Baby lion ‘roar’ goes viral

A video of an adorable lion cub attempting to roar has gone viral, as the tiny animal’s sounds delight viewers.

The video, uploaded by Chubby-Fish, has amassed over 3.4 million views since Wednesday.

However the video seems to have been originally uploaded by BigMania in May, which amassed over 1.2 million views.

Neither of the videos gives very much information about where the lion cub is, with some viewers suggesting it is calling for its mother.

Hopefully this cub is not part of a lion cub petting programme. To read more about this issue, see our feature on Five Things to learn from Blood Lions.

 

“BLOOD LIONS” HITS TELEVISION SCREENS IN AMERICA

On 7th October, MSNBC will present the American television premiere of “Blood Lions,” a compelling documentary which takes audiences inside the so called “canned lion hunting” industry in South Africa. Blood Lions will air at 22.00 on the East Coast and at 23.00 (West Coast).

Blood Lions” follows environmental journalist and safari operator, Ian Michler, and American hunter, Rick Swazey, as they expose the multi-million dollar industry of canned hunting – where lions are bred and raised in confined areas for trophy hunting.  Also known as captive bred lion hunting, canned hunts allow hunters to select their lion ahead of time and complete a hunt in a matter of days.  Canned hunts provide a cheaper and faster way of hunting predatory animals compared to wild lion hunts.

It’s a world many Americans do not know exists and yet, Americans are in large part the ones fuelling the industry.   In the wake of the hunting and death of Cecil the lion, the film reveals a dark dimension to trophy hunting in Africa.

The documentary includes the perspective of both proponents of this practice who say that hunting helps preserve Africa’s lion population and conservationists who are quick to dispute that claim.

Senior Producer for MSNBC, Tim Smith, commented that: “Blood Lions is a revelatory and sad tale that demands to be told – and we are pleased to be able to bring it to our viewers.”

Ian Michler, environmentalist and a lead character in “Blood Lions”, had this to say:   “While it is true that the majority of trophy hunters coming to South Africa are from the USA, and that many of them are going after captive-bred lions, it is equally true that Blood Lions is also receiving significant support in the USA; And this support ranges from donors and the wider citizenry who are concerned or outraged about what is going on to decision-makers and politicians. I would like to thank all of you – the millions of Americans who have been so outspoken and vociferous about predator breeding and canned hunting – your support has been vital to raising the profile of Blood Lions around the world. For all of us, the first screenings of the film here are very exciting and we so look forward to getting actively involved in the campaign across your great country.”

Producer, and driving force behind the film, Pippa Hankinson said:   “We have been overwhelmed by the extraordinary response that “Blood Lions” has received from so many across the USA, and are immensely grateful to MSNBC for the incredible opportunity to premiere this important story on American television.   The film exposes the cruel exploitation of South Africa’s lions which are being intensively bred on farms resembling large scale puppy mills.   These magnificent animals are being bottle fed and hand reared simply for the bullet – for vast profits – in an industry which is not open to public scrutiny.   “Blood Lions” is a call to action – a call to all who view it to make conscious choices around our responsibilities towards our planet and the amazing creatures with whom we have the privilege to share it.   Our hope is that our film will help make the changes that are so needed, to ensure that our children’s children will be able to see these majestic animals roaming free in the wild – where they rightfully belong!”

Shady agriculture, hunter links exposed

The playgrounds of trigger-happy trophy hunters are far removed from the fertile fruit farms of the Western Cape and Eastern Cape. But a recent television expose of driven hunting has established a disturbing link between the agricultural and hunting sectors.

The link is Anton de Vries, a Dutch businessman and fruit exporter whose companies, Safe and Bono, are strategic partners in the government’s agrarian land reform policies.

 De Vries owns or manages more than 2O fruit, livestock and game farms in South Africa, including three in All- days, Limpopo, where the driven hunt took place.

