Quote: I personally know and have seen the full mounts of lions that were yarded into their cages at a now defunct Lion Park.. a tourist drive-through venture that was on the outskirts of a major Aus city.
They were shot through the wire and as above were full mounted....hmmmmm that dosent carry much weight in the bragging rights field either.
Bullens Lion Park outside of Adelaide. They were purchased mainly by taxidermists for re-sale. But NOT as hunting trophies, merely natural history exhibits/decorations. There is a difference.
There is nothing wrong with owning natural history items, nor even trophies shot by other hunters. Not everything is about "bragging rights".
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I'm of two minds on this issue.
1. Hunting any animal in small pens is not hunting. It is shooting a tame animal in a cage where it has no real chance of escape. Same for captive breeding programmes. If intensively bred it is no longer a wild animal. No matter if it is in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand (very common), USA etc. Any animal bred in an antelope/deer/lion farm etc needs several years before truer wild instincts take old. Most however would be "hunted" the same year as release, if not the same week in many circumstances.
Lion being a peak predator makes the practice even worse. There is a reason they are one of the "Big Five". And it is not from being shot in a cage.
The only "lion hunting area" I have seen in South Africa was a 200 acre very high fenced bit of bush. It made me sick to look at it. I am not saying however that there are no larger "enclosures" where more "free chase" conditions are not in existence, however never seen them.
As has been pointed out, lions need a large game population to prey upon. The price to maintain a large game population for several years would make it more costly than a wild lion trophy. As an example when visiting India and a tiger park, I estimated it took the 100,000 to 250,000 deer and antelope population in the park to maintain what was claimed as the tiger population considering how often they needed to feed - about 500 tigers. Lions would no doubt have similar feeding requirements.
2. On the other hand, lions in the wild are becoming more scarcer and even endangered. Probably more due to human encroachment and human competition for resources than safari hunting.
If lions can be maintained and financed through captive breeding programmes and "caged hunting" then it is a positive and gives a resource for future releases to the wild if it is ever possible. An "Ark" resource of the species if it is threatened in the wild. And all self financed by the caged lion shooters.
2.b. While greenies and other loonies decry the practice as barbaric and evil, they hate all hunting. When "caged lion hunting" is no more they will just turn to the next target. No doubt all the caged plains game hunting that goes on in South Africa. No real difference except the "prestige" of the animal.
So on balance even though I detest "caged hunting" of any kind, I think it the lion population held in the breeding and "hunting" pens is eliminated we have progressed well on the way to no lion hunting one day, and also towards destruction of the species.
-------------------- John aka NitroX
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Govt get out of our lives NOW!
"I love the smell of cordite in the morning."
"A Sharp spear needs no polish"