At a lion breeding ranch in central South Africa, 23 cubs have been crammed into a small space, not a tuft of grass in sight and only an old tyre to play with.
“We take them from their mothers at birth,” says one of their caretakers at Moreson’s Ranch, one of about 170 farms raising lions for viewing, petting and – eventually – hunting.
“It is very difficult to get the cubs away from the lionesses. We sometimes scare the mothers away by honking car horns,” another employee says.
Cubs snuggle up to each other in a compound measuring about 150 square metres, as if seeking maternal warmth.
Dozens of tourists pick them up daily despite their attempts to bite and scratch those holding them up in front of cameras.
The cubs are given cow milk and later survive mainly on chicken instead of red meat, as do the approximately 30 older lions at the ranch – a diet that lions’ rights activists say leaves them with weak bones and prone to diseases.
The management did not respond to a request for a comment.
When lions bred at such farms are fully grown, they are often sold to hunting ranches, where they are shot dead by tourists in a confined space with nowhere to escape, according to activists.
Some of the breeding farms also organize hunts themselves.
“The lions are used to humans, so they are not afraid, says Linda Park from Campaign Against Canned Hunting. “They are starved and when they see the vehicle carrying the hunter coming, they think it is bringing food.”
This so-called “canned” hunt, which carries no risk for the hunter, can be over in a matter of hours.
The petting industry recruits about 2,500 lion cubs annually, according to Park, while the size of the canned hunting industry – which is also believed to include leopards – is not known.
Nearly 600 lions were killed by trophy hunters in 2012, according to the Professional Hunters’ Association of South Africa (PHASA). Activists say most of the hunts are canned hunts, while hunters’ and breeders’ representatives say the practice is rare.
“We oppose canned hunting and would report any such incident to police,” PHASA president Hermann Meyeridricks says.
He wants to dissociate canned hunting from South Africa’s 1.1-billion-rand (95-million-dollar) ethical trophy hunting industry, which staged 7,638 hunts in 2013. Nearly 90 per cent of the hunters come from the United States.
About 30 species are hunted on private land or provincial nature reserves, including antelopes, buffaloes, zebras and elephants. One of the most expensive animals to hunt is the lion, which costs about 20,000 dollars.
“An ethical trophy hunt involves stalking the animal on foot in extensive wildlife systems and a typical safari could last up to two weeks,” Meyeridricks says.
Legally speaking, canned represents a grey area. Existing legislation says the lion may not be under the influence of a tranquilizer and that it must be hunted in an “extensive wildlife area” rather than a “controlled environment.”
The law does not require each lion hunt to be supervised by provincial officials, as “they would lack the necessary capacity to do so,” admits Magdel Boshoff, acting director for threatened species at the Department of Environmental Affairs.
“Members of our association do not break rules. But official control is ineffective or absent,” says Pieter Potgieter, chairman of the South African Predator Breeders’ Association.
It is illegal, for instance, to shoot an animal from a vehicle, but a dpa journalist was offered a chance to do that while visiting the Vrede area.
Lion farms and cub petting, meanwhile, are legal. “The environment minister can only prohibit activities which have a negative impact on the survival of lions as a species,” Boshoff says. South Africa classifies the lion as a vulnerable, but not as an endangered species.
Breeders argue that hunting captive-bred lions protects wild lions from hunters. But breeding has not prevented South Africa’s wild lion population from declining by 80 per cent in 20 years to about 3,000, says Fiona Miles from the big cat sanctuary Lion’s Rock.
The country now has twice as many lions in breeding facilities as in the wild.
Hunters usually take the lion’s skin home as a trophy. Activists say canned hunting ranches also sell lion bones for use in Asian traditional medicine for thousands of dollars, thus fuelling the trade and encouraging poaching.
“We are aware of the concern” about the welfare of lions, Boshoff says, adding that her department intends to collaborate with the Department of Agriculture to develop measures to better protect them.
But banning breeding will not be easy, she says. “Breeding facilities would have to close and hundreds of jobs would be lost. The fate of the lions in those facilities would also have to be considered.”
GNA