 Unlike traditional hunting, in which target animals have a reasonable chance of escape, all the shooters had to do was take pot shots at the traumatised targets who were chased into their sights.

Like canned lion hunting, in which the animals are caged and drugged, driven hunting is not illegal in South Africa. Unlike canned hunting, however, this unethical sport has until now never been exposed in South Africa.

It comes in the wake of the recent killing of Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe and the release of Blood Lions, a documentary exposing the brutal underbelly of canned lion hunting.

The fact that De Vries has been implicated in this hunt adds further fuel to an ongoing investigation by the SABC into his activities in allegedly swindling farm workers and farming cooperatives out of their profits and thus depriving the rightful beneficiaries of the government’s land reform policies.

Through its BEE company, Bono, whose CEO is the politically connected Evans Nevondo, Safe is mandated to provide infrastructural and economic empowerment on the farms it manages.

On its website Bono advertises its certification by Fairtrade, an international body that sets standards for exports, based on adequate labour and living conditions for farming communities.

But Bono was decertified in July for noncompliance.

The driven hunt in Limpopo was justified on the grounds that it gives work and food to impoverished rural communities where unemployment is rife and job opportunities scarce.

 In this hunt more than 100 animals were gunned down in what the NSPCA has condemned as a “massacre”. That’s not taking into account the scores of animals that were wounded in the process. After De Vries was exposed on televi- sion for the driven hunt in Limpopo, the Safe and Bono website was shut down.

At the time, neither De Vries nor Nevondo were available for comment. But shortly after their activities were exposed on SABC News, their PR firm made contact, requesting their clients be given the right of reply to the serious allegations levelled against them.

Blood Lion not to be seen

Organisers halt screening of film due to controversy and the ‘truth’ of cub rearing

Travel conference organisers have decided not to screen a documentary that raises critical questions about key tourist attractions that their event promotes.

 Local delegates to the World Youth and Student Travel Conference (WYSTC) 2015 asked the hosts to include a screen- ing of the film Blood Lions in their programme. The documentary shows young, conservation-minded volunteers from around the world paying thousands of rands to work at South African facili- ties that offer tourists the opportunity to pet lion cubs and go for bush walks with juvenile lions.

What most of the volunteers don’t know is that the majority of the lions they help to raise are destined for the bullets of wealthy trophy hunters.

“Wildlife volunteering in Africa is huge. Kids from all over the world want to come here to help animals,” says Blood Lions director, Bruce Young. “The organisers of the conference are key players in this whole industry and, given its location, timing and content, you would have thought that sharing Blood Lions with delegates would be a valuable exercise. We want youngsters who end up at lion breeding facilities to ask themselves some crucial questions, where do these cubs come from and where do they end up?”

Wendy Morrill, a conference organiser, said, “several discussions were had regarding if and how to share relevant content from the film with WYSTO 2015 delegates. Unfortunately the involved parties were not able to come to terms of a mutual agreement.”

There will be a session on lion programmes and volunteer organisations for registered delegates hosted by Dr Jackie Abell of the African Lion Environmental and Research Trust (Alert), which claims to focus on lion conservation through research, education and responsible development. lt bases much of its work on the suggestion that captive-bred lions can be successfully re-introduced into the wild.

SA conservationist lan Michler, the central character in Blood Lions, has criticised Alert for attempting to “legitimise its lion captive-breeding programmes and money-spinning tourist operations… under the banner of conservation, science or education”, while a group of researchers who examined Alert’s assertions found that “the lion encounter industry relies on animals so habituated to human presence that they can never be released”.

Controversy as Blood Lions documentary will not be screened to student volunteers

Travel conference organisers have decided not to screen a documentary that raises critical questions about key tourist attractions that their event promotes.

Local delegates to the World Youth and Student Travel Conference (WYSTC) 2015 asked the hosts to include a screening of the film Blood Lions in their programme. The documentary shows young, conservation-minded volunteers from around the world paying thousands of rands to work at South African facilities that offer tourists the opportunity to pet lion cubs and go for bush walks with juvenile lions.

