Month: April 2016

As commented on their website: ‘The HSUS honours individuals in the news and entertainment media for creating outstanding works that raise awareness of animal protection issues. 2015 may well have been the year of the lion, with the story of Cecil’s illegal killing capturing worldwide media attention, but just one look at the 30th Genesis Awards winners will remind us of the many other urgent animal protection stories that inspired reporters, TV journalists and producers, documentary filmmakers and a stand-up comedian to spread the word about issues ranging from factory farming to the ivory and wildlife trades. Congratulations to all the outstanding 30th Genesis Awards winners. We thank you for shining the spotlight on animal cruelty and exploitation.’

Blood Lions™ was awarded under the International Feature Documentary Film category as it “spotlights the lucrative South African business of breeding lions in factory farm-like facilities for ‘canned hunts,’ and the growing Asian market for lion bones.”

It is estimated that there are currently between 6,000 and 8,000 predators in captivity, mostly living in appalling conditions with inadequate breeding and welfare protocols in place to protect them. Volunteers believe they are supporting bona fide conservation projects and that the cubs will one day be rewilded. However, lion ecologists state that captive breeding plays no role in the conservation of this species, and that to date no captive bred, hand-reared lions have successfully been rehabilitated into the wild.

Other category winners included the internationally acclaimed documentary, Racing Extinction that captures the efforts of conservationists in saving the world’s threatened species. Closer to home – South African channel, MNET Carte Blanche, was awarded for TV segments on the use of wildlife as pets.

“We are immensely honoured and proud that Blood Lions™ has been recognised by the Humane Society as a Genesis Award winner in the International Feature Documentary Film category. A huge thank you to HSUS from the Blood Lions’ team for this amazing accolade,” said the producer of Blood Lions™, Pippa Hankinson.

The film is available in South Africa on Takealot.com, in the USA on Amazon and through PBS, and in the UK on iTunes. It will also be available very soon on VOD worldwide.

Despite claiming to exist for the greater ecological good, Bubye’s primary point is trophy hunting

RECENT reports say one of Zimbabwe’s largest private wildlife areas, Bubye Valley Conservancy, is suffering from an overpopulation of lions. The conservancy has over 500 lions and has warned that its lion population has be-come unsustainable and that it may even have to cull around 200 individuals.

Bubye management have justified the proposed cull, saying the lions are decimating populations of antelope, along with other animals such as giraffe, cheetah, leopards and wild dogs.

Despite the many contentions by its management and owners that Bubye exists for the greater ecological good, the conservancy’s primary point is trophy hunting. On its website, Bubye states: “Sustainable trophy hunting provides the incentive and revenue to achieve this amazing conservation success — and for that the Bubye Valley Conservancy makes no apology?’

The conservancy boasts that there “are more lions at much greater population densities in hunting areas than anywhere else in Zimbabwe. Lions thrive when given the resources and protection incentivised by trophy hunting”.

According to a National Geographic post, Dr Byron du Preez, an independent scientist focusing on lion ecology at the Bubye Valley Conservancy, says Bubye is “hopeful that it will be able to translocate some lions but that its plans have been intentionally derailed”.

Du Preez, who says he is neither pro nor anti-hunting, states that “habitat destruction is the lions’ biggest enemy, and there is basically no more space left in Africa for a new viable population of lions”.

Michael Shwarz admitted in National Geographic last month: “The Bubye Valley is a business”. In other words, the more trophy animals that can be commercially bred for the bullet, the bigger the profit. The problem with this management model is Bubye becomes less concerned about conservation than it does about commercial gain.

Dr Pieter Kat, lion expert and lead researcher for LionAid, an international organisation specifically dedicated to lion conservation, says the overpopulation appears intentional.

Kat says the 3 400 km2 conservancy has about 15 lions per 100 km2. The natural density of lions, for example, in the Kruger Park is about five to six per 100 km2 in the north, which is similar in habitat to Bubye, and seven to eight per 100 km2 in the south. Bubye there-fore has more than double the natural density for lions.

According to initial research results by Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU), in the Department of Zoology at Oxford University, Bubye’s high number of artificial waterholes has facilitated the population explosion of lions.

Trophy hunting is big business in Africa bringing in a revenue of $200 mil-lion (about R2,9 billion) and lions are one of the biggest earners. It costs around $50 000 to shoot a lion in Zimbabwe. Proponents of trophy hunting argue that this revenue goes back into conservation and community upliftment schemes but separate reports, by Economists at Large, the Interna-tional Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and Humane Society International questioned the validity of these claims, stating that most of the money is for profit by private landowners and government officials.

