Can anyone tell me how the lions raised for hunting RSA are actually raised and held? For example. Are the lions raised from cubs in captivity? Were they bottle fed? How large of a paddock are they raised in? Can they kill their own prey, or are they reliant on humans for feeding?
I'm not looking for a canned vs. freerange hunt debate. I realize that each breeder may raise the cats differently and it may vary. I only want to know what those who have seen the farms or breeding programs have seen.
Thanks

I visited a lion farm near a town called "Tanneen" (I'm sure it is spelled differently) in 1998. The woman had an enclosure that could not have been more than 100 acres. The electrical fence was about 8 feet high, with smooth wires spaced about 6 to 8 inches apart. There were four heavy maned lions inside, which the owner brought to us by calling their names! When they were just across the fence from us, she carefully reached between the wire and petted one! The inside of the enclosure was littered with goat and burro bones. I had to keep from laughing out loud when she told us that her lions were going to be "returned to the wild to save the species."

Incidentally, I shot my lion in Zambia a couple of years earlier.

What? With all the criticism of hunting Lions in RSA that occur here only one person has actaully seen captive raised lions.
Thanks for the response Bill, your description makes me think that these lions were not intended for hunting.

I lived next door to lion farm for four nights near Kruger and the fence around the enclosures looked like they were from Treblinka. I was told they were half a hectare each. I never visited the camp and I don´t know if they were hunted but these animals were in no way wild.

Man did thay make a racket at night!

But it sure gave the family that "African" experience...

Like cewe I hunted near Kruger one time and they had a lion facility nearby.I did not visit it and do not know how large the enclosure was.As we drov e past each day there were quite a few large full maned lions lying in the jeep road that paralelled the high electric fence.They hardly raised their head to glance at the vehicles passing by on the other side of the fence.They were beautiful animals .

See if you can find Tam Safaris. They were at HSC and could probably be enlightening.

You are not going to find anyone willing to disclose intimate knowledge of these facilities. To do so would be an indictment given the current situation with the new laws. If you do a general Google on the suject you will get quite a bit of info.

I have been told that the lions raised in these "farms" cannot fend for themselves in the wild. When released to be hunted they are almost always released individually.

Can of worms. Hunt them somewhere else.

/

I completely agree with ALF. A couple of Safaris ago we visited an aminal rehabilitation center for injured animals and were introduced to beautiful Cheetah adults that had feline aids. They were seeing what they could do to prolong their lives. They were also doing what they could to rehabilitate other wildlife, and although I am a hunter, I applauded that idea, since their vast real estate holdings in South Africa also included hunting as a conservation effort. Moreover, the ongoing fact that lions, cheetah, cape buffalo Bontebok, and other animals are raised like this should not be looked upon as a negative thing, but something positive. Yes, there are certainly abuses, but that is true with anything in life, including hunting.

Alf and UEG: It´s not the breeding I´m critical of -where would the bontebok etc be today without human assistance?- it´s the use of any animal bred specifically for a canned hunt. The defintition of canned is wide and there are many views on it but how many of us would shoot a drugged kudu in a one hectare pen?

Breeding big cats for canned hunting is unethical, breeding large cats isn´t unethical per se.

MHO