This is an excerpt from an article written by Shannon Ebrahim and published online by IOL and several other publications on 07 May, 2021

Four winters ago my family and I were in the Kruger National Park, mesmerized by the sighting of five black maned male lions lying in wait on a sandy bank overlooking the Crocodile River.

There they were – Africa’s Apex predator in all their glory, and nothing could compare with coming so close to such majestic beasts. That day in the Kruger store we found a CD called Blood Lions, which piqued my curiosity, only to be horrified by the story it told.

The renowned conservationist and Director of Blood Lions Ian Michler narrated the award winning documentary film which exposed the horrors that captive bred lions endure on farms across South Africa – lions just like the ones we had just seen, which are bred for the bullet.

At the time, wealthy foreigners were paying up to US$50,000 to shoot a lion on a farm, in circumstances that resembled more target practice than an actual hunt.