Going undercover to make a documentary has its risks, especially regarding litigation and personal safety. But sometimes it’s worth the risk, says executive producer of Blood Lions, Andrew Venter.

Blood Lions is a documentary that premiered at this year’s Durban International Film Festival. The movie blows the lid on how vague legislation in South Africa has allowed the practice of “canned lion hunting” to become a multi-million rand industry largely governed by private property holders.

“I’ll kill you. I warn you. Don’t take a photo of me,” said a Benkoe Safari operator captured on hidden camera confronting the Blood Lions’ film crew. The crew were hounded out of the safari lodge, but they had what they wanted. Soon, audiences around the world will view the altercation and all that led up to it.

At the first schools’ screening of Blood Lions to pupils in Durban this week, a child, asked: “Isn’t what you did, filming people without permission, using hidden cameras, illegal?”

The film-makers’ responded that they had needed to go undercover to expose the dark side of captive-bred lion hunting. “Nearly all these lions you have seen here in this movie, even the cute cuddly cubs, end up being shot for a price,” said Blood Lions narrator and journalist, Ian Michler.

He said more than 7 000 lions – more than double the number of wild lions in South Africa – had been bred for one purpose only, the bullet.

The film follows Michler into lion breeding territory, speaking to trophy hunters, operators, breeders, lion ecologists, conservationists, and animal welfare experts. It also documents the two-day trip of America hunter, Rick Swazey, after he selected, on the internet, a lion to kill at Benkoe Safaris. He had been sent pictures of 14 lions to choose from, ranging in cost from $5 400 (R65 000) for a female to $48 000 for a big black-maned lion.

Swazey was granted permission to video his kill, but owner of the lodge, Ben Duminy clearly became suspicious of the intentions of the cameraman, Blood Lions’ co-director, Nic Chevallier.

“Is this for a newspaper or TV?” Duminy asks on camera, confronting Chevallier and slapping down his camera.

Michler said this scene, and all the other glimpses they had got into the operations of Benkoe Safaris were indications of a typical “canned lion hunting” business, albeit marketed under guise of professional hunting. “There is no element of fair chase – the kill is guaranteed, and the packaging of this as a wildlife hunt is pure farce,” said Michler.

The chairman of the SA Predators Association, Pieter Potgieter, spoke on behalf of the owner of Benkoe Safaris. Potgieter said to describe the lion hunts taking place on Benkoe Lodge as canned hunting was a “very wrong assumption”. “These people are beating that canned lion hunting drum when we have long moved beyond that situation. Canned hunting is illegal, and my members do not engage it,” said Potgieter.

He said he deplored the use of hidden cameras to tell the Blood Lions story. “We are often victims of these techniques. Even Carte Blanche did it. We think it is a low-level form of journalism.”

The president and the chief executive of the Professional Hunters Association of South Africa, (Phasa) Herman Meyeridricks, and Adri Kitshoff flew to Durban to view the documentary on Thursday evening. Meyeridricks said he had no issue with the use of hidden cameras to tell the story, describing it as modern day investigative journalism.

“I thought it was a well-made documentary,” said Meyeridricks. “Blood Lions gives us a lot to ponder as far as lion hunting is concerned, but I do not agree with everything in the movie… There are arguments for hunting, and substantial evidence of how it contributes to conservation and community development.”

He said hunting was recognised by Cites, the World Wildlife Fund, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature as a legitimate conservation measure that raised massive revenue for game reserves.

In a letter sent to all Phasa members on Friday, Meyeridricks said: “Our position on lion hunting is no longer tenable. The matter will be on the agenda again for our next AGM and I appeal to you to give it your serious consideration, so that together we can deliver a policy that is defensible in the court of public opinion.”

THE head of South Africa’s professional hunters’ association has warned that the survival of the country’s wildlife hunting industry could be at risk as local and international public opinion turns ever more strongly against “canned” lion hunting.

Elaborating on a statement he issued last week, Profession- al Hunters Association of South Africa (Phasa) president Hermann Meyeridricks said this week that pressure was mounting steadily against the hunting industry especially hunts involving captive-bred lions.

“I don’t want to pre-empt the debate at our next annual general meeting in November, but we have to relook our posi- tion on captive-bred lion hunting and upping the standards further.”

Last week, soon after the Durban screening of a new documentary on the country’s captive-bred industry titled Blood Lions, Meyeridricks warned: “Phasa has to face the fact that the lion issue is put- ting at risk not only the reputation of professional hunting in South Africa but its very survival.

