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Don Pinnock, who wrote the article, certainly isn't the sharpest tool in the shed. In the past, he has allowed his emotions to get the better of him and took personal swipes at some of those who disagreed with him. He's a rabid anti-hunter as well, so he will rejoice at anything that limits or bans hunting in any form.

Having said that, the end of canned lion shooting in South Africa is a very good thing, in my opinion. It is a horrible business that made money for a few lion breeders, outfitters, and booking agents, but that's about it. The whole CBL lion saga didn't make any contribution to biodiversity, nor did it ever contribute in any meaningful way to lion conservation in Africa. Contrary to what some in the pro-CBL industry claim, the practise also didn't "save" a single wild lion in any of the concession areas, nature reserves, or national parks where they still occur in Africa.

Can a lion born into captivity be dangerous to hunt? Sure. Does this somehow make the whole practise and all the sub-industries that popped up along with the shooting side of things (such as breeding lions in camps and small enclosures, selling lion bones, and creating lion cub petting zoos for ignorant tourists) right? Not in my view. The whole CBL saga was/is the biggest black eye that South Africa's hunting industry ever suffered, even bigger than the so-called colour variant nonsense. The sooner it ends, the better, in my opinion.

A good friend of mine went on a lion "hunt" in South Africa five years ago. The story he was told beforehand was just about the fanciest piece of fiction ever devised. He was told that the lion in question, an adult lioness, had swam through a river from a neighbouring country, somehow managed to cross a 100 km's of very settled, mainly agricultural land (I know the area well, having grown up not very far from there) without catching a single donkey, cow, or goat, and taken up residence on a particular farm where it suddenly developed a taste for game meat. My mate therefore had to do his bit to "save" the wildlife on the farm by shooting the lioness. At the time, my friend didn't know any better, but the whole thing made my stomach turn.

Another person I know went on a lion hunt in South Africa's Kalahari desert. On the first day, metres from the truck, he shot a fully-maned male lion that looked better than the MGM lion. Afterwards, he claimed that the hunt and adventure was "just the same" as if it had been guided by a very well-known Zimbabwean PH of many years' standing in a prime concession area. Really?! He even went further by allowing a certain magazine to publish a fanciful version of the hunt, along with the necessary embellishment. Yes, the outfitter took out a full-page ad in that edition of the magazine, so at least the magazine got something out of the shoot!

There are many such stories out there, and plenty of terrible examples on platforms like Youtube where the whole captive-bred lion saga is depicted in gory detail. I find them too terrible to watch.

Please feel free to disagree.

Edited by jvw (18/10/23 05:38 PM)