What most of the volunteers don’t know is that the majority of the lions they help to raise are destined for the bullets of wealthy trophy hunters.

“Wildlife volunteering in Africa is huge. Kids from all over the world want to come here to help animals,” says Blood Lions director, Bruce Young. ”The organisers of the conference are key players in this whole industry and, given its location, timing and content, you would have thought that sharing Blood Lions with delegates would be a valuable exercise. We’re not trying to discourage volunteering, but we do want youngsters who end up at lion breeding facilities to ask themselves some crucial questions: where do all of these cubs come from and where do they end up?”

According to Wendy Morrill, one of the conference organisers, “several discussions were had regarding if and how to share relevant content from the film with WYSTC 2015 delegates. Unfortunately the involved parties were not able to come to terms of mutual agreement”.

“We are, however, running a session on lion programmes and volunteer organisations for registered delegates”. This workshop will be hosted by Dr Jackie Abell of the African Lion Environmental and Research Trust (ALERT), which claims to focus on lion conservation through research, education and responsible development. It promotes operations that allow tourists to walk with lions in Zambia and Zimbabwe, and bases much of its work on the suggestion that captive-bred lions can be successfully re-introduced into the wild.

South African conservationist Ian Michler, who is the central character in Blood Lions, has criticised ALERT for attempting to “legitimise their lion captive-breeding programmes and money-spinning tourist operations … under the banner of conservation, science or education”, while a group of researchers who examined ALERT’s assertions found that “the lion encounter industry relies on animals so habituated to human presence that they can never be released”, that “untrained volunteers are placed in extraordinarily dangerous situations that have resulted in attacks, including fatalities”, and that “captive-origin lions have no role in species restoration”.

One of the sponsors of WYSTC 2015 is African Impact, “a Cape Town based volunteer experience organisation,” which “helped establish” and has a “strong partnership” with ALERT.

Conference delegates have been invited to an unofficial, free screening of Blood Lions on Tuesday, 22 September at 5:30pm at the Cullinan Hotel, across the road from the conference venue.

Blood lions hits television screens in America

On 7th October, MSNBC will present the American television premiere of Blood Lions, a compelling documentary which takes audiences inside the so called “canned lion hunting” industry in South Africa. Blood Lions will air at 22.00 on the East Coast and at 23.00 on the West Coast.

Blood Lions follows environmental journalist and safari operator, Ian Michler, and American hunter, Rick Swazey, as they expose the multi-million dollar industry of canned hunting – where lions are bred and raised in confined areas for trophy hunting. Also known as captive bred lion hunting, canned hunts allow hunters to select their lion ahead of time and complete a hunt in a matter of days. Canned hunts provide a cheaper and faster way of hunting predatory animals compared to wild lion hunts.

It’s a world many Americans do not know exists and yet, Americans are in large part the ones fuelling the industry. In the wake of the hunting and death of Cecil the lion, the film reveals a dark dimension to trophy hunting in Africa.

The documentary includes the perspective of both proponents of this practice who say that hunting helps preserve Africa’s lion population and conservationists who are quick to dispute that claim.

Senior Producer for MSNBC, Tim Smith, commented that, “Blood Lions is a revelatory and sad tale that demands to be told – and we are pleased to be able to bring it to our viewers.”

Ian Michler, environmentalist and a lead character in Blood Lions, had this to say: “While it is true that the majority of trophy hunters coming to South Africa are from the USA, and that many of them are going after captive-bred lions, it is equally true that Blood Lions is also receiving significant support in the USA. This support ranges from donors and the wider citizenry who are concerned or outraged about what is going on to decision-makers and politicians. I would like to thank all of you – the millions of Americans who have been so outspoken and vociferous about predator breeding and canned hunting – your support has been vital to raising the profile of Blood Lions around the world. For all of us, the first screenings of the film here are very exciting and we so look forward to getting actively involved in the campaign across your great country.”