“Phasa’s current policy on the issue is, broadly speaking, that it recognizes the legality of and demand for captive-bred lion hunting, and is working with the predator breeders and government to improve its standards and conditions to a generally acceptable level.

“We have made little demonstrable progress on this front,” he said,

In a letter e-mailed to Phasa members, Meyeridricks says the campaign against trophy hunting has intensified.

“From my dealings with the media and the community it has become clear to me that those against the hunting of lions bred in captivity are no longer just a small if vociferous group of animal-rights activists.

“Broader society is no longer neutral on this question and the tide of public opinion is turning strongly against this form of hunting.

Voices

“Even within our own ranks, as well as in the hunting fraternity as a whole, respected voices are speaking out publicly against it.”

Some airlines and shipping lines were also refusing to transport hunting trophies.

‘Against this background, I have come to believe that, as it stands, our position on lion hunting is no longer tenable.

“The matter will be on the agenda again for our next annual general meeting and I appeal to you to give it your serious consideration, so that together we can deliver a policy that is defensible in the court of public opinion.”

According to a recent report to the government by predator researcher Dr. Paul Funston, there are now just 2 300 truly wild lions left in the country’s large national parks, along with another 800 “managed wild lions” living in 45 smaller parks around the country.

By contrast, there were now about 6 000 captive lions in 200 facilities, that were bred exclusively to raise money.

Funston and fellow re- searcher Minnelise Levendal of the CSIR suggest that unlike most other countries in Africa, the local lion population has grown by about 30% over the past three decades.

In a draft biodiversity management plan prepared for the national Department of Environmental Affairs, Funston and Levendal record that nearly 800kg of lion bones, 314 lion skulls and 626 lion skeletons were exported from South Africa to China, Laos and Vietnam between 2011 and 2012.

“The controversial trade in lion bones for the Asian market appears to be supplied by bones obtained as a legal by-product of the trophy hunting industry where the lions are almost exclusively captive bred.

“It would appear that wild lions in South Africa are safe from the body parts trade for as long as captive-bred lions are the source of the derivatives.”

Funston and Levendal suggest that of all the lion hunts in South Africa, only 1% could be considered to be wild lions.

The overwhelming number of hunted lions came from predator breeders.

These animals were mostly hunted on smaller areas of land.

Captive-bred hunts were also considerably cheaper than wild lion hunts, and 99% of these hunts were “successful”, compared with 51 %-96% success rates with wild hunts.

Sixteen years of research and lobbying against South Africa’s predator breeding and ‘canned’ lion hunting practices recently reached a climax for Plettenberg Bay resident and Eden to Addo director Ian Michler – Mellisa Reitz reports

The story of Ian Michler’s quest is revealed in the hard-hitting documentary Blood Lions that had its first screenings at the Durban International Film Festival last week.

The 85-minute film, which received standing ovations and an overwhelming global response, follows the journey of investigative journalist Michler, and that of American hunter Rick Swazey, who buys a lion online and then comes out to South Africa to see how easy it is to shoot it.

Many well-known conservationists and welfare experts are interviewed in the film, providing a compelling narrative that exposes the horrors behind the multi- million dollar industry and the false conservation claims made by operators.

The film also exposes cub- petting and ‘walking with lions’ operations as nothing other than lucrative commercial operations with no conservation merits at all.

Locally produced by Regulus Vision in collaboration with the Wildlands Conservation Trust, Blood Lions is directed by Bruce Young and well-known filmmaker Nick Chevallier.

The film has been accepted at film festivals worldwide and will be screened in the European and Australian Parliaments.

The Blood Lions campaign, which aims at bringing an end to canned hunting and the exploitative breed- ing of predators on farms across South Africa, will also be given a significant boost by the film’s release.

The inhumane practice of breeding lions for the sport of hunting them under captive conditions is still, surprisingly, legal in South Africa. Although previous Environmental minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk called the practice “a cancer” in our country, present minister Edna Molewa seems to think otherwise.

She claims that canned hunting is banned and refers instead to the practices as “captive” hunting, stating that the latter is legal if the animal is not tranquillized.

However, almost all conservationists disagree with her. They claim the word- play is an attempt to hide the reality: lions are still being bred in captivity to be shot in captivity.

According to Michler’s research, approximately 1,000 lions are being shot annually and about 1,100 are being killed for the burgeoning lion bone trade in the East.

