SA’s plan to export 800 lion skeletons ‘misguided, shameful’

IN A move clearly supporting the canned lion-hunting industry, the South African government plans to permit the annual export of 800 lion skeletons to manufacturers of fake tiger wine.

This lifeline to an increasingly discredited hunting practice follows a US ban on the import of hunting trophies from South Africa.

The move has come under fire from a wide array of local and international environmental organisations and follows an ongoing controversy about South Africa’s lion breeding industry, which promotes cub petting, lion walks, canned lion hunting and the supply of lion body parts.

The Africa director for the Humane Society International, Audrey Delsink, said: “The decision is misguided and shameful. Breeding captive lions is not only cruel and contrary to the global shift against captive wildlife, but a potential threat to wild lions.”

According to Pippa Hankinson, the producer of the film Blood Lions, the quota appears to lack the requisite scientific basis and was arrived at without consideration of proper welfare or conservation protocols. There was no formal document to support how the quota of 800 skeletons was arrived at or how it would be enforced.

In 2015, the Professional Hunters’ Association of South African (Phasa) passed a motion dissociating itself from the captive-bred lion industry “until such a time that the industry can convince Phasa and the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) that the practice is beneficial to lion conservation.”

Last year, the IUCN adopted a motion to terminate the hunting of captive-bred lions and other predators and captive breeding for commercial, non-conservation purpose.

The Department of Environmental Affairs made the 800-skeleton decision without public consultation but was forced to hold a stakeholder meeting this week as a result of Cites quota conditions. The DEA agreed to appoint a research group to monitor the exports.

There are between 6 000 and 8 000 captive-bred lions in South Africa, over twice the number of wild lions. An estimated 1 200 skeletons a year are currently being exported, so 800 would mean a reduction, but represents tacit support for captive lion breeding.

Captive-bred lions are something of a legislative black hole. The government’s 2015 Biodiversity Management Plan mentions captive-bred lions only in passing, saying “there is intense controversy over the merits and ethics of the captive breeding and subsequent release for hunting of captive-bred lions, although it remains legal to do so”.

A Cites report notes that trade is fine “if the relevant authorities are satisfied that certain conditions are met, above all that trade will not be detrimental to the survival of the species in the wild”.

In dealing with the impact of captive-bred lions on wild breeding stock, these reports ignore ethical issues. There are also questions about whether the quota could be policed.

According to Kelly Marnewick of the Endangered Wildlife Trust, because the US no longer allows the importation of captive trophies, there has been a shift to bone trade.

“They’re reporting a decrease of 320 lion hunts and a loss of 660 jobs and are supporting an offtake of 1 600 animals a year.

“The DEA’s support for the lion bone trade is obvious. They do not seem to be concerned that they will grow demand. In fact they said demand was based on thousands of years of (Asian) culture and there was nothing we could do about it. This position is astonishing, particularly given all the international efforts to reduce demand.

“This leads one to question whose agenda it is in our government to grow and support this unscrupulous and corrupt industry. And who is benefiting?”