Lion bone trade sparks fears for wild cats’ survival
Demand for substance used in Asian medicine could lead to widespread poaching
PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA— On a recent sunny morning, South African customs official Hugo Taljaard displays the illicit substances he uses to train his sniffer dogs: little packets of marijuana and cocaine and a mossy brown rhino horn, valued in Asia for its purported medicinal benefits.
But Taljaard has had to add something new to the collection — two cream-coloured lion vertebrae, each roughly the size of a hockey puck.
“We don’t want to be caught off guard,” said the 51-year-old Taljaard, speaking at his training facility outside Pretoria.
While the untimely death of Cecil the lion is dominating headlines, conservationists say the anger toward hunting is misplaced.
“Illegal killing and poaching of lions are occurring at a massive scale, which are contributing at a far greater extent to the current devastating decline of the species,” said Susie Sheppard, media director for Panthera, a coalition of cat academics dedicated to conservation.
Poaching of lions, sometimes inadvertently in wire snares set for their prey and increasingly specifically for their body parts to feed an insatiable demand in Asia, occurs throughout the continent.
On Saturday, Zimbabwean wildlife authorities said they had suspended the hunting of lions, leopards and elephants in an area favoured by hunters following the killing of Cecil. Hunts by bow and arrow are suspended also, unless approved by the authority.
As authorities in China crack down on illegal tiger products from Asia, wildlife vendors are turning to Africa to replenish their stocks of big-cat bones.
In 2008, South Africa issued export permits for 50 lion skeletons, reported wildlife organization Traffic last month. In 2011, the country granted permits for 573 lion skeletons — a 90-per-cent spike.
Unlike rhino horn, the trade in lion bones is legal. South Africa issues CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) permits to businesses that export the bones, the end product of a long chain that usually begins with hunting captive-bred lions.
In 2013, 39 CITES permits representing more than 500 kilograms of lion bones were issued: enough, according to South Africa’s environment officials, to satiate the market and keep wild lions safe.
“There has not been any poaching of wild lions in South Africa,” said Albi Modise, chief director of communications at the ministry of the environment. “Most lion bones exported from South Africa are from captive breeding farms; thus, there is no impact on wild populations.”
However, not all countries have such large captive-bred lion populations as South Africa, where an estimated 68 per cent of 9,000 lions live in captivity, forcing people elsewhere on the continent who want to cash in on the lucrative trade to poach wild cats.
There are fears that “the appetite for lion bones has grown so great that it may stoke trade from other African countries,” said a recent article in Nature, an academic journal. “Many do not have extensive captive lion populations, so wild cats might be put at risk.”
Already some activists are reporting that lion poaching is on the rise.
“What people don’t realize is that lions are becoming an increasing part of this illegal trade,” said Pieter Kat, a spokesman for LionAid, an advocacy organization based in the United Kingdom that monitors lions in Africa. “What we’re seeing for the first time is actually lion poaching, just for their bones.”
Lion bones, which can fetch up to $2,100 U.S. for a full skeleton with skull, are used in East Asia as a substitute ingredient for tiger bones in “tiger wine,” a drink that supposedly cures such woes as rheumatism and arthritis.
Though South Africa is in the process of making its first lion management plan, it’s unlikely that the lion bone trade will end any time soon, given the profitability of lion hunting.
Hunters pay at least $22,000 to hunt a lion, said Adri Kitshoff, chief executive of the Professional Hunters Association of South Africa, who believes in the current lion bone system.
“Lion bones are a byproduct of the hunt, but they are not the reason of the hunt,” Kitshoff said. “If hunting were to stop, then yes, there is definitely a reason to poach.”
Taljaard hopes that lion bones don’t become as popular as rhino horn, but he isn’t taking any chances. In the field, a three-year-old black-and-white border collie is being trained to become an “endangered species” sniffer dog, able to sniff out rhino horn, abalone (a sea snail eaten as a delicacy) and now lion bones.
“We need to be ahead of the curve,” Taljaard said.