Global pressure is building to end the importation of lion trophies from "canned" hunts in Africa. But those hunts are getting more popular.
When Australia banned the importation of lion trophies this year, it became the first country to take legislative action against the lucrative business of hunting captive lions, an increasingly popular activity in South Africa.
Greg Hunt, Australia’s environment minister, called the controversial sport “cruel” and “barbaric” and said he hopes Australia’s decision is “part of a significant movement to end ‘canned’ hunting forever.”
Now the anti-captive hunting lobby—made up of conservationists and activists from around the world—is pushing for similar legislation to prevent lion trophy imports into the European Union.
Longer term, the opponents hope that a ban will be adopted by the United States, source of most of the hunters who go to Africa.
Hunters pay as much as $20,000 to bag a big male.
In South Africa, the hunts involve lions born and raised in cages. When they reach about four years old, they’re loosed into a fenced area of at least 2,500 acres to become targets for hunters using rifles or bows.
Demand for captive hunts has soared in recent years. South Africa (which recently released a Management Plan for lions) now has about 160 ranches with more than 6,000 lions, and 1,000 are shot each year. Hunters pay as much as $20,000 to bag a big male.
Meanwhile, populations of lions in the wild have plummeted in Africa, from an estimated 200,000 a century ago to some 30,000 that live in isolated pockets. Lions require large areas to roam, and outside national parks and reserves, they often clash with livestock farmers and local communities.
Advocates of the lion ranching industry say that by breeding lions for hunting, they’re helping conserve the species.
“For every captive-bred lion hunted, you’re saving animals in the wild,” said Pieter Potgieter, chairman of the South African Predator Association. If there were no captive hunts, he says, there would be more sport hunting and poaching of wild lions.
But a growing number of scientists and conservationists see little evidence to suggest that the captive hunting industry in South Africa has done anything to stem lion declines in the wild across the continent.
Chris Mercer, head of the Campaign Against Canned Hunting, a global organization, says the opposite is more likely.
“You have to decide what conservation is,” he said. “You can’t just look at numbers of animals. I would define real conservation as the preservation of natural functioning ecosystems.
“On ranches where farmers buy animals, put them on their land, bring the hunters on to shoot them, and then go back and buy more—that has nothing to do with conservation.”
In Mercer’s opinion, “Lion farming is actually contributing to the extinction of wild lions.”
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