Monday 20 October 2014

Australia to ban import of lion trophies from South Africa


A permanent ban on the importation of lion parts, including trophies, is planned by Australia. This was announced after South African conservationist Ian Michler met with Australian Environment Minister, Greg Hunt and other Ministers of Parliament in Canberra earlier this month.

Canned lion hunting, or ‘captive’ hunting as the breeders and hunters refer to it, is a type of hunting
where lions are bred specifically to be shot in confined areas. Around 700 hundred a year are killed. What anyone gets out of this baffles me - there's no proper hunting skill involved in shooting a semi tame disoriented lion in a paddock.

There are now over 100 facilities, containing between 6 000 and 8 000 predators in South Africa. Cubs are also bred to supply the ‘walking with lions’ industry. These places offer visitors the opportunity to interact with lion cubs and sub-adults under the pretext of conserving them. Again, it is ridiculous to let cubs interact with humans and then somehow think they can safely be released into the wild.

Instead of being used for any purpose connected with conservation, many of the lions are sold on for
canned hunting once they become too boisterous for punters to walk with them.

South Africa seems incapable and unwilling to do anything to curb this barbarous industry.

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