Producer, and driving force behind the film, Pippa Hankinson said, “We have been overwhelmed by the extraordinary response that Blood Lions has received from so many across the USA, and are immensely grateful to MSNBC for the incredible opportunity to premiere this important story on American television. The film exposes the cruel exploitation of South Africa’s lions which are being intensively bred on farms resembling large scale puppy mills.   These magnificent animals are being bottle fed and hand reared simply for the bullet – for vast profits – in an industry which is not open to public scrutiny. Blood Lions is a call to action – a call to all who view it to make conscious choices around our responsibilities towards our planet and the amazing creatures with whom we have the privilege to share it. Our hope is that our film will help make the changes that are so needed, to ensure that our children’s children will be able to see these majestic animals roaming free in the wild – where they rightfully belong!”

‘BLOOD LIONS’ hits television screens in AMERICA

On 7th October, MSNBC will present the American television premiere of “Blood Lions,” a compelling documentary which takes audiences inside the so called “canned lion hunting” industry in South Africa. Blood Lions will air at 22.00 on the East Coast and at 23.00 (West Coast).

Blood Lions” follows environmental journalist and safari operator, Ian Michler, and American hunter, Rick Swazey, as they expose the multi-million dollar industry of canned hunting – where lions are bred and raised in confined areas for trophy hunting. Also known as captive bred lion hunting, canned hunts allow hunters to select their lion ahead of time and complete a hunt in a matter of days. Canned hunts provide a cheaper and faster way of hunting predatory animals compared to wild lion hunts.

It’s a world many Americans do not know exists and yet, Americans are in large part the ones fuelling the industry. In the wake of the hunting and death of Cecil the lion, the film reveals a dark dimension to trophy hunting in Africa.

The documentary includes the perspective of both proponents of this practice who say that hunting helps preserve Africa’s lion population and conservationists who are quick to dispute that claim.

Senior Producer for MSNBC, Tim Smith, commented that: “Blood Lions is a revelatory and sad tale that demands to be told – and we are pleased to be able to bring it to our viewers.”

Ian Michler, environmentalist and a lead character in “Blood Lions”, had this to say: “While it is true that the majority of trophy hunters coming to South Africa are from the USA, and that many of them are going after captive-bred lions, it is equally true that Blood Lions is also receiving significant support in the USA; And this support ranges from donors and the wider citizenry who are concerned or outraged about what is going on to decision-makers and politicians. I would like to thank all of you – the millions of Americans who have been so outspoken and vociferous about predator breeding and canned hunting – your support has been vital to raising the profile of Blood Lions around the world. For all of us, the first screenings of the film here are very exciting and we so look forward to getting actively involved in the campaign across your great country.”

Producer, and driving force behind the film, Pippa Hankinson said: “We have been overwhelmed by the extraordinary response that “Blood Lions” has received from so many across the USA, and are immensely grateful to MSNBC for the incredible opportunity to premiere this important story on American television. The film exposes the cruel exploitation of South Africa’s lions which are being intensively bred on farms resembling large scale puppy mills. These magnificent animals are being bottle fed and hand reared simply for the bullet – for vast profits – in an industry which is not open to public scrutiny. “Blood Lions” is a call to action – a call to all who view it to make conscious choices around our responsibilities towards our planet and the amazing creatures with whom we have the privilege to share it. Our hope is that our film will help make the changes that are so needed, to ensure that our children’s children will be able to see these majestic animals roaming free in the wild – where they rightfully belong!”

Bred for the bullet

Today in Africa, there are approximately 32 000 lions. 11 000 of those are found in South Africa. That’s the good news. The bad news is that approximately 8 000 of those are in breeding captivity. To further the bad news, of those 3 000 that remain in the wild, approximately 2 500 are diseased: they carry feline AIDS or TB, both of which are easily transferred and are virtually impossible to eradicate.

