PETITION: TELL THE SOUTH AFRICAN GOVERNMENT TO BAN THE EXPORT AND SALE OF WILD ANIMALS TO OVERSEAS AND LOCAL ZOOS, CIRCUSES, 'SAFARI PARKS', CAPTIVE BREEDING OPERATIONS, ELEPHANT BACK SAFARIS AND FOR ENTERTAINMENT.

THE LAW IS FAILING WILD ANIMALS

Help Animal Rights Africa to put an end to the export and sale of South African wild animals to zoos, circuses and "safari parks" both locally and internationally.

South Africa: Africa's biggest wild-life trader
The wildlife trade is one of the greatest threats faced by animals around the world. We are consuming wildlife for fashion, traditional medicine, souvenirs, trophy hunting, and bushmeat. We have commodified wildlife to the extent that an ideology has developed that wildlife can only remain if it "pays its way" - otherwise it is superfluous. The long-term implications of such an ideology are frightening. The international trade in wildlife does not solve poverty nor does it benefit biodiversity, individual specieis or individual animals.

South Africa is Africa's biggest wild-life trader and its market is booming. The trade in wild animals is a story of cruelty and environmental devastation in which wild animals are no longer individual creatures but just a mass of commodities. The trade in wild animals and plants is huge and lucrative and rapidly growing. Trade in mammals, birds and reptiles from South Africa has grown dramatically since the early 1990s.Profit-motivated animal dealers and middlemen and a seemingly bottomless market drive this trade, which hides behind the vague and cruel concept of 'sustainable use' to pursue its short-sighted agenda.

No to Zoos, Circuses and 'Safari Parks'
Worldwide there are probably more than 10,000 zoos, with hundreds of thousands of animals held captive. Zoos and circuses are a relic of a bygone age – an unpalatable, imperialistic and Victorian concept.

Little more than a hundred years ago, the travelling circus revived part of this humiliating spectacle. Today we see the lions cowed before their 'tamers', and performing elephants and bears reduced to caricatures. The animal circus is an anachronistic relic of the past. It seems hard to believe that we have entered this new millennium with animal circuses still touring.

Space in zoos rarely, if ever, matches the animals' natural range. Animals who would naturally roam for tens of miles a day tread the same few paces daily. Some of the fastest animals on earth live in pens so small that they could not gather pace to a trot, let alone full speed. Lions and other big cats have 18,000 times less space in zoos than in the wild. For fifteen hours a day, many animals may be shut away in their night quarters with even less room to move. No zoo, no matter how rich, can begin to duplicate wild animals' natural habitat. Stressful and unnatural conditions such as boredom, loneliness, malnutrition, lack of exercise and persistent health problems are the order of the day in zoos. Seventy per cent of the elephants currently in European zoos are wild caught.

Another problem associated with zoos is the captive breeding of endangered animals. Turning captive-bred animals into commodities hurts all protection efforts because it keeps a price on the head of endangered animals. This encourages corruption and the illegal trade and undermines educational efforts to build respect for animals. Animals that are critically endangered and face genocide in the wild are plentiful in zoos, menageries, circuses and 'safari parks' around the world but they cannot be reintroduced into the wild. Denied access to their natural habitat these animals become marginalised from their wild nature and begin to lose access to the mentalities and behaviours which would have been appropriate there. Such animals have a status akin to that of refugees. They are in enforced exile, but a false one at that because realistically there is no "home" to return to.

Since the 1970s, zoos have declared thousands of lions, tigers, bears and other creatures "surplus" because of over-breeding, inadequate funding or simply because the animals failed to wow visitors as they once did. Some zoos have sold the animals to brokers, who funnel them to breeders, hunters, research facilities, circuses, auctions or individuals looking for the latest exotic pet. And in recent years the Internet has brought the industry in from the wild -- and right into the living room. With a click of a mouse, one can buy a camel, white tiger, chimpanzee, penguin and any other animal or reptile.

ACT NOW
Sign the petition!
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/BanExportOfWildAnimals/

Write letters to Minister Van Schalkwyk and urge the South Africa government to ban the export and sale of South African wild animals to zoos, circuses and "safari parks" both locally and internationally.
Please fax your letters to: +27 (0)21 465 3216 or
Email to: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Article at:  http://www.animalrightsafrica.org/Petition_BanWildAnimalExports.php