged. This is deemed sustainable as the loss of these animals is thought to have little impact on the species as a whole. Through ignorance, cheating and straight criminality, this ethic is often breached.

One of these breaches is in the issue of ‘problem animal’ permits – permission to shoot animals because they’re in conflict with humans. These are being exploited by unethical operators across the continent.

Certainly in Zimbabwe and Namibia and probably elsewhere, problem animal permits can be obtained even before the animal to be killed is selected. A variation, in Namibia, is a ‘snipe’ hunt where a hunter with a permit can shoot any elephant a community declares to be a problem, generally because they simply want the meat. Several rare desert elephants have been shot this way. Strangely, ‘problem’ animals always seems to have the biggest tusks or largest, darkest manes.

Another cheat is to lure an animal out of a park, as was done with Cecil the lion, and shoot it on private land. The only reason this was discovered was because Cecil was wearing a tracking collar.

Given the requirement to shoot only ageing animals, the inability (or unwillingness) of hunters and trackers to age them correctly means the injunction is generally observed in its breach. In this way younger breeding animals are being taken out of the gene pool.

The idea that older individuals are no loss to their herds if killed is countered by a study published in the Journal of Wildlife Management by researchers Jeanetta Sellier, Bruce Page, Abi Vanak and Rob Slotow. They found the selective removal of a few large trophy or older males from carnivore and antelope populations led to the destabilisation of social structures and a loss of essential social knowledge. The consequences were infanticide, reproductive females using sub-optimal habitats and changes in offspring sex ratios.

This was a particular problem for elephants which are extremely communal. “Older bulls have a social network with high centrality and strong bonds,” they write. “Consequently, the elimination of older bulls may negatively affect social cohesion in bull elephant groups, increasing the  reproductive tenure of younger males. This can increase their length of musth, leading to elevated aggression, killing people and killing white rhino.”

Their conclusion was that that in the Limpopo/Botswana area they studied, trophy hunting both destabilised herds and was unsustainable. They added that large bulls with trophy tusks – so essential to photographic tourism which yielded higher returns – were disappearing. This study echoes the conclusions of studies by Iain Douglas-Hamilton in Kenya and Elephants Without Borders in Botswana.

Is canned hunting the answer?

Lions have always topped the list of desirable prizes. As their population in the wild declined, the status of having a perfect lion to hang on the wall and brag about increased. Being mostly both rich and busy men, foreign hunters demanded shorter hunt times and an assured kill, for which they were prepared to pay top dollar. In South Africa, a solution was to farm lions like cattle.

There are no completely trusted sources on the numbers of lions in captivity in South Africa. The reason is that not everyone who breeds predators is obliged to be a member of the South African Predator Association (SAPA)and not everyone that is a member provides reliable or updated stats.

Provincial governments, which ought to have some sort of record, don’t and they seem to rely on the figures from the SAPA and hunting bodies. It’s head, Pieter Potgieter, estimates the number of captive predators at between 6,000 and 8,000. Most of these, around 7,000, are lions – the others are tigers, cheetah, leopard, dogs and exotics held in around 200 facilities.

Over the past decade, however, there have been disturbing leaks about the conditions under which these so-called ‘canned lions’ are bred. A film just released, Blood Lions, reveals the shocking realities behind this burgeoning business. Possibly as a response, Professional Hunters’ Association of South Africa (PHASA) Hermann Meyeridricks sent an e-mail to members stating that the PHASA’s position on captive-bred lion hunting “is no longer tenable”.  He says there has been little progress in getting the government and predator breeders to “clean up” the industry.

He also acknowledges that opposition to such hunting is no longer restricted to “just a small if vociferous group of animal-rights activists” but that “the tide of public opinion is turning strongly against this form of hunting”.

As a public relations exercise, captive-bred lion shooting (it can hardly be called hunting) has been a disaster. Added to the international fury about the killing of Cecil, it has led to a groundswell of opposition to all trophy hunting.

Australia recently banned imports of lion parts or trophies, airlines are refusing to transport them, Born Free USA called on concerned citizens to write to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service urging them to stop all lion trophy imports and Europe’s Nordic Safari Club has removed all lion trophies hunted in South Africa from its official record books.

The question we’re left with, apart from the psychology of these strange people who kill for pleasure, is whether trophy hunting is, in the broader sense of the word, sustainable. To answer that, it’s necessary to get behind hunters’ claims of preserving wilderness with money for trophies and public outrage at colonial-style killing safaris by rich white men.

Preserving wild lands for hunting is a way to maintain higher levels of biodiversity and, in certain situations and certain places, the damage caused by trophy hunting is limited, though this may change as populations decline. But, in pursuit of the Big One, hunters very often cheat, crippling sustainability of prey species.

Coming on top of human land encroachment and poaching in Africa, hunting for fun is becoming increasingly problematic. And we are left with a conundrum that needs to be at the centre of any discussion about trophy hunting: outside of game parks, is the only way to sustain wildlife in Africa to allow rich foreign hunters to kill it?

Humans are in the process of bringing about the Earth’s sixth extinction of life forms. From an African population of more than 1-million lions in the mid-19th century, there are maybe 20,000 left in the wild. Around 36,000 elephants are falling to rifle bullets each year and more than 1,000 rhinos were poached in the species’ heartland of the Kruger Park last year. In the face of such declines, can we really afford to kill, for personal pleasure, even one of this planet’s wild creatures?

