The problem of captive bred lions and what effect the Kortbroek van Schalkwyk’s so called TOPS regulations, once enforced and with lion placed on the list of “large predators”, will have on the canned lion shooters is a difficult one to come to grips with. IMHO it is one of those really difficult to think through clearly issues. This is such a difficult a problem that if you do not get thoroughly confused while thinking about it, it only shows that you are not thinking clearly!

Let us for the sake of the argument accept that there are at present a large number, the quoted figure is 3000, captive lions in small cages scattered throughout South Africa. These would consist of some prime breeding males, breeding females, cubs, sub-adults and a large number of adult males and females just growing older and getting bigger manes. I would hazard a guess that the majority of lions at present in captivity fall in this last category: Just getting older so as to have a bigger trophy value!

Although these cages are spread all over the country, the problem can be easier understood if one thinks of the “captive breeding industry” as a factory: The factory consists of a number of small cages to contain the stated 3000 lions. The raw material input is so many tons of meat per year. Naturally there are sub-industries associated: The labor to feed these lions, the cheap meat sourcing industry that supplies “affordable” meat. The meat is dead donkeys, horses, cows and chickens, or whatever they use to feed these lions. This input is converted into so many “trophy” male and female lions and that are sold to Hunting Outfitters. Now, it was quoted here that something like 700 lion were shot in North West Province alone in one year. Call it 1000 lion for South Africa as a whole in any one year. In captivity one male can serve a number of females, which in turn can have a few cubs in each litter. Very roughly the figures more or less adds up, and the discrepancies that some may be eager to point out are really irrelevant. This is not a scientific researched statement, or meant to be.

Our honest and fair dealing HO’s buy from the “ready to shoot captive bred lion supply” industry and they in turn sell them to overseas visiting lion shooters. [I absolutely refuse to use the noble term “hunting” for someone who shoots a captive bred lion.] Some of these shooters know that they are merely shooters. Some are fooled [mostly by themselves] into thinking that they are in fact lion hunters. The period between the ready to shoot lion leaving the cage where he grew old enough to have a decent mane, to his death is reckoned in a days at most. Now the TOPS regulations want to extend these few days into two years!

As the new TOPS regulations essentially involves a time period of two years, let’s put some time factor into the lions for shooting factory. You can change the actual ages as you wish, it does not really affect the argument at all. Let us call an ‘average’ captive bred ready to shoot trophy lion to be 5 years old. As the offspring of the breeding lions reach an average age of 5 years – when they are fully adult and just considered as trophies - they are released to be shot within a few days in a smaller or larger enclosure. This is the practice that the TOPS regulations want to end by doing away with the shooting of lions in a smaller enclosure and extending the few days into two years in a large enclosure.

All that the regulations really change is that the lions will now be released when they are 3 years old. They must now fend for themselves for two years, so that they can still be shot as trophies at the age of 5 years. It means that the dead donkeys and dead horses and dead cows that they were fed on in the cages must now become live game? Does anyone here seriously think that a Hunting Outfitter is going to release a 3 years old lion into an enclosure that also contains roan, sable, tsessebe, nyala, mountain zebra and other scarce and expensive game? Nope, the maturing, but now free ranging lions will still feed on donkeys, horses and old cows – plus a spattering of wild game. Just BTW, does anyone seriously think that the various Nature Conservation authorities have the manpower to effectively patrol and ensure that the lion aging industry do not simply put up “feeding stations” in the “free roaming” areas? With lions being such ‘lazy’ [Oops. That’s anthropomorphism! What I mean is that as lions will scavenge when given the opportunity.] and opportunistic creatures, such feeding stations will largely make it unnecessary for the free roaming lions waiting out their two maturing years before being shot to actually catch any prey that may roam in the free range area. They are still captive. They are still fed on dead donkeys and such. They are simply now in a much larger enclosure. These larger enclosures need a lot of fence maintenance. The large enclosures cannot be used for much else than allowing the lions contained therein to grow into trophies. Domestic cattle will probably be caught and eaten, despite well supplied feeding stations. One cannot risk having expensive animals like roan and sable in such an enclosure. The net effect is just that there are now significant costs adder to getting these lions through the two “maturing years”, than was the case when they matured in small camps. More costs means higher prices to be paid by the overseas guests coming to shoot these lions in their large enclosures!