Bubye’s chief professional hunter, Pete Fick, bemoans the fact that foreign hunters are no longer coming to Bubye to thin the lion population, a major rea-son they cite for the proposed lion cull.

In 2015, Australia and France banned the import of lion trophies while the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) included African lions on its endangered species list. The FWS decision doesn’t ban trophy hunting out right but as Ian Michler, the lead character in the documentary Blood Lions, said in an interview with National Geographic, “it now puts the onus on the hunters — they have to show how their lion trophy is making a contribution to the conservation of the species before an import permit will be issued”.

Fick views the FWS as “the biggest threat to most of Africa’s lions”.

The conservancy wrote a letter to the department requesting it to reconsider the listing, but the FWS stood firm. Its directive sends a clear message that breeding lions solely for commercial use is no longer acceptable.

Christine Macsween, director and founder of LionAid, asked in a report in January at a time when Bubye was raffling hunting tickets to shoot lions: “Are the Bubye fenced lions offered to trophy hunters’ guns anything to do with wild lion conservation?”

Macsween says the lions “live behind a 2,1-metre electric fence. The fenced lions do not live in any natural environment, and are there to be shot”.

She questions whether Bubye is just “another form of canned hunting”.

After repeated requests Bubye has declined to comment on whether the lions are fenced in.

Fick claims that Bubye is “the most successful lion story ever in Africa”, but Kat counters that in reality, “this cur-rent call to cull 200 lions is in recognition of past bad management procedures”. Bubye now realises “it has too many lions primarily because they are eating into their stock of other valuable hunting species”. It is poor conservation management and they are trying to blame the USFWS directive for the current problem. Ultimately, it’s the lions that have to pay the price.

Canned hunting has become a highly contested and debated subject not only in South Africa but worldwide. It is defined as a trophy hunt in which an animal is kept in a confined area increasing the likelihood of the hunter obtaining the kill.

It is difficult to obtain the precise numbers but between information sourced from the South African Predator Association, The Convention for the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the various government and provincial bodies – the statistics indicate that between 800-1000 lions are being shot annually in South Africa.

Over 50% of the hunters originate from the United States.

Isabel Wentzel, Unit Manager for the National Council of SPCA’s Wildlife Unit explains that the wild lion population in South Africa has declined dramatically through poaching and hunting, with only about 2100-2500 wild lions left.

In less than 15 years, the number of lions in captivity has increased from less than 200 to an estimated 8000 with hunters paying half the price to shoot a lion that has been bred for canned hunts. A male lion will cost you $25 000 and a female $8 000 whereas a white lion male will be around $30 000.

“In terms of the trade, to take anything out of the country you will need an export permit. So there are different laws.

More protected animals like rhino and lions fall under CITES, an international agreement between governments.”

Wentzel clarifies that an international hunter would need a permit to possess the animal in the first place, before being able to obtain an export permit to take the animal trophy out of the country.

Depending to which country they are travelling, they will then need an additional import permit.

“So there are things in place to help control and regulate but it’s the illegal poachers who will try and smuggle the animal trophies out – they are not even going to bother to go for a permit. Lions are the only animal which is used in all stages of its life; From cub petting they go on to walks with lions and then on to canned hunting and then finally the remains are taken as trophies and the trade of lion bone sales is heavily on the increase,” says Wentzel.

Lion bones are highly sought after as ‘tiger bones’ in traditional Chinese medicine. Just as rhino are senselessly butchered for their horn to be used for unproven medicinal purposes, so too is the fate of the bones from lions.

South Africa is one of the few countries in the world that breeds lions for the purposes of hunting.

Drew Abrahamson a forerunner in big cat conservation explains that there is no way that canned hunting can be classified as conservation,

“Breeders are taking the cubs away from the mother when they are about three days old. They then bring her into oestrus to mate again with a male and then another three months down the line she will have more cubs and the cycle will go on.”

Abrahamson was speaking at the Captured in Africa Foundation launch in Johannesburg. Founder of the foundation, she has set out to completely stop the lions bred in captivity industry which is a major cause of inbreeding within the South African lion population. The severe inbreeding leads more and more to big cats developing squints, deformities and bone disorders, etc.

“The first step is to educate the public and another major thing is we need to educate international volunteers who come over to South Africa to interact and work with the cubs at these breeding farms. They tell the volunteers that the cubs have been rejected by the mother which is simply not the case,” says Abrahamson.

International volunteers are enticed to come over to South Africa to look after cubs bred by these farms and in doing so help ‘domesticate’ the lions so that the beasts are habituated and human friendly.

