Gives me the same feeling as when I hear of child abuse, severe poaching or any other disgusting human behavior. One or the great symbols or courage, power and nobility being treated like so much barnyard fodder...what's next?

Yeah, I know it's been going on a long time, but you can't help but have at least some hope that someone will put an end to it...hope these a**holes burn in hell, or better yet one or more of their drugged-up-caged lions takes a shot and rips them up in the bargain! Would serve them right for prostituting one of nature's greatest creations. Sure gives RSA an even worse reputation.

Kathi,

I would not call it an article, rather it is an Animal Rights Fanatic (ARF) propaganda piece.

I guess we will have to call you Kathi Moore now.

jim

ARF, your dog can tell you how to say it.

ARF at its worst indeed. The culling of tahr on Table Mountain was done in order to reintroduce the indigenous klipspringer and reedbuck to the area. This is of course conveniently not mentioned. It beats me how anyone could object to replacing a foreign specie with one that used to inhabit the area. The mountain is surrounded by urban area and will sustain a limited number of wildlife. Note that the professional hunters who did the culling are called "sharpshooters".

They really try and push all the buttons. Pity that a lot of people fall for it.

'Ban the canned lion hunt'"


'Ban the canned lion hunt'
Helen Bamford
November 06 2004 at 02:22PM

The hard-hitting Cook Report exposing South Africa's sordid "canned lion" industry shocked millions of television viewers here and abroad.
But that was seven years ago, and in spite of the outcry at the time, the practice of hunting lions in captivity continues.

Beverley Pervan and Chris Mercer, co-authors of the book For The Love of Wildlife have been fighting to get the practice which they call a "national disgrace" banned.

The couple, who run the Kalahari Raptor Centre, a sanctuary for birds of prey and wildlife in the Northern Cape, have asked for a court order requiring the government to hold a nationwide public participation process covering the whole ambit of the canned lion industry.

The brutal practice often involves drugged lions
They were in Cape Town this week to pick up brochures they have printed on the "sport" to raise public awareness of an issue which has been going on for decades with the full knowledge of nature conservation departments.

The brutal practice often involves drugged lions "hunted" often in confined areas with bows and arrows and of ignorant, inexpert "hunters" using up to 16 or more shots to bring down a "trophy".

There are apparently some 3 500 lions being bred in captivity around South Africa destined to become trophies for rich tourists.

Mercer and Pervan say in their pamphlet that South Africa has been allowed by its conservationists to become the colony of a small, despised minority of rich hunters in the developed world.

"They hide the cruelty and greed behind silly slogans that do not bear analysis: 'hunting pays for conservation', 'if it pays it stays' and 'give it a value and it will be preserved'."

They say that on this specious reasoning, it is only whaling that will save the whale and ivory poaching that will save the elephant.

"But any intelligent person can see that giving an animal a value merely serves to increase the commercial exploitation to the point where wild populations can no longer support the industry, which then has to turn to captive breeding to meet commercial demand. So, while the hunting industry whacks the animals and stacks the profits, the people lose their heritage."

Mercer said there seemed to be no sense of preservation in South Africa any more.

"And conservation officials have become ethically illiterate and don't seem to be able to see anything wrong in it."

Pervan and Mercer were also involved in the battle to save the Table Mountain tahrs which was lost when SA National Parks used sharpshooters to eradicate the animals amid great controversy.

Mercer is still angry that no proper independent environmental impact assessment was conducted beforehand.

"Instead SA National Parks substituted propaganda for scientific research."

He is concerned that the elephants in Kruger Park will go the same way because again no independent environmental impact assessment is planned.

Elephant culling is on the agenda at the moment as a means to control the ever-growing population since a moratorium was placed on elephant culling in 1995.

Pervan said it was strange that no one was mentioning the transfrontier reserves, launched recently with great fanfare as a solution to elephant overpopulation.

The idea was for elephants to move freely between parks through a series of connecting corridors.