With up to 7,000 lions in captivity across the country, there are roughly as few as 3,000 left in the wild, and the industry continues to grow with the Eastern Cape region being one of the busiest.

Just last year, well-known Port Elizabeth lion park Seaview was refused its annual rates rebate after Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality accused it of participating in canned hunting by selling lions to the Cradock hunting reserve Tam Safaris, and tigers to South Africa’s leading bone exporter, Letsatsi la Africa in the Free State.

“The captive breeding industry has no conservation and rehabilitation value whatsoever,” says Michler, who adds that no lion ecologist or recognised conservation agency supports these breeding facilities.

Michler, who is the special consultant to Blood Lions, has taken the campaign beyond South African borders, addressing parliamentarians in Australia and European countries to raise awareness.

As a result, the Australian government placed a Permanent ban on the importation of all lion parts and trophies into Australia earlier this year. He hopes that both Europe and the USA will soon take a similar stance.

“Although the global response to the film and campaign has been overwhelming, we are not yet at the end of the road as we still need to change legislation and ban this practice in South Africa altogether,” says Michler, adding that although there is no progress yet, our government has now shown a willingness to engage with the campaign.

Screenings of Blood Lions, hosted by Eden to Addo, will be scheduled for the Garden Route – visit www.bloodlions.org  for dates and information,

Cape Town – An American hunter Walter Palmer, with a reported hunting felony history in the US, stands accused of illegally killing a protected lion in Zimbabwe.

The 13-year-old lion, known as Cecil, was literally a superstar of the Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe as part of a research programme.

In a statement made on Tuesday, Palmer indirectly laid the blame at the feet of the professional hunting company he enlisted, saying he thought everything about his trip was legal and that he wasn’t aware of the animal’s status “until the end of the hunt”.

‘Walter Palmer’ is currently trending world wide on Twitter with his dentist practice reportedly closed for business and his Facebook account is being inundated with damning posts about the kill. A ‘Walter Palmer awareness account’ has even been created, while a tribute instagram account has been created for Cecil.

The industry needs to clean up its act

WildAid executive director Peter Knights has said in response to Cecil’s killing, he has seen a series of ethical problems in Africa’s hunting industry over the last few years.

“The industry needs to clean up its act, and it needs to be the first to condemn this action,” said Knights.

“Hunting can have benefits to conservation. It can generate revenue to conserve habitat, and it can help local communities. But it must be done ethically, and it must be done legally. And it seems that in this case those rules have been broken.”

Canned hunting has been heavily scrutinized of late as a controversial documentary Blood Lions has drummed up awareness of the sordid conditions with in which these Lions are bread in order to feed SA’s lucrative hunting industry  – said to be one of the few places in the world where they are bread for the sole purpose of being hunted.

An estimated 6 000 lions are currently confined in about 150 breeding facilities across South Africa.

Adding to the wave of controversy is the decision by South African Airways Cargo to re-start its transportation of legal hunting trophies, including lions and rhino. The airline initially imposed the embargo three months ago in April 2015 after an incident in which hunting trophies were allegedly shipped to Perth, Australia under a false label of ‘mechanical equipment’.

SAA Cargo announced the lifting of the embargo in a cargo policy and procedures advisory, dated 20 July 2015, saying the airline had been engaging with the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA). It said the DEA’s implementation of “additional compliance measures for permits and documentation” caused the airline to review its embargo.

Minister Edna Molewa recently met with stakeholders to address the mounting public concern about the controversial practice  – especially as a new international report by TRAFFIC throws light on the growing trade in lion bones, involving hundreds of South African lion carcasses exported annually to supply the traditional Asian medicine market, says Andreas Wilson-Spath.

“The DEA’s official statement about the meeting reveals a fundamental disagreement over what constitutes ‘canned hunting’ in South Africa,” Wilson-Spath said.

Following the discussions and in an unprecedented move, the Professional Hunters’ Association of South Africa (PHASA) has been told that its “position on lion hunting is no longer tenable”.

According to a Conservation Action Trust update, an email sent to PHASA members by the organisation’s president, Hermann Meyeridricks, asked for a review of its policy on the matter ahead of its next annual general meeting.

Meyeridricks said PHASA has made “little demonstrable progress” in getting government and predator breeders to “clean up” the country’s lucrative but controversial captive-bred lion hunting industry. He is calling for it to improve its standards and conditions to a “generally acceptable level”, acknowledging that opposition to the hunting of bred lions is no longer confined to “just a small if vociferous group of animal-rights activists”.

