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Organisers halt screening of film due to controversy and the ‘truth’ of cub rearing

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

 Local delegates to the World Youth and Student Travel Conference (WYSTC) 2015 asked the hosts to include a screen- ing 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 facili- ties 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 want youngsters who end up at lion breeding facilities to ask themselves some crucial questions, where do these cubs come from and where do they end up?”

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

There will be a session on lion programmes and volunteer organisations for registered delegates 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. lt bases much of its work on the suggestion that captive-bred lions can be successfully re-introduced into the wild.

SA conservationist lan Michler, the central character in Blood Lions, has criticised Alert for attempting to “legitimise its 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”.