When the award winning Blood Lions® feature documentary premiered in 2015, the Blood Lions Campaign was also launched to create global awareness around the captive predator breeding, canned hunting and lion bone industries, as well as the various spin-off activities such as cub petting, walking with lions and voluntourism. The ultimate campaign goal is to bring an end to the commercial captive breeding and keeping of lions and other predators in South Africa.

We encourage YOU, viewers of the Blood Lions® film, visitors to Africa and followers on social media to make responsible choices about visiting or supporting captive wildlife facilities and activities. Through awareness and by reducing demand for tourism products offering interaction with captive wildlife, the campaign aims to bring an end to the exploitation of captive-bred wild animals.

The Blood Lions campaign is anchored not only by the Blood Lions® film, but also through a strong and active digital media platform, scientific research, and various specific campaigns with key international partners.

#ThinkBeforeYouGo

One of our latest campaigns, the #ThinkBeforeYouGo campaign, took us back to basics and focused on the exploitation of captive wildlife and promoting the #KeepItWild concept. Through the campaign, we unravelled the SATSA Guidelines and Decision-Making Tool, which are highly relevant and useful tools to help you make more objective and ethical choices when visiting captive wildlife facilities.

The Guide identifies five groups of captive wildlife activities to AVOID:

1. Performing animals
2. Tactile interactions with infant wildlife
3. Walking with predators or elephants
4. Tactile interactions with predators and cetaceans
5. Riding of wild animals

Campaign Progress

The Blood Lions team have already made significant progress since filming and producing Blood Lions®, the first feature documentary to look at all aspects of predator breeding in South Africa:

1. The film has been viewed around the world and accepted into various film festivals globally.
2. Our website has become a global platform to raise awareness around the issues as well as acting as a coordinated call for action.
3. We have assembled a coalition of parliamentary, conservation, tourism and scientific NGO’s and other organizations against the practices.
4. We have undertaken to be partners for change with various Ministries in the South African government.

For a full list of campaign successes, please visit the Blood Lions Annual Reports page.