Hi guys
Thanks for your comments.
First, I know that George Adamson released Christian the lion, what, 50 years ago? But in South Africa, Conservation authorities would NEVER, EVER allow a captive-bred lion to be released in to any national or provincial game reserve, for genetic, veterinary and a host of other reasons. And this is why the lion breeders won their High Court case against the Minister for trying to regulate their activities. (mainly with the two-year wildling clause)
The Appeal Court held that since no captive-bred lion could ever be released, they had nothing to do with conservation and ergo the Minister for Conservation had no authority to regulate them. I can post some extracts from the judgment if anyone wants. Ie The Court in effect held that lion farming was an agricultural activity.
Which actually is correct as far as it goes.
Of course, when tourists and volunteers visit captive breeding centres, they are all deceitfully assured that they are 'assisting conservation, and that all the cubs will be 'released back to the wild.' What wild? Every blade of grass is fenced off in South Africa - this is not Tanzania.
And the volunteer agencies ALL deceitfully sell the product as 'conservation.' Somehow lion 'farming' is not so romantic as lion 'conservation.'

However, if people could be made more aware of the real state of
lion conservation, they wouldn't partake in these events without having a guily conscience.

There I think lies the problem Jan, normal caring people salve their conscience by ignoring the truth & will continue to do so to satisfy their own selfishness.

All know about global warming but very few do anything to alter their life styles.

Chris: I, for one, would love to see more details on how the SA government arrived at their decision. If you have a link you could share or even have information on your website you could point us to, I'd love to see it.

"Conservation authorities would NEVER, EVER allow a captive-bred lion to be released in to any national or provincial game reserve, for genetic, veterinary and a host of other reasons."

One would think that a captive bred lion would be healthier and free of disease than a wild one, so it is hard to understand the above decision. Genetically it might be a legitimate point because there might be inbreeding on the lion farms or overbreeding which could cause problems.

"The Appeal Court held that since no captive-bred lion could ever be released, they had nothing to do with conservation"

If they have nothing to do with conservation, then the farms should not be able to raise funds as an NGO. And, they should be made to tell the truth to the public - that none of the cubs will ever be allowed to roam free and will always remain in cages until a hunter comes along to shoot them.

About a year ago an orphaned injured cub was found in Tsavo, and the sad thing is that no-one in Kenya or surroundings is presently equipped to treat and raise cubs to return to the wild. Therefore, the cub now lives in a cage at Nairobi National Park which is very sad. Tony Fitzjohn, who worked with George Adamsom with the lions in Kora, is now at Mkomazi. I had heard that he was asked by KWS to help resuscitate Kora and I hoped that he might again start working with lions, but that turned out not to be true. They are just upgrading the park for all wildlife.

One other organization, Amara Consrvation Trust, tried rehabilitating three lions on Mugie ranch and did have partial success: http://www.amaraconservation.org/news/news_2006_Orphaned_Lion_Update.html.

With lion numbers dwindling at a fast pace due to hunting, natives poisoning them with Furadan and spearing them, and fast-disappearing space due to the human over-population, what CAN be done to help ensure the species?

Give me a couple of days to get the extracts from the judgment on to our cannedlion.org website and then we'll send you the URL. Meanwhile here is a summary I wrote in December 2010.
CANNED HUNTING – UPDATE AS AT DECEMBER 2010

Bloemfontein - The SA Predator Breeders' Association recently won a Supreme Court of Appeal case regarding the trophy hunting of captive lions - commonly called "canned hunting".
The Supreme Court held the Minister of Environmental Affairs, Mr Van Schalkwyk, did not take a "rational decision" when he determined that captive-bred lions had to fend for themselves in an extensive wildlife system for 24 month before they could be hunted.

There seems to be much misunderstanding in conservation circles about this judgment, so I am going to clarify it, and copy relevant extracts of the judgment below for interested people to read. In fact, the Supreme Court picked up on a point which we have made right from the beginning, namely, that the 24 month wilding rule was arbitrary and meaningless, having no conservation value. We maintained that it was nothing more than a pretence; viz: ‘if we can pretend that the lion is wild then we can all pretend that canned hunting has been banned.’ The Minister’s aim was to use this public relations gimmick to deflect public anger, and at the same time allow canned hunting to continue behind the false cloak of regulation. We described the Minister’s 24 month wilding rule at the time as ‘mischievous and misleading.’
The Supreme Court described it as ‘irrational,’ and we cannot fault this characterisation. The 24 month wilding rule was a publicity stunt which had no place in Conservation, and that is exactly what underlies the Supreme Court’s decision. See extracts from the judgment below, in italics.
This judgment, and the current unregulated free for all in captive lion breeding and canned hunting is the clearest indicator of the incompetence and dysfunctionality of SA conservation services. Look at the consequences of their mindless promotion and permitting of this awful industry. Wild lions will continue to be poached and captured from game reserves and neighbouring countries to supply fresh blood for the lion breeders, in order to combat captivity depression. The unnatural confinement of predators has the potential to breed pathogens such as feline AIDS which can devastate both captive and wild populations. The barbaric cruelty will increasingly drive away ethical tourism (our share of world tourism is still a miserable less than half of one per cent!) We get emails every day from outraged tourists who refuse to visit this country. And now the captive lion breeders are moving in to selling lion bones for the infamous Chinese traditional medicine market which has already emptied the forests of Asia of their tiger populations.
In short, thanks to the lack of foresight and intelligence in conservation structures, predators are becoming domesticated livestock – but un-protected by animal cruelty legislation. Imagine the outcry if farmers bred sheep and goats for hunters to shoot arrows in to? Our wildlife desperately needs protection from conservationists; with friends like the current crowd, the lions hardly need enemies.
What this Supreme Court decision reveals is that captive lion breeding has moved out of conservation, and in to agriculture. Lions have become alternative livestock. Our useless Conservationists have allowed the ‘wild’ to be taken out of our wildlife. Why do we waste taxpayers’ money on them?