“From cub petting as the lion grows older they are moved to walks with lions which is another bad step and obviously makes them a lot easier to hunt because they are so used to people. They get fed off from the back of a vehicle so if the lions see a vehicle drive into the enclosure their immediate reaction is to seek out that human interaction or they think its food,” says Abrahamson.

The South African Predator Breeders’ Association contests this idea, and firmly believes that the breeding of lions in captivity has a crucial role in the preservation of lions.
In 2010 the SA Predator Breeders’ Association won a Supreme Court Appeal case regarding canned hunting. This had a ripple effect on the conservation of lions today.

In the high court the organisation challenged the inclusion of lions as a listed large predator in the Threatened or Protected Species Regulations and the 24-month period in which captive-bred lions had to fend for themselves before they could be hunted.

Wentzel, of the National Council of SPCA’s Wildlife Unit, says that this means that the 24-month rewilding period as stipulated in the Threatened and Protected Species Regulations to prevent canned hunting, cannot be enforced.

“Environmental Affairs created the laws in which they wanted the lions to be free for 24months. When they lost the court case, Environmental Affairs turned around and said that welfare is not their problem – so it’s had a knock on effect on all the provinces. Now the conservation guys will get to a place where the animals are thin and have no food but they will say it’s not their problem, it’s welfare, phone the NSPCA, so it’s a difficult one,” says Wentzel.

Nature Conservation is the organisation that issues permits for the holding of animals, however they do not necessarily take animal welfare into consideration.

The NSPCA does not issue permits and comes across many animal welfare issues where an existing permit has been issued. This causes a massive clash between legislation and animal welfare.

Wentzel elaborates, “They are getting a permit to hold the animal and there are no conditions of how they must hold it, or what they must do with the animals – so in that sense we work with conservation but we clash because there is no welfare consideration in the conservation legislation.“

Botswana on the other hand is actually doing a much better job of managing its wildlife resources.

Marnus Roodol, Founder of Walking with Lions in Botswana, explains that their organisation is specifically about resolving human-wildlife conflict.

“We’re trying to assist local communities in Botswana to try and deter them from killing the lions when they attack the livestock. It’s very important to educate the younger generations. Your actions have to speak louder than words.”

In addition Botswana’s government has in a move to preserve their wildlife put a total ban in place on trophy hunting.

Tshekedi Khama, Botswana’s Environmental Minister, was interviewed in the documentary on canned hunting ‘Blood Lions: Bred for the Bullet’ and says the country sees more long-term value in its photographic safaris.

Travel and Tourism contributes an estimated 9% to South Africa’s ever struggling economy, with revenue generated from the canned hunting industry estimated to be about R2.6bn.

However, it is said to make up less than 0.1% of South Africa’s overall tourism income.

This is the same sentiment from Abrahamson who through Captured in Africa offers tourists safari packages throughout Africa. She explains how, through the public raising their voice on social media, they have been able to save wild lions who have outwitted their camps and escaped through the fences.

“Nobody really knows too much about it, but a lot of the time the lions and the leopards get out of the reserves due to pressures from other leopards or other male lions, or cases where fences washed away because of rain and flash floods.”

Recently three-year-old Sylvester the lion had Social Media in a buzz with #SaveSylvester trending as the big cat escaped the Karoo National Park for a second time.

Four days after he was found wandering the Karoo and classified a danger causing animal, SANParks’s spokesperson Wanda Mkutshulwa said there was no reason to end his life.

“Euthanasia is not an option at this stage,” Mkutshulwa said.

The lion was darted from the air in tough terrain high up in the mountains at about midday on 31 March 2016. About 200 people gathered in Cape Town to protest the possibility of putting him down.

This is a major turning point if you take into consideration that recently two wandering lions were killed as the animals strayed from Kenya’s Nairobi National Park during a road construction project.

Kenyan wildlife rangers shot dead a male lion named Mohawk after he strayed from the National Park and attacked and injured a resident.

The following day the rangers found the body of another lion outside the reserve after it had been speared to death in a township south of Nairobi.

Jurg Olsen from Ubuntu Spirit of Africa Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation Sanctuary says that the biggest obstacle that comes into play when relocating and rehabilitating big cats is finding a suitable habitat. Relocating and capturing a big cat is a long process with a lot of red tape and bureaucracy.

“If you look at the Sylvester situation, that’s a perfect example of how things can go almost wrong but with public involvement they can go right. The future is public involvement. If you think of it all the animals in these parks they belong to us, they belong to you, to me and to everyone standing here. Sylvester belongs to all us, the lion that we don’t even know belongs to all of us.”
Garreth Patterson, Author and Environmentalist shares this idea, and says that people world-wide who weren’t necessarily even interested in lions became voices through the power of the internet when the horrors of trophy hunting was exposed through Cecil the lion’s trophy hunt.

