South Africa is embroiled in a heated national debate concerning its wildlife, particularly the breeding and sale of lions. This article delves into the controversial practices surrounding captive-bred lions and canned hunting in South Africa, shedding light on the ethical and conservation concerns raised by this industry.
Lion in the wild.
The Lion Landscape in South Africa
South Africa uniquely classifies lions into three categories: wild, managed wild, and captive-bred. While the country boasts approximately 3,000 wild lions, primarily in and around Kruger National Park and Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, there are also around a thousand managed lions in large fenced reserves. However, the most numerous are the captive-bred lions.
In 2019, the Department of Environmental Affairs reported over 6,000 lions in captive breeding facilities across the country. Author Michael Ashcroft estimates this number to be closer to 12,000. These lions are often genetically compromised through in-breeding and considered to have no conservation value by ecologists.
The Tragedy of Captive-Bred Lions
"Not only . . . [are these] the most populous variety of lion to be found in South Africa but, from the point of view of nature, they are also the most tragic. Ecologists believe they have no conservation merit whatsoever because they are highly likely to be genetically tarnished through in-breeding. Biologically useless they may be, but these cats have real value otherwise."
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Canned Hunting: A Repellent Practice
For approximately 30 years, the existence of canned hunting has been one of hunting’s worst-kept secrets. In South Africa, particularly in the North-West and Free State provinces, farms and safari companies offer "sportsmen" the opportunity to kill a non-wild lion in an enclosure for a fee. The enclosure may be as small as a good-size dog run. The lion may be malnourished, ill or sedated. If the “hunter” isn’t up to the job, there’s backup on hand.
This practice involves planting a non-wild lion in an enclosure and allowing hunters to kill it for a fee. These enclosures can be small, and the lions may be malnourished, ill, or even sedated. Canned hunting has drawn widespread criticism, particularly on social media, where images of hunters posing with butchered animals in enclosures spark outrage.
Image of canned lion hunting
The Bone Trade and Traditional Medicine
How South Africa Farmers And Hunters Deal With Millions Of Lions, Wild Boars And Invasive Species
Thousands of "canned" lions were sold to be shot every year in South Africa, at least until 2016, when a US ban on the import of trophies from captive-bred lions put a huge crimp in the business. Even after the ban, South Africa’s lion entrepreneurs carried on, though, raising and butchering lions for the less-lucrative but still valuable traditional-medicine market, mostly in China.
Chapter 5, “The Bone Trade,” digs into this in detail-lion-bone powder, wine, tea and cake. However, Asia’s traditional-medicine market prefers tigers to lions and will pay more for tiger. So, writes Ashcroft, some South African entrepreneurs not only raise tigers (non-native, of course) to be killed as trophies or processed for their parts, they also cross-breed tigers with lions.
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The “liger” offspring are genetic freaks that are bigger than both parents and produce more weight of valuable bone. China has banned commerce in tiger parts, which (as with rhino horns, elephant ivory, pangolin scales, etc.) has only driven up their value and gotten criminals involved.
Ethical Concerns and Conservation Impact
The welfare of farmed lions and the harm that the business does to the country’s reputation is of special interest. Unfair Game is the author’s input to the discussion; he is unequivocally and emphatically on the side of the lions.
Possibly the saddest element of South Africa’s commerce in captive-bred lions is that the breeders have figured out how to “monetize” even the cubs, by selling access to them to unwitting tourists. What are essentially petting zoos are promoted as lion rehab facilities, where the animals are allegedly prepared to be “re-wilded.” This is nonsense.
Readers may wonder, however: Leaving aside the charisma and cuddliness of lions, why is this industry different from those which utilize cattle, chickens, pigs, sheep, goats and so on? The reader also may wonder what separates the “hunting” of such lions from shooting pen-raised pheasants, partridges and ducks in Europe, whitetail deer in Texas, red stag in New Zealand and so on and so forth?
Leaving aside any environmental impact, the main difference appears to be oversight. In most of the world, commercial animal production (for meat, hides, medications, “sport,” etc.) is regulated.
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Operation Simba and Operation Chastise
Part I of Unfair Game lays out the nuts and bolts of the business-the what and why, with a good bit of who, where and when for good measure. Names are named; broken laws are enumerated. As the point wasn’t to bag a trophy but to expose the transaction, this occupied months of evasion and misdirection.
Operation Simba, with its names and photos, drew plenty of media attention in the UK. Ashcroft followed it up, in the spring of 2019, with another secret crusade of much wider scope dubbed Operation Chastise. The long and expensive campaign was plotted in a London club and then carried out in South Africa by ex-soldiers based in a rented safe house and using all the trappings of espionage-aliases and legends, vehicles rigged with hidden cameras, voice recorders and tracking devices, drones, body armor, helicopters, coded messages and more.
In December 2019, after a double-cross by a reluctant local participant, it became time to wind down Operation Chastise and pull out the team. The risks were becoming too serious. There was one last thing to do: Two of Ashcroft’s agents met with a Col. Johan Jooste, commander of the South African Police Service’s wildlife unit in Pretoria, to offer their dossier of evidence-names, dates, locations and the full narrative. And there it stands.
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