Have recently been told that a couple of Lion breeding farms have started in Zim. One just North of Lemco and the other at Kwe Kwe.

Has anyone else herd about this? Ganyana?

BTT

Hi Mitch

Andy Conolly has run Antelope park (near the City of Gweru in the middle of the country) for many years breeding lions for sale to zoo's, training them for films etc. In the export application we have always insited on knowing who the recipient is and checking with the recieving countries wildlife authority that theuy were not for hunting.

System broke down about five years back. Who Andy sells to is now his buisness. Stopped in ther a couple of weeks back and he had 74 lions - several ready for export, mainly cape and ethiopian lion phenotypes. (ie just what a hunter wants. Big mane stretching all the way along the belly line to the back legs. Cape have a golden coat and black mane, Ehiopian have a much paler coat and almost a gold mane...

Several others have bough lion off Andy over the last few years and started breeding. Last year there were 60 odd exports from some of the newer breeders to "unkown" buyers in South Africa.

Some of these lion may well have been going to stock game ranches, but where you get an export permit for - 6 lion Male - you can be fairly sure that they are for hunting. Game ranches usually buy mixed stock!

So far this year Andy has applied to export 5 lion. one male and 4 female, along with the old style "end User" certificate that they are not for hunting.

With our quota systems it would be fairly difficult for anybody to offer canned lion hunts in Zim. Unless your area has natural lion populations you cannot get a permit (except corruptly) to shoot one. Some of the conservancies a few years back bought in some captive bread lions to add veriety to the local gene pool and increase mane size. Seems to have worked, but the stipulation was that the captive bread lions had to be collared and could not be hunted. Only their offspring.

Thanks Ganyana,

Ref: your last paragraph: How did these captive male lions fare against their wild cousins when it came to finding their own pride?

Captive bread lion need to be re-introduced as a pride, already established and then fed occasionally untill they have perfected their hunting. The captive bread males usually fare very well against intruders and may well survive fine if they are just free released into an area were there is a pride without a strong male.

Captive bread lion are usually much bigger and stronger than any wild lion, and a lion fight is simply a brawl with victory going to the strongest. Hence an established pride male has the advantage until he gets too old. He doesn't have to hunt - the ladies do that for him - and he grows strong on their labour. A young male trying to take over the pride has usually been living on batchelors rations which are none too plentiful, and so is usually not in top condition.

Ganyana,
Your posts are always most informative. Thanks for taking the time to educate us.