For more than a decade Cecil was a tourist attraction to Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park until an American dentist shot him, and images of him standing over the carcass of Cecil went viral.

“I think people are changing, there’s fantastic awareness that’s happened. We’re aware of canned ion hunt, trophy hunting and people are making a difference, there’s the situation with Sylvester the lion in the Karoo and the authority wanted to put him down but they won’t put him down because the public is so strong and that make a huge difference.”

The public has a very important role to play in the debate of Canned hunting as Abrahamson concludes. “Last year on the 21st of March we protested at the Lion Park in Joburg – out of that they have decided to stop cub petting which is fantastic. Not because they’ve had a change of heart and think it’s immoral, but because of public pressure. The public just need to realise that their voice is extremely powerful.”

For now Canned Hunting is here to stay and alongside it the mismanagement of trophy hunting and the illegal trade in animal trophies which remain a threat to South Africa’s wildlife population.

The South African government has however imposed a year-long ban on leopard hunting in 2016 as the Department of Environmental Affairs was acting on recommendations from South Africa’s Scientific Authority.

The size of South Africa’s leopard population remains a mystery.

Discovery Channel buys local documentary about canned lion hunting

The anxiously awaited screening of the expose Blood Lions — Bred for the Bullet, at the Masque Theatre, on Thursday March 31, was met with gasps of horror and expressions of anger.

The theatre had an excellent turnout of patrons who were committed to learning the uncomfortable truth about the canned lion industry. It was raw, emotive and shocking.

But it did not leave one paralysed with the idea that nothing could be done. Quite the opposite, the documentary deeply fuels the desire to act, to stand up and demand that this deceitful and macabre industry be shut down.

And that is precisely what the team who put the movie together was hoping for.

The documentary is evenly balanced with information and insight.

Director and script writer, Bruce Young, joined author, poet, activist, psychiatrist and Marina da Gama resident, Ian McCallum — who is featured in the documentary — on stage after the screening, to answer questions from the audience, and to share information about what has happened since the first screening last year.

Mr. Young said that while our own government showed little interest, international outrage is rising.

There have been 50 screenings (worldwide) of this documentary and the Discovery Channel has bought it and screened it across 185 countries and territories — it has also had enormous exposure on social media and the team who put it together have been hugely gratified by the response, Mr. Young said.

He said that comedienne Ellen de Generes, who alone has 48 million Twitter followers, American singer Mylie Cyrus and British comedian Ricky Gervais have spoken about this documentary to their followers.

“This movie you saw tonight is in an international conversation,” he said.

“Ultimately the South African government and the South African tourist board, who have resisted acknowledging that this is a problem for us, and that it is damaging our country’s reputation, will eventually hear us,” Mr. Young said.

Mr. McCallum said that after seeing Blood Lions, the Professional Hunter’s Association voted 60 to 40 percent against canned hunting, ” which is an encouraging part of the momentum”, he said.

“Our film came out at exactly the right time, just when the world was horrified about the shooting of Cecil the lion, and has given seasoned rational and balanced information about and around the situation, so that viewers could make up their own minds,” Mr. Young said.

 “Our hope was that it would encourage viewers not just to feel but to think, and lastly to act,” Mr. Young said.

Woolworths has had a reusable bag made for sale which includes a copy of the Blood Lions DVD.

“What you can do is raise awareness of this — educate those who do not know. You can also choose not to support any programmes that encourage petting of lion cubs, or walking with lions, as no lion bred in captivity can be successfully released into the wild,” Mr. McCallum said.

Ian Michler, the storyteller and environmental journalist who presents the information, is personally taking it to Washington to have it screened there.

I stand in support of the Global March Against Canned Lion Hunting knowing that is up to us to secure the survival of the pride of Africa. Thank you for speaking for the voiceless victims who live out their lives behind bars, never knowing the freedom that is rightfully theirs.

The IFP has supported the campaign the save our lions for several years. We have secured a commitment from the National Assembly to ensure that our wildlife receives the fullest legislative protection. We have petitioned the Minister of Environmental Affairs and have raised this urgent issue with the Speaker of Parliament.

But until the outcry from our communities reaches that crucial tipping point, I fear that little will be done at the level of policy making and legislative change. It is you, the voter, who gives your mandate to those in power. It is you who can change the way our Government sees the canned lion hunting industry.

As the Patron of the Wildlands Conservation Trust, I am encouraged by the launch of the film, “Blood Lions”, which reveals the truth about this industry and condemns our lions being bred for the bullet.