Chris Mercer
Campaign Against Canned Hunting Inc
Wilderness, South Africa.

Please correct me if I am wrong but my impression of canned hunting was lions being kept in cages and fed by humans. When a hunter arrived from US, UK, Europe the "farmer" would open the cage and as the lion ran away the hunter would shoot it.

that the 24 month wilding rule was arbitrary and meaningless, having no conservation value.

I am having difficulty understanding the above. If the "farmer" were required to free the lions to large reserves where the lion at least stood a chance of finding wild game on their own, breeding, finding trees and bushes to hide under or trees to climb up in and hide, and having enough area to run free for 2 years before the hunters arrived, would it not make it a more even fight giving the lion the possibility of a chance of getting away from the hunters? If you have a 5-10 mile reserve, that would give the lions a far better chance wouldn't it?

We get emails every day from outraged tourists who refuse to visit this country.

I agree that I am one who refuses to go to South Africa or any of the southern African countries because of their support of hunting, canned hunting,culling and wanting to sell
their ivory. Believe me, Kenya certainly has its fair share of wildlife problems but at
least it is trying to make a difference. It still has a long way to go, but it is a start.

If lions have now become livestock, are there Dept. of Agriculture inspectors who regularly check these lion breeding farms for disease, neglect, etc? If they find problems, are the farmers properly punished?

In an ideal world, the government should put a complete stop to capture & hunting of all wildlife. However, if they did that, then you would have the lion breeders screaming thry would have to kill 5,000 lions to be able to comply with the law. How does the government react to that? Do they cave in to the lion breeders again? And if the 5,000 lions were euthanized, would it eventually help or hinder the real wild lions in the long run? And, without anti-hunting laws, would it not make it even worse for the real wild lions whose numbers are dwindling so very fast all over Africa?

So many questions Chris in trying to understand and arrive at a decision of what it truly the way to go on this. I do thank you for taking the time to help us better understand.

You are right that this is a complex issue where claims can be debated endlessly. There is much effort on our website to educate first world people on the issue: see for example http://www.cannedlion.org/content/CACH-news items like 'All Smoke and Mirrors.'

Your first point is whether the 24 month wilding rule would have brought some element of fair chase in to canned hunting. Actually, the opposite. The lions are not 'in the wild' merely in a larger fenced enclosure with a few unfortunate goats or springbok or other 'cheap' animals for them to kill at will. No escape for them from the lions in an enclosure of a few hundred hectares. Canned hunting by proxy, really.
The lions are given carcases from time to time at the same place, so that they are easily baited when the hunter arrives. The lions have no chance at all to escape the hunter - and it is this 100% success guarantee that attracts the canned hunter.
No system for inspections by agricultural officers exists, nor will it ever. Despite the Supreme Court judgment, lion farmers continue to function with permits from Conservation officials, which contain various conditions relating to eg always having drinking water available. These conditions are often flouted by cost-conscious lion farmers. As for prosecuting lion farmers for flouting permit conditions, I am not aware of a single such case myself. For example, we know of one lion farmer in Limpopo province, who decided that meat was too expensive so he put his lions onto a diet of processed pellets, like dog food. The lions' hair fell out and 93 of them died. He was not prosecuted.

Sport hunting will never be banned in South Africa. It is ingrained in the culture. And the hunting industry is very clever at selling fine-sounding but specious arguments to third world conservation structures. They very skilfully clothe their cunning falsehoods with authority. eg the IUCN, WWF or some other hunter-influenced international conservation org. Check out the claims made below:

DEBUNKING the hunters’ propaganda that hunting is conservation.

