Cape Town – As the Easter long weekend approaches, the internationally acclaimed animal conservation-activist group Blood Lions has launched a hard-hitting campaign to get children to say ‘no’ to lion cub petting.

The #AprilAwareness campaign, as it’s called, says that it is usually during the school holidays that “the number of visitors to facilities that offer cub petting and walking with lions increases”.

“All of these activities could be contributing to the canned hunting, captive breeding and lion bone trade industries,” the campaign reads.

YouthForLions is a youth-focused project created by BloodLions.

The movement urges children, especially, to join the movement and “help us spread the message that posing with wild animals is just NOT COOL”.

READ: Con or conservation: 6 Critical questions to ask about wildlife sanctuaries

In doing so, YouthForLions hopes to instill in the new generation a different, conservation-minded and sustainable mindset in the human – wildlife relationship.

How to get involved

If you’d like to show your support, you can download the specially-designed image, created by PatrickGeorge, from the YouthForLions social media streams and change your profile picture using the image.

YouthForLions also asks followers to share the post in a bid to “be the voice for lions and say NO to wildlife interaction”.

You can join the YouthForLions drive here – http://bit.ly/2oH7w4C