An estimated US$180-million is generated annually from the breeding of captive lions for hunting, cub petting, the lion bone trade and other commercial uses.The lion has no chance of escape. Hand-raised in captivity with no fear of humans, it is released into a fenced enclosure and sometimes drugged or lured by bait to make it an even easier target.
“There is a direct reputational risk from captive breeding, keeping, hunting and trade, for the broader photo-tourism and wild hunting market, and tourism to South Africa in general,” it said. Barbara Creecy, the South African minister of forestry, fisheries and the environment, said she has accepted the panel’s recommendation and asked her department “to action this accordingly and to ensure that the necessary consultation in implementation is conducted.”
South Africa’s largest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, said it was particularly important that the government is halting “the universally abhorrent export of lion bones” to Asian markets. But it cautioned that the captive lion industry could simply be replaced by the breeding of “ranched lions” – usually defined as semi-wild lions in larger enclosed areas.
Foreign tourists are often unwitting participants in the industry by paying for cub-petting opportunities with lion cubs that have been removed from their mothers. Foreign volunteers, who are told that the cubs are orphaned or rescued, are sometimes recruited by breeding farms to help raise the cubs.After the age of two, the young lions lose their tourism value and are then often killed by trophy hunters or slaughtered for the lion-bone trade, the Four Paws report said.
EVIL HUNTERS ARE MOSTLY WHITE PEOPLE.