Grim ‘Blood Lions’ documentary well worth watching again
Film more relevant than ever amid release of scathing report on unethical captive breeding of species
The significance of environment, forestry & fisheries minister Barbara Creecy’s recommendation this week that captive lion breeding should be banned will not be lost on anyone, least of those who have campaigned for an end to canned lion hunting.
For the best part of a decade, activists have decried SA’s lax environmental laws which have allowed the practice to continue more or less unchecked.
They have also taken issue with the highly controversial lion bone trade to the East, where skeletal remains are used in traditional medicines or turned into trinkets.
A report released by Creecy, which came after two years of investigations and deliberations, found that captive lion breeding did not contribute to conservation and damaged SA’s reputation abroad.
The minister, however, stressed that the recommendations were not aimed at the hunting industry, which created jobs and brought foreign currency into the country.
Among the first to welcome her recommendation was the lion welfare group Blood Lions, which stated it was “extremely happy” with the findings of the report.
The group was born out of the 2015 film of the same name, and has been instrumental in advocating for change in government policy to protect the animals.
Blood Lions is still available to watch on both Showmax and Netflix, and is definitely worth revisiting if you’ve seen it before.
It’s also a must-see for first-timers wanting to learn more about the topic.
These days, there is a tendency to display “trigger warnings” on content that may upset sensitive viewers, but in certain instances that might do a disservice to those wanting to put an important message across to the public.
In the newspaper game, there is an old saying about not putting material on the front page that would cause readers to purge their cornflakes, but there are times when there is no option but to shake people out of their comfort zones by showing what is really happening, no matter how disquieting it may be.
For example, until world media showed disturbing images of India’s parking lot funeral pyres, not nearly as many people would have cared or even known about that country’s coronavirus crisis.
Likewise, the barbarity of animal cruelty needs to be exposed as candidly as possible.
This was the approach taken by directors Bruce Young and Nick Chevaller, and producers Pippa Hankinson and Jeremy Nathan, when they made Blood Lions, and it is as effective as it is shocking.
Using the insights of environmental journalist Ian Michler and American hunter Rick
Swazey as a base, they uncover the rot that exists in the canned lion industry by journeying to properties where captive-bred lions can be picked off for a price.
Several pieces of footage stand out for the sheer callousness of humans in their treatment of the big cats.
In one sequence, a lion is casually enjoying its meal in the shade of a tree when it is shot six times from a short distance away.
The animal’s reaction chills the spine, especially when presented in slow motion.
The lion thrashes around as though electrocuted.
It then appears to regain its composure before the next bullet penetrates its flesh, causing it to stagger a few metres.
More bullets rip through it, until it lies in a tragic heap, its corpse serving no purpose other than to be dissected and its head mounted on a wall in some faraway land.
Another telling segment looks at the attitudes of those paying top dollar to shoot lions.
An award-winning American hunter Leon Munyan argues that those of his ilk are actually at the forefront of lion conservation efforts.
“Commercially bred lions take the pressure off wild lion herds in the ever-decreasing habitat that they have.
“It also encourages the ranch owners to breed the lions,” he says.
“The situation is if an animal does not have an economic value, the rancher is not going to grow it ... this is conservation because if it wasn’t for the hunter that lion wouldn’t be there.
“He never would have been bred.” When it is pointed out to Munyan that the lion would inevitably die anyway because it was being hunted, he responds: “But at least it has a purpose in life.”
The corresponding photographs of beaming hunters standing next to or over their kills do not seem to suggest conservation was high on the agenda when the lives of these animals were taken.
“Yeah, I’m an animal lover. I love animals. We have four dogs,” Munyan quips.
Blood Lions runs for 1hr 25 min.