The only real effect that I foresee is that there will be a two year transition period when no canned lion shooting is possible. As soon as the regulations are enforced the already ready to shoot lions will be released into large enclosures, together with some younger 3 year olds. There will be some losses of youngsters being killed by older lions. More costs to supply the same thing as before which means yet higher prices to be paid by visiting lion shooters! Then it will be business as usual – albeit at higher prices.

The full implementation of the TOPS regulations will change a single “captive bred lion factory” that produces “ready to shoot lions” into two separate industries: One supply fully adult but not yet ready to shoot 3 year old lions to the “captive bred lion maturing and aging industry”. This second industry is where these not yet ready to shoot 3 year old lions grow into ready to shoot lions over a two year period in large so called free ranging camps.

Will the TOPS regulations put an end to canned lion shooting? IMHO absolutely not! The complexity of the captive breeding and maturing industry will be increased, and so will the final prices that the lion shooters have to pay. There will be a difficult transition period. But, the Afrikaans saying that: “’n Boer maak ‘n plan!” [A farmer makes some plan!] comes to mind. The captive bred ready to shoot lion industry will make the plans needed to survive! There is a market out there of lion shooters demanding shootable lions. This market will be satisfied despite full implementation of the new TOPS regulations.

Will there be any positive spin-off by the full implementation of the TOPS regulations? A few things that comes to mind are: The “lion proof” security fencing industry will boom: Where they now have to fence say 1 lion into a 1 hectare camp, there will be a demand to fence 20 lion into 20000 hectare camps. A 1000 fold increase in demand! The ambulance, medical and legal industries that have to deal with the casualties caused by lion vs. human interactions will have much more work.

I foresee an interesting transition period ahead for the canned lion shooting industry. A financially difficult one, with some current lion feeders, cage cleaners going without jobs. A time when the Hunting Outfitters are going to suffer from lower initial income and have to make big investments into buying not yet ready to shoot lions to release into the big lion-proof fenced free ranging enclosures. Some lesser current lion breeders will no doubt go out of business. I feel really sorry for them: Jus as sorry I feel for the pimp that got busted by setting up a meeting!  The bigger and better boys will weather the storm and come out still bigger and better! Remember that if fully applied from any moment on, there is going to be no lion shooting for 2 years, and then there will be an initial oversupply, to provide the backlog in demand, of 5 year olds, but also 6 years old and even 7 year old really nice looking big black mane carrying lion. Some may even have a few scars from fighting with younger lions in their communal 20000 hectare free-ranging camp! LOL. The TOPS regulations will affect the captive lion shooting industry in many ways. But will TOPS bring an end to shooting canned lion? No. I’m afraid that the nickname “Kortbroek” is really very appropriate!


In good hunting.

Andrew McLaren

Great post Andrew.

As much as I'd like to see this entire issue bought to a complete halt, I can't see it happening without the SA Govt placing a complete ban on all Lion trophy hunting in the country. Which (IMO) is what they should have done in the first place.

As you say, the farmer will always make plan.

Andrew, I think that you are spot on. An all-out ban is the only way to curb canned lion hunting. I think the fact that there were big talks about a ban going through before which never actually happened because of it being such a thriving business and am sure there were lots of complaints and maybe money being waved around too, who knows.

What I don't understand is the whole aim behind the lion-breeding program. Lions are under threat in many of their naturally occuring areas and they need some serious conservation in many of their natural home ranges, but I would guess most captive-bred lions in SA end up becoming cannon fodder, which is not promoting conservation to the species as such, just paying salaries to greedy land-owners. If that money from shooting them went to conservation in areas where it was needed then it would be more acceptable. However any way you cut it, canned hunting is un-acceptable.

Just putting the animals down though sounds like such a waste. I think that a lot of money and jobs will be lost with the plan going through, but again if it were for conservation and those animals were released on to farms with lion-proof fences, etc and they would not be a problem, then fine. However, lion are a nuisance to many land-owners, they have a habit of breaking out if fences are not excellent and electrified (expensive), and they can also aquire tastes for expensive game species and livestock, etc, which is why many people do not keep them in game farms, even though they are a big tourist attraction.