The idea that the hunting of captive-bred lions represents a legitimated and sustainable use of a wildlife species is turning, despite the fact that it is seen by the government as a “key driver of economic growth, skill development and job creation in the sector”.

And what the shock killing of Cecil the lion indicates, irrespective of the hunt having taken place in Zimbabwe, is that the issue of organisations that fail to follow procedure and who continue to operate illegally, as now called into question by PHASA, requires more than just regulation clarity and refinement.

The cat’s out of the bag with the screening of Blood Lions at the film festival

GOING undercover to make a documentary has its risks, especially regarding litigation and personal safety. But sometimes it’s worth the risk, says executive producer of Blood Lions, Andrew Venter.

Blood Lions is a documentary that premiered at this year’s Durban International Film Festival. The movie blows the lid on how vague legislation in South Africa has allowed the practice of “canned lion hunting” to become a multi-million rand industry largely governed by private property holders.

“I’ll kill you. I warn you. Don’t take a photo of me,” said a Benkoe Safari operator captured on hidden camera confronting the Blood Lions’ film crew. The crew were hounded out of the safari lodge, but they had what they wanted. Soon, audiences around the world will view the altercation and all that led up to it.

At the first schools’ screening of Blood Lions to pupils in Durban this week, a child, asked: “Isn’t what you did, filming people without permission, using hidden cameras, illegal?”

The film-makers’ responded that they had needed to go undercover to expose the dark side of captive-bred lion hunting. “Nearly all these lions you have seen here in this movie, even the cute cuddly cubs, end up being shot for a price,” said Blood Lions narrator and journalist, Ian Michler.

He said more than 7 000 lions – more than double the number of wild lions in South Africa – had been bred for one purpose only, the bullet.

The film follows Michler into lion breeding territory, speaking to trophy hunters, operators, breeders, lion ecologists, conservationists, and animal welfare experts. It also documents the two-day trip of America hunter, Rick Swazey, after he selected, on the internet, a lion to kill at Benkoe Safaris. He had been sent pictures of 14 lions to choose from, ranging in cost from $5 400 (R65 000) for a female to $48 000 for a big black-maned lion. Swazey was granted permission to video his kill, but owner of the lodge, Ben Duminy clearly became suspicious of the intentions of the cameraman, Blood Lions’ codirector, Nic Chevallier.

“Is this for a newspaper or TV?” Duminy asks on camera, confronting Chevallier and slapping down his camera.

Michler said this scene, and all the other glimpses they had got into the operations of Benkoe Safaris were indications of a typical “canned lion hunting” business, albeit marketed under guise of professional hunting. “There is no element of fair chase – the kill is guaranteed, and the packaging of this as a wildlife hunt is pure farce,” said Michler.

The chairman of the SA Predators Association, Pieter Potgieter, spoke on behalf of the owner of Benkoe Safaris. Potgieter said to describe the lion hunts taking place on Benkoe Lodge as canned hunting was a “very wrong assumption”. “These people are beating that canned lion hunting drum when we have long moved beyond that situation. Canned hunting is illegal, and my members do not engage it,” said Potgieter.

He said he deplored the use of hidden cameras to tell the Blood Lions story. “We are often victims of these techniques. Even Carte Blanche did it. We think it is a low-level form of journalism.”

The president and the chief executive of the Professional Hunters Association of South Africa, (Phasa) Herman Meyeridricks, and Adri Kitshoff flew to Durban to view the documentary on Thursday evening. Meyeridricks said he had no issue with the use of hidden cameras to tell the story, describing it as modern day investigative journalism.

“I thought it was a well-made documentary,” said Meyeridricks. “Blood Lions gives us a lot to ponder as far as lion hunting is concerned, but I do not agree with everything in the movie… There are arguments for hunting, and substantial evidence of how it contributes to conservation and community development.”

He said hunting was recognised by Cites, the World Wildlife Fund, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature as a legitimate conservation measure that raised massive revenue for game reserves.

In a letter sent to all Phasa members on Friday, Meyeridricks said: “Our position on lion hunting is no longer tenable. The matter will be on the agenda again for our next AGM and I appeal to you to give it your serious consideration, so that together we can deliver a policy that is defensible in the court of public opinion.”

Iagvereniging kan bande verbreek met dié boere

Die Professionele Jagtersvereniging van Suid-Afrika (Phasa) gaan moontlik sy bande verbreek met boere wat leeus in gevangenskap teel, deels omdat van die diere in hag- like omstandighede aangehou word.