I am appalled to think how man has subverted the way we see lions. I think of the majestic descriptions of lions in literature throughout the ages, of golden manes and great, solemn, royal eyes. Then I think of ten lions in an online catalogue, being pawed over by foreign trophy hunters as they decide who to kill for a few thousand dollars.

This is patently evil and against the natural order.

My friend, Lawrence Anthony, said, “Until we allow all living creatures their place in the sun, we can never be whole ourselves.” Lawrence Anthony was one man, who went into Iraq when others were fleeing, to rescue the starving lions imprisoned in the palace of Saddam Hussein’s son. His courage is an inspiration, reminding us that we as individuals can and must act on our conscience.

Those who have gathered in this Global March are doing just that. I thank you, not only for my sake, but for the sake of my grandchildren. When they see this march, they become aware that lions need our protection. They and their generation are called to act, to take the lead from this generation for the sake of the continued survival of the pride of Africa.

On behalf of the IFP, I have asked the Honourable Ms Liezl van der Merwe MP to receive your petition today. We will ensure that it reaches those with the authority to change the law to finally Ban Canned Lion Hunting.

May our lions be freed.

Singer Miley Cyrus is nursing her wounds after she was injured by a vicious cat.

The 23-year-old animal lover’s pet turned on her on Monday (04Apr16), and left the Wrecking Ball hitmaker scratched and bloodied.

Miley shared a photo of her forehead injuries with fans on Instagram, adding a caption that read: “f**ked up by a pussy cat f*******ck”.

Cyrus shared two other snaps, including a close-up image of her bloodied scalp and a picture of deep, long lacerations on her tattooed forearm, with the expletive “F*******ck” written in the captions alongside cat emojis.

The former Hannah Montana actress has been an animal advocate for many years and she recently backed a campaign to end the hunting of lions in South Africa.

Posting a petition on Instagram last October (15), Cyrus invited fans to sign the appeal to protest the practice of breeding lion cubs to be killed for sport.

A message posted alongside the petition, aimed at the South African Department of Environmental Affairs, read, “Baby lion cubs… are bred every year for no other purpose than to be shot by tourists.

“These ‘Blood Lions’ are taken from their mothers… and are hand reared by their owners who tame them, so they are easier to kill… They are sent to a game reserve where they are stuck in small, crowded pens with dozens of other cats. Pictures of the lions are then taken and put on the Internet so that tourists from around the world can pay thousands of dollars to claim them as the victims of their next hunt in a practice known as ‘Canned Hunting’.”

Cyrus’ support of the campaign to ban the inhumane practice helped garner hundreds of thousands of signatures

Cape Town – On Saturday 2^nd April a small group of people met in Cape Town and marched down Adderley Street, up Long Street and into the Company Gardens, as part of a Global March for Lions.

It was a desperate attempt to raise awareness for the plight of these endangered animals – and while thousands were not marching, there were a couple of hundred passionate individuals who came out to add a collective raw to the issue.

And through online participation and social media it’s one we can all assist with.

An organisation called, Help.four-paws.org, is spearheading a petition to President Jacob Zuma, with 255 288 of 300 000 required signatures already signed.

Says Help.Four-paws.org on its website, “The most extreme variety of trophy hunting is “Canned Hunting”. Most of the victims are lions, which are served to their hunters on a silver platter: The animals which are born in captivity are taken away from their mothers within hours of being born so they can be used in petting zoos. When they become of age they then spend the rest of their life in caged compounds waiting to be released in a larger compound for the so called ‘canned’ hunt.”

“We want to ask the South African President Jacob Zuma and the South African Minister of Environmental Affairs Edna Molewa, to oppose the powerful lobby of the lion breeders and to ban the cruel Canned Hunting at last!”

It is an issue that has recently received global attention, mostly through the prolific Blood Lions documentary which details the farce that exists through lion cub petting, conservation voluntourism and the canned lion hunting industry.

Other means of adding your voice and weight to the issue is to simply say no to visiting any facility that offers lion cub petting.

Much as we all would love this experience with adorable large kitties, these cuties are destined for a miserable and unnatural life. As soon as they are too old to be cute, and safe around people they will be relocated to a facility that feeds into the canned hunting industry.

Canned hunting is an unfair fight. Lions that associate humans with food are released into a wild, but small, controlled environment and are sold to hunters. It is a guaranteed kill. It is not hunting, it is target shooting. It is wrong.

South Africa as a nation has an excellent approach towards protecting the environment and our laws around conservation are solid. We need to put pressure on Government to continue the good work and ban canned hunting and animal interaction. There is big money involved in these industries, but we need to continue fighting for what is right.