SA, say wildlife experts

“The Romans had no way of dealing with wild animals, so it was decided that they were res nullius – they didn’t belong to anybody, and only the state had the right to issue their ownership through a permit system.”

Rules and restrictions in SA

Regulations pertaining to exotic big cats differ by province. Douglas Wolhuter, manager of the wildlife protection unit at the National Council of Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, explains: “Some provinces require permits. In the Western Cape, for example, getting hold of a tiger to keep as a pet would be damn near impossible.

“You’d have to have a permit to bring the animal into the province and there are strict rules and policies and regulations which organisations such as Panthera have to adhere to in terms of keeping these animals.”

However, says Wolhuter, no permit is required to own exotic animals in Gauteng, North West, Mpumalanga and Limpopo, so one could keep a non-indigenous apex predator in an agricultural zone without any paperwork.

The Northern Cape, Eastern Cape, Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Free State all require permits for the import, export and transport of exotic animals, as well as for possessing and keeping them.

In the Western Cape, a Wild Animal Captivity Permit also needs to be issued by CapeNature. All nine provinces require an owner to provide the safe enclosure of exotic animals.

But Smuts says the legislation is not properly enforced and many of the regulations are not formalised, so the guidelines, for example on what constitutes safe enclosure, are vague. “If you want to buy an exotic tiger, for instance, you’d buy it from a person [who] is lawfully the owner of that animal, and that’s usually one of the breeding farms.

“Whether you’d require permits, and which kinds, would then be stipulated by virtue of your provincial ordinance, not the Biodiversity Act. So the province would then say you can hold the animal provided you have safe enclosure for it…

“That safe enclosure may be your lounge – it could be anything as arbitrary as that. It’s more a public safety issue than biodiversity. Exotic big cats are regulated because they are dangerous animals.

“Of course, you would also be subject to the Animal Protection Act, which states that the animal must be well cared for, but those legislations are extremely poorly implemented and that’s why you get all these tigers walking around. The ethics surrounding people [who] hold these animals in various facilities are highly questionable.”

An important gauge of strictness for any regulation is the severity of the repercussions for contravening it. The Animal Protection Act, which was last amended in 1998, deals with animal cruelty generally and caps the penalty for offences stipulated in the document at R4,000 or imprisonment of up to 12 months. Over and above that, penalties regarding exotic animals depend on the province in which the crime was committed.

In contrast, in terms of indigenous animals such as lions, the National Environmental Management Laws Amendment Act 2 of 2022 states that those found guilty of restricted activities such as breeding, hunting and export will incur an administrative fine of up to R10-million, imprisonment, or both.

Argument for tighter regulations

Smuts thinks there are two primary reasons why people want better regulations. “First, we don’t believe there’s any conservation merits in retaining these species in captivity. There’s no benefit to conservation to have a tiger in captivity in South Africa. Zero. Second, many people disagree ethically with allowing animals to live unnatural, cruel lives in captivity.”

From both a legal and ethical perspective, Wolhuter adds: “We believe there has to be much stronger regulation for the animals themselves from an animal welfare perspective, in terms of the conditions [in which] they are being kept from the angle of the Animal Protection Act.” Additionally, there is the risk that improperly kept big cats pose to people. After all, they are powerful carnivorous animals that survive by killing other animals for their meat.

Just this year, a few tigers have gone on escapades through Johannesburg. One was put down after attacking a man and killing several animals; another was spotted across the road from Toddlers Corner nursery school in Edenvale.

A lion was also spotted in Gauteng close to the border with North West and was still on the loose at the time of publication.

These escapes also bring human rights into the discussion because such powerful predators can pose a huge safety risk to nearby communities.

Smuts’s opinion is that the government has resisted stronger enforcement because of how much money is involved in the industry.

“The very big problem here is that we as a society want to commoditise absolutely everything, and at the buyers’ end, people don’t necessarily distinguish whether the rhino horn or tiger claw is from a poached or farmed animal.

“It’s almost impossible to know whether the commodity is coming from the so-called legal trade as opposed to the illegal trade. So, the very existence of trade provides the opportunity for illegal trade to enter. It exists because of the massive flow of money,” says Smuts.

“The South African state has sold their souls to what they call ‘sustainable utilisation’, which we [Landmark Foundation] believe should rather be called the sustained abuse of wildlife.

“What value does a black mamba have to the state, for example? Any animal that hasn’t been commoditised is devalued in the system. That’s the anathema of what biodiversity is. There’s a big lobby and, you know, the president himself is a bloody game trader. So it’s completely driven by money.”

In 2020, the wildly popular Netflix docuseries Tiger King gave the big cat trade more global exposure than ever before. It has resulted in the US Senate recently passing the Big Cat Public Safety Act, which prohibits owning big cats as well as any public contact with them.

The question for South Africa is why we have not yet followed suit.DM168

We don’t believe there’s any conservation merits in retaining these species in captivity. There’s no benefit to conservation to have a tiger in captivity in

South Africa. Zero