Herman Meyeridicks, president, het Sondag gese Phasa is nie gemaklik oor die leeubedryf nie, maar sal nie “brue verbrand nie”. Openbare druk speel ook ‘n rol in die besluit, het hy erken.

Meyeridicks het Vrydag in ‘n verklaring gese Phasa se net meer as 1 000 lede sal in Novem- ber ‘n finale besluit daaroor moet neem.

Die veldtog teen trofeejag, met die klem op “geblikte-1eeujag”, het sterker geword.

“In my gesprekke met die me- dia en die gemeenskap is dit dui- delik dit is nie net meer ‘n klein groepie ‘spraaksame’ diereregte- aktiviste wat teen die jag van leeus in gevangenskap gekant is nie.

“Selfs in eie geledere en in die res van die jagbedryf laat geres- pekteerde stemme hulle in die openbaar hierteen uit.”

Linda Park, direkteur van die Campaign Against Canned Hun- ting (Cach), het Meyeridicks se verklaring verwelkom.

Sy het gese die stryd om die ge- blikteleeubedryf tot niet te maak duur al 17 jaar.

• Daar is tussen 6000 en 7000 halfmak leeus in gevangenskap op teelplase in Suid-Afrika.
•  ‘n Rolprent, Blood Lions, wat die bedryf oopvlek, word nou in teaters in Suid-Afrika vertoon.

Even professional hunters join a swell of public opinion against predator-breeding

Professional Hunters’ Association of SA (PHASA) president Hermann Meyeridricks has asked the association to re- consider its position on lion hunting. He said last week the campaign against trophy hunting had intensified around canned, or captive-bred, lion hunting. The association’s policy on lion hunting was adopted at its AGM in 2013.

“We took the view our position was a stepping-stone to clean up the captive-bred lion hunting industry and made it clear it was certainly not our final word on lion hunting,” said Meyeridricks.

“Those against the hunting of lions bred in captivity are no longer just a small, if vociferous, group of animal-rights activists.

“The tide of public opinion is turning strongly against this form of hunting. Even within our own ranks, as well as in the hunting fraternity as a whole, respected voices are speaking out publicly against it.”

Director of the Campaign against Canned Hunting, Linda Park said PHASA had seen the movie Blood Lions in Durban on Thursday and could no longer pretend nothing was wrong. “The ‘con’ in conservation is out on the table for all to see.”

Blood Lions exposes “the realities of the multimillion-dollar predator breeding and canned lion hunting industries in SA”.

In an unprecedented move, the Professional Hunters’ Association of South Africa (PHASA) has been told that its “position on lion hunting is no longer tenable”.

In an email sent to PHASA members on Friday, the organisation’s president, Hermann Meyeridricks, asked for a review of its policy on the matter ahead of its next annual general meeting.

He notes that PHASA has made “little demonstrable progress” in getting government and predator breeders to “clean up” the country’s lucrative but controversial captive-bred lion hunting industry and “to improve its standards and conditions to a generally acceptable level”.

More than 95% of the lions killed by trophy hunters in South Africa are not wild, but ‘produced’ specifically for the purpose. Some 6000 to 8000 lions are currently estimated to be held in captivity in between 150 and 200 breeding facilities, most of them in the North West Province and the Free State. The animals are released into relatively small camps as little as four days prior to being hunted.

While PHASA has traditionally supported the industry, a growing number of professional hunters have expressed their disapproval of its practices.

Meyeridricks’ letter comes in the wake of a stakeholder meeting called by the Minister of Environmental Affairs, Edna Molewa, to discuss the industry, and the release of a hard-hitting documentary on the issue, called Blood Lions, which premiered to a standing ovation at the Durban International Film Festival last week.

He acknowledges that opposition to the hunting of bred lions is no longer confined 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” regardless of whether it is referred to as ‘captive-bred hunting’ or ‘canned hunting’.

European allegedly paid €50,000 for chance to kill tourist attraction, who was found headless after being shot with a bow and arrow and tracked for 40 hours

Authorities in Zimbabwe are trying track down a Spaniard who allegedly paid park guides €50,000 (£35,000) for the chance to kill Cecil, one of Africa’s most famous lions, who was the star attraction at the Hwange national park. The creature was found skinned and headless on the outskirts of the park.

The 13-year-old lion was wearing a GPS collar as part of a research project that Oxford University has been running since 1999, making it possible to trace its last movements when it was tricked into leaving the park and shot with a bow and arrow. The hunters then tracked the dying animal for 40 hours before they killed it with a rifle.

