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Africa : South Africa: South Africa Weighs Fate of 3,000 Captive Lions After Hunt Ban
on 2009/9/7 6:10:19
By Mike Cohen

South Africa’s government said it is assessing what should be done with at least 3,000 captive lions after a June court ruling that effectively ended the so-called canned hunting industry.

On June 12, the High Court in Bloemfontein upheld legislation that requires the big cats to roam free on ranches for two years before being hunted. Until the ruling, ranch owners had either bred or acquired lions reared in captivity before having them hunted for a fee on their property.

The South African Predator Breeders Association has warned that the judgment may shut an industry that employs 5,000 people because farmers can’t afford to keep lions on their estates for long periods of time due to the cost of the antelopes they would eat. It also argued that the lions may need to be euthanized as the legislation reduced their commercial value.

Canned hunting is “a reprehensible practice and the judgment will ensure that this practice will indeed come to an end,” the Department of Environmental Affairs said in a written response to questions in Parliament in Cape Town today. A study on the captive breeding of lions “is expected soon. The department cannot speculate on the fate of the lions.”

The study found about 2,196 lions living in captivity in the North West province, the center of the hunting industry, and another 800 in the central Free State province. Data from the country’s other seven provinces is still being collated.

Six Tons of Meat

Most lion hunting is done by foreign tourists, who on average pay about $22,000 to shoot one of the cats. A further $18,000 is generated in the form of safari costs and the price of having a lion stuffed for shipment back to the hunter’s home, according to court documents.

Lions bred for hunting are often shot after just a few days in the wild. In captivity they are mostly fed on donkey meat bought from rural communities. After their release from breeding cages they catch and eat game that the farmers have acquired for their estates. An adult male lion can eat about six metric tons of meat during a two-year period.

An appeal against the ruling made by the Predators Association will be heard on Sept. 14.

“Its a total disaster for us,” Carel van Heerden, the head of the predators association, said in an interview from Vryburg in northern South Africa. “It’s a whole industry that will be closed down. The court is our only alternative. We don’t have anybody that is prepared to listen to us.”

More than 300 lions are hunted in South Africa every year, with trophy hunters coming from countries including the U.S., Russia and Spain. That makes South Africa the second-biggest destination for lion hunting after Tanzania, where wild lions are shot. About 1,000 lions are hunted each year in Africa.

The ruling came more than a decade after a British Broadcasting Corp. documentary showed a lioness being shot in a small enclosure in South Africa in front of her cubs, leading to international criticism.

To contact the reporter on this story: Mike Cohen in Cape Town at mcohen21@bloomberg.net.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601116&sid=apaWDVVdIoMk

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