Most of these captive predators live in appalling conditions with inadequate protocols in place to protect them or regulate either their welfare or the genetic integrity of their bloodlines. The breeders of these animals claim they are involved in conservation, educational and research initiatives and that the captive-bred population will be the saviour of wild lions. However, recognised and respected lion ecologists, conservationists and animal welfare experts advise that almost all of these claims are, in fact, far from the truth.

Desperate to make a contribution and passionate to save the lion, young volunteers sign up for programmes where they can come to South Africa and nurture these ‘abandoned’ cubs. After all, who can resist adorably cute cub lions which are only a few weeks old? What would be more appealing than coming to South Africa on a volunteer programme to bottle-feed and cuddle these cubs, under the misapprehension of ‘helping and saving the lion’? In reality, what is happening is that these cubs are taken away from their mothers just days after birth to force the lionesses into intensely repetitive reproductive cycles. In the wild, a cub lives with its mother for two years.

Breeders squeeze as many cubs from their adults as possible, five litters every two years. These cubs are then used in a variety of income streams from petting and ‘walking with lions’ facilities, to luring unsuspecting volunteers, who pay large sums of money, to work on the farms. These animals are being factory produced to feed the volunteer tourism industry. It is a massive con.

Breeders argue it is better that hunters shoot a captive-bred lion than further endanger the wild populations, but conservationists and animal welfare groups dispute this. Wild populations of lions have declined by 80 percent in 20 years, so the rise of lion farms and canned hunting has not protected wild lions. In fact, according to Fiona Miles, Director of Lionsrock, a big cat sanctuary in South Africa run by the charity Four Paws, it is fuelling it. “The lion farms’ creation of a market for canned lion hunts puts a clear price-tag on the head of every wild lion,” she says. “They create a financial incentive for local people, who collude with poachers or turn a blind eye to illegal lion kills. Trophy-hunters who begin with a captive-bred lion may then graduate to the real, wild thing.”

Once they reach adulthood, many lionesses are shot for their bones to be shipped to Asia as supplements to the rapidly burgeoning ‘tiger wine’ and ‘tiger cake’ industries. Almost all the male lions become victims of the ‘canned’ or ‘captive’ hunting industry: a so-called sport, where tame lions become targets in the sights of wealthy trophy hunters.

A fully-grown, captive-bred lion is taken from its enclosure to an area of limited size: the lion is not in the wild and knows nothing about survival, as he has been hand raised in captivity. He will wander listlessly for a short time before being shot dead by a hunter with a gun, standing safely on the back of a truck or shooting from very close range. These men and women pay anything from US$5 000 – $48 000 for a trophy in order to shoot the king of beasts in circumstances which are anything but wild or sporting. And it is all completely legal.

HOW CAN THIS BE LEGAL?

Tourists from all over the world flock to South Africa for sightings of the Big Five and a host of other wildlife in the country’s many reserves. Millions of photographs and hundreds of thousands of happy visitors attest to the ongoing allure of the African wilderness, but for those that visit the private farms, have they been conned? There is darkness at the heart of this picture, something is rotten in the country’s wildlife kingdom and it is the king himself who is in the crosshairs!

In 2007 the South African Government attempted to regulate captive lion breeding and canned hunting by passing new legislation in parliament. The Predator Breeders Association of SA took the government to court, and while they lost the first ruling, their appeal was upheld and the proposed legislation was overturned on a technicality.

Since that landmark decision, the predator breeding and canned lion hunting industries have thrived.

BLOOD LIONS THE MOVIE

Blood Lions™ was recently launched at the Durban International Film Festival and follows internationally acclaimed environmental journalist and safari operator, Ian Michler, onto the breeding farms to witness the results of battery-farmed lions, a stark contrast to their wild cousins.