Bait, in the form of a freshly killed animal, was used to tempt Cecil out of the park, a technique commonly used so that hunters can “legally” kill protected lions.

“Cecil’s death is a tragedy, not only because he was a symbol of Zimbabwe but because now we have to give up for dead his six cubs, as a new male won’t allow them to live so as to encourage Cecil’s three females to mate,” said Johnny Rodrigues, head of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force. “The two people who accompanied the hunter have been arrested but we haven’t yet tracked down the hunter, who is Spanish.”

The Zimbabwe Professional Hunters and Guides Association admitted that its members were involved and that the case was being investigated. It claims it was a private safari and therefore not illegal, but the government insists that the lion lived on the reserve and came under its protection.

The Oxford University study was looking into the impact of sports hunting on lions living in the safari area surrounding the national park. The research found that 34 of 62 tagged lions died during the study period. 24 were shot by sport hunters. Sport hunters in the safari areas surrounding the park killed 72% of tagged adult males from the study area.

Dr Andrew Loveridge, one of the principal researchers on the project, said that “hunting predators on the boundaries of national parks such as Hwange causes significant disturbance and knock-on effects” such as infanticide when new males enter the prides.

Police are seeking the lion’s remains among the country’s taxidermists. The Spanish conservation organisation Chelui4lions has written to Cites de España, the body that oversees the import of endangered species, asking it to prevent the importing of Cecil’s head as a trophy.

“From 2007 to 2012 Spain was the country that imported the most lion trophies from South Africa. During this period it imported 450 heads, compared to 100 in Germany. Europe needs to ban these lion hunting trophies altogether,” said Luis Muñoz, a Chelui4lions spokesman.

“What hunter, what sort of demented person, would want to kill a magnificent adult lion, known to and photographed by all the park’s visitors?” Muñoz said. “We’re ashamed of the fact that in Spain there are rich madmen who pay for the pleasure of killing wild animals such as lions.”

Bryan Orford, a professional wildlife guide who has worked in Hwange and filmed Cecil many times, told National Geographic that the lion was the park’s “biggest tourist attraction”. Orford calculates that with tourists from just one nearby lodge collectively paying €8,000 per day, Zimbabwe would have brought in more in just five days by having Cecil’s photograph taken rather than being shot by someone paying a one-off fee of €50,000.

The incident, which occurred earlier this month and has only just come to light, has caused outrage in Zimbabwe, coming only days after the ZCTF revealed that 23 elephant calves had been separated from their herds in Hwange and exported to zoos in China and the United Arab Emirates. The Zimbabwean government insists the trade is legal and measures are in place to guarantee the animals’ wellbeing.

This article was amended on Sunday 26 July. An earlier version said Cecil had been wearing a GPS collar since 1999. It should have said that the GPS project has been running since 1999. A reference to elephant cubs has also been corrected to calves.

More than 95% of the lions killed by trophy hunters in South Africa are not wild, but ‘produced’ specifically for the purpose.

In an unprecedented move, the Professional Hunters’ Association of South Africa (PHASA) has been In an email sent to PHASA members on Friday, the organisation’s president, Hermann Meyeridricks, asked for a review of its policy on the matter ahead of its next annual general meeting.

More than 95% of the lions killed by trophy hunters in South Africa are not wild, but ‘produced’ specifically for the purpose. Some 6000 to 8000 lions are currently estimated to be held in captivity in between 150 and 200 breeding facilities, most of them in the North West Province and the Free State. The animals are released into relatively small camps as little as four days prior to being hunted.

While PHASA has traditionally supported the industry, a growing number of professional hunters have expressed their disapproval of its practices.

Meyeridricks’ letter comes in the wake of a stakeholder meeting called by the Minister of Environmental Affairs, Edna Molewa, to discuss the industry, and the release of a hard-hitting documentary on the issue, called ‘Blood Lions’ , which premiered to a standing ovation at the Durban International Film Festival last week.

He acknowledges that opposition to the hunting of bred lions is no longer confined 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” regardless of whether it is referred to as ‘captive-bred hunting’ or ‘canned hunting’.He notes that PHASA has made “little demonstrable progress” in getting government and predator breeders to “clean up” the country’s lucrative but controversial captive-bred lion hunting industry and “to improve its standards and conditions to a generally acceptable level”.told that its “position on lion hunting is no longer tenable”.