The evils of sport hunting are apparent to most decent people. Yet hunters have formidable accomplices in the United Nations Environment Program and pro-hunting groups within the IUCN. It was these groups who conceived the Dogma of Sustainable Use. What this establishes is that natural resources may legitimately be used, provided the use is ‘wise’ in the narrow sense of not being excessive. This doctrine makes sense when it is restricted to inanimate resources such as tin or copper. But including sentient beings within the scope of mere ‘resources’, which may be harvested, was far from wise, and probably closer to collective insanity. How could any sane person possibly lump gorillas, elephants and lions in with bacteria and then treat them as mere organisms?
South Africa has adopted the doctrine of Sustainable Use, and now believes that it is licensed by the IUCN and the United Nations to treat sentient beings as if they were bacteria.
What the public should know is that the IUCN is a pro hunting organisation founded by hunters. Although it has expanded considerably and now includes some animal welfare organisations, the IUCN is dominated by the pro-hunting lobby, and Animal Welfare organisations find it virtually impossible to get animal welfare issues onto the agenda. The IUCN is directly responsible for one of the cruellest and most destructive policies ever devised - the doctrine of ‘Sustainable Use’ - whereby sentient beings such as gorillas, elephants and lions etc are classified and treated as if they were bacteria.

IUCN CLAIM: Hunting is not to blame for the decline in lion numbers in Africa.

What? Such hypocrisy! Hunters wiped out the Continent’s wildlife in an orgy of reckless destruction, forcing the hunting industry to turn to captive breeding in order to maintain a constant supply of living targets. Now that new threats like habitat loss from poor land management have arisen, the IUCN uses these as a shield to deflect culpability away from the hunters. Trophy hunting is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

IUCN CLAIM: Hunting will help African governments deal with problem animals.

If the IUCN knew anything about livestock farming, it would know that there is no such thing as a problem animal; there are only problem people. Poor management in farming causes stock losses to predators. Bringing in hunters to kill predators merely reinforces poor management. If poor land use and land management is causing African farmers to kill lions, then surely the IUCN should be promoting better land use, not the killing of lions by hunters.

IUCN CLAIM: Trophy hunters can minimise the impact of hunting on the social lives of a pride of lions by targeting only older males.

This ‘expert’ paints the misleading picture of a geriatric pride male who should be removed in the interests of the pride. There is no such thing. Pride males are displaced by stronger competitors long before they can become geriatric. The truth is that trophy hunting causes stunting, and is both genetically and socially catastrophic.

IUCN CLAIM: Lions are a threat to rural humans in Africa, and hunters of lions help to protect people.

Once again, if poor land use and management is causing human-lion conflict, the solution is to fence off reserves effectively to remove the conflict - not to bring in hunters to act as the military wing of the livestock farming industry, and to further diminish lion numbers. That is not Conservation.

IUCN CLAIM: Trophy Hunting ‘generates benefits for poor people to build their support for lion conservation.’

This is merely a re-statement of the misleading old mantra ‘Give it a value and it will be preserved.’ The truth of course as we know from whaling and the ivory trade, is that if you give it a value, it will be ruthlessly exploited at any cost. That was the whole reason for the ivory ban - to protect elephants by removing their market value. And it worked.
Look at the IUCN’s logic. Game reserves were established to protect the wildlife from the slaughter of hunters. Now that African governments are not protecting their wilderness areas or their wildlife adequately, what is the IUCN’s remedy? Bring back the hunters! This is as absurd a standpoint as arguing that only whaling can save the whales. It is like putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank. Save them from whom? The solution is surely to assist African governments to improve their land use and management - not to hand over the remaining wilderness areas and wildlife to the tender mercies of the hunting industry.
Probably the most knowledgeable people on this subject are Dereck and Beverley Joubert, the award-wining wildlife documentary filmmakers, who have lived, studied, counted and filmed wildlife in Botswana for almost fourteen years. They describe the hunting industry as ‘ethically bankrupt’ telling, for example, of a male lion who was actually mating with a lioness when he was shot dead by a trophy hunter.
Professional hunting operations continue to shoot full quotas of animals over the years despite the obvious decline in the numbers. Between 1985 and 1992 - only seven short years - nearly 500 lions were lost to trophy hunters. The Jouberts estimated that in the area in which they lived and worked, almost every male lion was shot by trophy hunters. They observed the devastating effect on the pride and social harmony. The Jouberts began to observe an increase in single male prides, which indicated that the second pride male had been hunted. Some prides were even observed to be without a male for up to periods of four years.

It is now undisputed that trophy hunting detrimentally affects entire wildlife families in a variety of ways, not just the hunted individual. The IUCN should know this.

Our message to African Governments is this: Do not be deceived by this little propaganda exercise. Just like the tobacco industry, the hunting industry is obscenely wealthy and able to conceal its harmful activities behind a public relations facade. Kenya banned trophy hunting thirty years ago because it was a barbaric relic of colonialism and elitism. Follow the Kenyans. Stop perpetuating colonialism .