Aggressive farmers resent his questioning, but the highly profitable commercialisation of lions is plain to see: cub petting, volunteer recruitment, lion walking, hunting, and the new lion bone trade are on the increase, and all are being justified under the guise of conservation and research.

In parallel, the movie follows Rick Swazey, an American hunter, who volunteered his services after seeing footage of canned hunts. Rick purchases a lioness online from his home in Hawaii and then travels to South Africa to go on the path canned hunters follow: to kill it.

Blood Lions™ explores in intimate detail how lucrative it is to breed lions for the bullet. It illustrates how the authorities and most professional hunting bodies have become complicit and how simple it is to set up a canned hunt. There is also hope in the story, as the very latest developments with the Australian government are shown, announcing a complete ban on the importation of all African lion trophies into Australia. The film is a compelling call to action and shows how one can get involved in a global campaign to stop lions being bred for the bullet.

Executive producer Dr Andrew Venter, CEO Wildlands, says, “Lions are one of our planet’s iconic species. Their dominance, strength and leadership abilities anchor cultural tradition across Africa, Europe and Asia. Their behaviour and spirit are revered in song and dance globally. They are a primary attraction for Africa’s eco-tourism industry. Simply put, they epitomise Africa’s wildness.”

He makes the point: “Unfortunately, in South Africa the greed of a small group of tourism and hunting operators is downgrading their status to that of a simple tradable commodity.”

“These unethical operators are actively deceiving our Government, and the hunters and tourists that they host.

They are prostituting lions for their own benefit whilst promoting their activities as conservation efforts. This is simply not true; their activities are unethical, fraudulent and corrupt. Harnessing the volunteer tourism industry to enable the breeding of lions for hunting is a con. Hunting captive-bred lions that are drugged and have never roamed or socialised in the wild, is a con. They need to be stopped.”

Blood Lions™ will help do this, exposing the rotten core of the lion industry in South Africa and will lay a foundation for an effective campaign aimed at ending these activities. Pippa Hankinson, producer of Blood Lions, concludes: “Many people have asked me what made me decide to make this film. There were a number of reasons, animals in general, but our wildlife in particular, have always mattered to me. However, Martin Luther King Jr best summed it up for me when he said, ‘Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter’.”

THE CAMPAIGN

The campaign will form a cohesive and powerful motivation for all those determined to put an end to the breeding of lions purely for the bullet. It will provide information, direction and a constant monitoring of the progress of the efforts of everyone involved. It is aimed at the general public, both local and international, who believe that what is happening on the breeding and hunting farms is simply not right. It will also target government agencies and lawmakers, tourism bodies, ecologists, conservationists and all media. It will provide leadership for all those who seek to change the status quo.

 

Driven hunt organizer implicated in land deal irregularities

The playgrounds of trigger-happy trophy hunters are far removed from the fertile fruit farms of the Western Cape and Eastern Cape. But a recent television expose of driven hunting has established a disturbing link between the agricultural and hunting sectors. The link is Anton de Vries – a Dutch businessman and fruit exporter whose companies SAFE & BONO are strategic partners in the government’s agrarian land reform policies.

De Vries owns or manages over 20 fruit, livestock and game farms in South Africa, including three in Alldays, Limpopo, where the driven hunt took place. Unlike traditional hunting, in which target animals have a reasonable chance of escape, all the shooters had to do was take pot shots at the traumatised targets who were chased into their sights.

Like canned lion hunting, in which the animals are caged and drugged, driven hunting is not illegal in South Africa. Unlike canned hunting however, this unethical sport has until now never been exposed in South Africa. It comes in the wake of the recent killing of Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe and the release of Blood Lions – a documentary exposing the brutal underbelly of canned lion hunting.

The fact that De Vries has been implicated in this hunt adds further fuel to an ongoing investigation by the SABC into the Dutch businessman’s activities in allegedly swindling farmworkers and farming co-operatives out of their profits and thus depriving the rightful beneficiaries of the government’s land reform policies.