In a way it is a step closer to banning canned lion-hunting, which is a good thing for all true hunters. It is just sad that it became such an established business in the first place.

Future looks no better for SA's canned lions

June 14 2009 at 08:00PM



By Mike Cadman

The government has won the court case that will effectively put a stop to canned lion hunting - but it now faces a massive animal welfare crisis as breeders threaten to ditch unwanted predators that no longer have any commercial value.

There are between 3 500 and 4 000 lions in captivity in South Africa, most of which are bred specifically for the hunting industry.

The South African Predator Breeders Association (Sapba) estimates that 1 050 lions - the highest figure on record - were hunted in South Africa last year.

About 700 lions were shot in 2007 and 322 in 2006.

On Thursday, the Bloemfontein High Court ruled that the Department of Water and Environmental Affairs had a right to enforce laws that stipulated that lions raised in captivity must be allowed to roam free for two years before being hunted.

Sapba argued that this provision would make the breeding of lions in captivity for hunting financially unviable even though the industry is legal.

The association also argued that the former department of environmental affairs and tourism had acted unfairly in drawing up the legislation.

Sapba chairperson Carel van Heerden said on Friday that his organisation, which has 123 members, was considering appealing against the ruling. The members would meet next Friday to consider their options, he said.

"This is a crucial time for them. The decision could mean the end of their businesses, which had been legalised by the state," Van Heerden said.

"It also has dire consequences for about 5 000 workers and their dependents who could lose their jobs if lion breeding facilities close down.

"People have poured millions of rands into their facilities and it costs a lot of money to feed lions and raise them.

"The government allowed the industry to become established over a period of many years; they legalised it by issuing permits," he said.

"And now they want to destroy it, so they must tell us what they plan to do with all these animals that no one will want because they have no economic value."

For the past few years, conservation, animal welfare and animal rights groups have urged the government to draw up plans to deal with the animal welfare issues should the canned lion hunting industry be shut down.

"A victory may have been won in court, but to these animals, whose lives so far have been nothing more than a caged existence to provide a trophy to an unethical hunter, their future remains uncertain and may not necessarily be any better," said Yolan Friedmann, CEO of the Endangered Wildlife Trust in Joburg.

"We urge the government to immediately begin a process of addressing this situation, to avert a welfare crisis in which these animals could fall prey to neglect and further cruel treatment," she added.

The government has no suitable sanctuaries for unwanted lions raised in captivity, and private operations can't handle such large numbers of lions.

Wildlife rehabilitation experts said releasing lions back into the wild was extremely difficult and time-consuming, and that most large wildlife areas in the country had reached their carrying capacity for lions and other predators.

Brenda Santon, the manager of the wildlife unit at the NSPCA, said that law enforcement and monitoring of the industry had been notoriously poor for years.

"Immediate action is needed to deal with this welfare crisis and there is an urgent need to properly monitor how the animals are now treated," she said.

A report published recently by the NSPCA shows that most captive lion breeding facilities are in North West and the Free State.

There are some facilities in Gauteng, the Eastern Cape and Limpopo, but more than 90 percent of all lion hunting takes place in North West.

The Department of Water and Environmental Affairs said last week it was still awaiting a report on the captive lion breeding and hunting industry, but it planned to include lions in the Threatened or Protect Species (Tops) regulations as soon as possible.

Asked what plans were in place to deal with unwanted lions, the department's spokesperson Albi Modise said it "will co-operate with all stakeholders and investigate all available options to address the issue should it arise".

Canned lion hunting in South Africa made headlines in 1997 when a British documentary showed lions being hunted behind fences.

The documentary sparked an outcry, and three successive environment ministers repeatedly vowed to investigate the industry, enforce strict controls and outlaw canned hunting.

In February last year Marthinus van Schalkwyk, then the minister of environmental affairs and tourism, said new legislation ensured that "the days of captive breeding of listed species for any purpose except science and conservation are over" - but he later removed lions from the Tops regulations because of the Sapba court challenge.

This article was originally published on page 3 of Sunday Independent on June 14, 2009