Die doodmaak van Cecil die leeu van Zimbabwe in ‘n beweerde onwettige jagtog plaas Suid-Afri- ka se eie praktyk van kommersiéle leeuboerdery in die kollig.

Die dokumentére rolprent Blood Lions, wat eersdaags in Suid-Afrika en oorsee uitgereik word, trek tans die aandag van gewone mense en natuurlewe-organisasies. Al drie vertonings wat vandeesweek in die Labia-teater in Kaapstad gereél is, is reeds uitverkoop.

Dit is vanjaar staande toegejuig by die premiere op die internasionale rolprentfees in Durban. Die Hollywood-persoonlikhede Ricky Gervais en Ellen DeGeneres het ook onlangs oor die prent getwiet. Die voorprent op YouTube is reeds 170 000 keer gekyk.

Blood Lions volg die omgewingsjoernalis en safari-operateur Ian Michler en Rick Swazey, ‘n Amerikaanse jagter, in hul ondersoek na die kommersiéle boere wat die groot roofdiere teel. Miljoene is in sodanige boerderye op die spel.

In die prent is bevind dat meer as 900 leeus elke jaar gejag word; 99% van daardie leeus word vir die koeél geteel, luidens ‘n mediaver- klaring. Hulle word met die hand grootgemaak deur vrywilligers wat dink hulle red Afrika se leeus. Vier dae nadat hulle vrygelaat is, word hulle as wild beskou en kan hulle geskiet of geslag word.

Pippa Hankinson van Regulus Vision, wat gemoeid is met die prent, sé Blood Lions is vervaardig om ‘n wéreldwye bewusmaking aan te wakker. “Dit is ‘n oproep tot aksie. Elkeen wat daarna kyk, kan ingeligte besluite neem. Ons is almal aanspreeklik en word uitgedaag oor ons rol en verantwoordelikhede rakende dié majestueuse diere.”

South Africa has about 7 000 lions that have been bred in captivity to be shot in captivity – and it is completely legal.

The animals are shot by paying clients in a captive hunting industry that turns over about R100 million a year. Many of these lions have already brought in extra income for their owners through “cub petting” tourist ventures when they were young animals.

The government has banned the hunting of drugged lions, or shooting lions that have been attracted by bait, but shooting a captive-bred lion in a fenced area is legal. Now a team of film-makers, journalists and conservationists have banded together to produce Blood Lions, a documentary on captive lion hunting which they hope will get the government to scrap the practice.

One of the movie team, local safari operator and journalist Ian Michler, said yesterday there was no conservation value in captive lion breediing.

“The public needs to understand that. You can’t reintroduce a captive-bred lion into the wild. These predator-breeding farms, about 200 of them, are fenced properties and the lions are fed like domestic stock. They are then shot. “The horror of it only really comes home with a visual representation, when you see 20 lions moving around being shot.”

Estimates are that between 800 and 1 000 lions are shot in South Africa every year. Last year only five of these were hunted in the wild by hunters tracking the animals in the traditional “fair chase” method. The rest were shot behind fences where they had little or no chance of escape.

About 10 years ago, when the Department of Environmental Affairs tackled the issue of canned lion hunting, the resultant legislation ruled that captive-bred lions had to be released into large areas for two years before they could be commercially hunted. But lion breeders took the matter to court and this rule was overturned – largely because the ministry’s own advisers had said captive-bred lions could not be rehabilitated into the wild. “There are some reputable private game reserves where they have professional hunting operations, but there are a whole lot of others where farmers and businessmen have cottoned on to the fact that there is money in this captive hunting. There is also a trade in breeding mutants, like white lions.”

The issue is on the agenda for the next meeting of the Professional Hunters Association of SA (Phasa).

Hermann Meyeridricks, president of Phasa, has written to the 1 300 members asking the association to reconsider its stance on captive-bred lion hunting, adopted in 2013. This recognised that the practice was lawful and that there was a demand for it.

Now Meyeridricks said it had become clear those opposed to captive lion hunting were not just a small animal rights group. “Even within our own ranks, respected voices are speaking out publicly against it. Our position is no longer tenable.”

He appealed to members to come up with a policy that was “defensible in the court of public opinion”.

Blood Lions will be screened at the Labia today, tomorrow and on Saturday.

Hierdie week op Flits het uitvoerende vervaardiger Andrew Venter en vervaardiger Pippa Hankinson kom gesels oor die dokumentêre rolprent Blood Lions.

Dié opspraakwekkende rolprent is onlangs by die Durbanse Internasionale Rolprentfees gewys, en bied ’n ontstellende blik op leeus, wat in aanhouding grootgemaak word om uiteindelik gejag te word.

Hilkinson het gesê dat hulle ten doel het om ’n globale bewustheid te skep van wat werklik met dié diere gebeur – in fasiliteite wat voorgee om die spesie te preserveer.

“Ons will hê dat die kykers ’n bewuste keuse moet maak van die verantwoordelikheid wat hul teenoor diere het, en hoe ons as ’n gemeenskap diere moet hanteer.”

Venter het gesê hulle wil hê kykers moet wegstap met ’n absolute verontwaardiging teenoor hierdie fasiliteite. “Dit is barbaars, dit is wreed en dit is bedrieglik.”

“Hoe kan ons as Suid-Afrikaners dit doen?”, het hy verder gesê. Sy hoop is dat Suid-Afrikaners hierdie boodskap sal versprei, en as aktiviste sal optree.

Om meer uit te vind oor die projek, besoek gerus die Blood Lions.