Through its BEE company, BONO, whose CEO is the politically connected Evans Nevondo, SAFE is mandated to provide infrastructural and economic empowerment on the farms it manages. On its website, BONO advertises its certification by Fairtrade, an international body that sets standards for exports, based on adequate labour and living conditions for farming communities.

But BONO was decertified in July 2015 for non-compliance.

The driven hunt in Limpopo was justified on the grounds that it gives work and food to impoverished rural communities where unemployment is rife and job opportunities scarce. In this hunt, occurring over five days, 83 ‘beaters’ were employed to chase antelope, baboons and warthogs toward the shooters. Over 100 animals were gunned down in what the NSPCA has condemned as a ‘massacre’. That’s not taking into account the scores of animals that were wounded in the process.

After De Vries was exposed on television for the driven hunt in Limpopo, the SAFE and BONO website was shut down.

At the time, neither De Vries nor Nevondo were available for comment. But shortly after their activities were exposed on SABC News, their PR firm made contact, requesting that their clients be given the right of reply to the serious allegations leveled against them.

SABC will afford them the opportunity to defend themselves.

The full version of this investigation will be broadcast on Special Assignment, Sunday 4th October at 8.30pm on SABC3.

Travel conference shirks SA lion film

Travel conference organizers have decided not to screen a documentary that raises critical questions about key tourist attractions their event promotes

Travel conference organizers have decided not to screen a documentary that raises critical questions about key tourist attractions their event promotes.

Local delegates to the World Youth and Student Travel Conference (WYSTC) 2015 asked the hosts to include a screening of the film ‘Blood Lions’ in their programme. The documentary shows young, conservation-minded volunteers from around the world paying thousands of rands to work at South African facilities that offer tourists the opportunity to pet lion cubs and go for bush walks with juvenile lions.

What most of the volunteers don’t know is that the majority of the lions they help to raise are destined for the bullets of wealthy trophy hunters.

“Wildlife volunteering in Africa is huge. Kids from all over the world want to come here to help animals,” says ‘Blood Lions’ director Bruce Young. ”The organisers of the conference are key players in this whole industry and given its location, timing and content you would have thought that sharing ‘Blood Lions’ with delegates would be a valuable exercise. We’re not trying to discourage volunteering, but we do want youngsters who end up at lion breeding facilities to ask themselves some crucial questions: where do all of these cubs come from and where do they end up?”

According to Wendy Morrill, one of the conference organisers, “several discussions were had regarding if and how to share relevant content from the film with WYSTC 2015 delegates. Unfortunately the involved parties were not able to come to terms of mutual agreement”.

“We are, however, running a session on lion programmes and volunteer organisations for registered delegates”. This workshop will be hosted by Dr Jackie Abell of the African Lion Environmental and Research Trust (ALERT), which claims to focus on lion conservation through research, education and responsible development. It promotes operations that allow tourists to walk with lions in Zambia and Zimbabwe, and bases much of its work on the suggestion that captive-bred lions can be successfully re-introduced into the wild.

South African conservationist Ian Michler, who is the central character in ‘Blood Lions’, has criticised ALERT for attempting to “legitimise their lion captive-breeding programmes and money-spinning tourist operations” “under the banner of conservation, science or education”, while a group of researchers who examined ALERT’s assertions found that “the lion encounter industry relies on animals so habituated to human presence that they can never be released”, that “untrained volunteers are placed in extraordinarily dangerous situations that have resulted in attacks, including fatalities”, and that “captive-origin lions have no role in species restoration”.

One of the sponsors of WYSTC 2015 is African Impact, “a Cape Town based volunteer experience organisation” which “helped establish” and has a “strong partnership” with ALERT.

Conference delegates have been invited to an unofficial, free screening of ‘Blood Lions’ on Tuesday 22 September at 5:30pm at the Cullinan Hotel, across the road from the conference venue.