Month: July 2016

Photos emerge of malnourished lions on breeding farm

Over the past week, horrific photos have emerged over social media of malnourished lions on a breeding farm in Alldays in Limpopo Province. These lions belong to Mr Jans Walter Slippers, who runs three operations in Alldays– a breeding farm and a hunting farm that fall under the operation, Ingogo Safaris, and a coffee shop called Toeka Plaas Kombuis, where the cubs go to be petted during the day before returning to the farm. 

Since the photos emerged, the NSPCA and LEDET have been alerted, and the NSPCA have visited the farms and confirmed that there are serious welfare issues for the animals.

Dr Andrew Venter, CEO of Wildlands emphasises that: “It is tragic to see lion breeders who have exploited lions for many years, simply abandoning their animals because they are no longer valuable. It clearly demonstrates that these breeders have no ethical conservation intent.”

Mr. Jan Walters Slippers, who is responsible for the negligent treatment of these lions, has been implicated in other dodgy dealings in the past. On 7 March 2012 he launched an urgent application against the Limpopo MEC: Economic Development, Environment and Tourism and the Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs because the department advised provinces not to issue hunting permits to Vietnamese citizens due to various concerns regarding illegal hunting practices.

Slippers had applied for hunting permits for five Vietnamese citizens who had not been issued permits. However, after his application was heard,  the court ordered the MEC to issue the permits, so long as departmental officials could interview the Vietnamese hunters to verify their personal backgrounds.

The two departments made the necessary arrangements for the hunters to attend the interviews, but were informed on the day of these interviews that the hunters were not yet in the country. It was thereafter ascertained by the departments that there were certain legitimate concerns.

UPDATE: Traveller24 contacted Walter Slippers and he “denied the lions are currently underweight, saying the images are old and must have been taken in March when he was still in rehab after a heart attack. However, Isabel Wentzel, Manager for Wildlife Protection Unit for the NSPCA, confirmed that inspections were carried out at all of Slippers’ properties on Monday, 4 July and that underweight lions were found at the breeding farm.”

Cecil the Lion Died One Year Ago—Here’s What’s Happened Since

Cecil’s killing sparked what’s been called the biggest global response to a wildlife story ever.

A year ago this week Cecil the lion was killed by Walter Palmer, sparking an international outcry and greater scrutiny of trophy hunting for the heads, skins, or other body parts of wild animals. Eight African countries allow the consistent export of lion parts, including Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Namibia, and Tanzania, which holds nearly half the continent’s wild lions.

Lions have declined precipitously in the wild, down from an estimated 200,000 continent-wide a century ago to about 20,000 today. Trophy hunting advocates and some conservationists argue that fees from hunts support conservation efforts for the big cats, whose main threats are habitat loss, prey depletion, and greater conflict with humans.

Palmer, a dentist from Minnesota, is said to have paid $54,000 to bow-hunt Cecil, a magnificent, black-maned, 13-year-old lion who lived in Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park and was well known to visitors. On July 1, he hit Cecil with an arrow on a farm outside the park, a place where the lion usually went to explore. The team tracked the famed cat and shot him again 11 hours later.

News of Cecil’s death spread instantly. Palmer became an international target of contempt, and thousands took to social media to protest Cecil’s death and trophy hunting in general. Late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel even cried. He put out a plea to viewers to donate to Oxford’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (Wildcru), the research group that had installed a radio collar on Cecil and was observing him. Donations poured in.

“I think it’s arguable that this is the biggest global response to a wildlife story there’s ever been,” says Wildcru director David Macdonald, who analyzed the media coverage. “I think all those people were exhibiting an interest not just in lions but in conservation more widely.”

Here’s what else happened over the past year.

Nations modified their trophy-hunting laws.

Some countries decided to stop letting hunters take lion trophies across their borders. Australia flat out banned them. So did France. The United States, the biggest importer of lion trophies, added new protections for lions under the Endangered Species Act. Hunters now can’t bring back their trophies unless the animal came from a country that uses hunt fees to bolster lion conservation.

A coalition of 10 countries led by Niger also proposed stronger international protections that would ban the commercial trade in African lions and their parts. The 182 member countries of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which regulates the global wildlife trade, will vote on the proposal this fall.

As for hunting restrictions in Africa, Kenya, Botswana, and Zambia already had trophy-hunting bans in place before Cecil died. (Zambia decided to lift its ban last year.) But Cecil’s home country of Zimbabwe? In August it suspended big game hunting … for 10 days.

Airlines banned trophies.

Even if a country permits imports of lion trophies, bringing them home isn’t as easy now. More than 40 airlines—including American Airlines, British Airways, JetBlue, Delta, and Air Canada—have announced or reaffirmed bans on transporting trophies from the big five species: lions, rhinos, elephants, leopards, and Cape buffalo.

One airline went in the other direction: South African Airways had instituted a ban in April 2015, but just three weeks after Cecil’s death the company lifted its ban.

We learned more about trophy hunting and its impact.

A recent report by the International Fund for Animal Welfare broke down some of the statistics: People will pay from $24,000 to $71,000 to hunt lions in Africa (more than any other trophy species); about 8,200 African lion trophies were imported between 2004 and 2014, the sixth highest of any internationally protected species (the American black bear is number one); and trade rates for lion parts have risen faster than those for any other of these protected species.

So what impact has trophy hunting had? It depends on where the lions live and how the hunting is managed—scientists recommend strict enforcement of low quotas and only allowing hunts of older lions.

Some studies have shown that trophy hunting has taken a toll on lion populations in parts of Zimbabwe and Tanzania (though they’ve since enacted reforms), while scientists consider Namibia a success story. “The thing about sport hunting is it’s not all good, it’s not all bad,” says Craig Packer, director of the Lion Research Center at the University of Minnesota. “If you’re to take an average across the continent, though, the bad outweighs the good.”

One recent report by the Democratic staff of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources found that there’s little evidence to show that trophy-hunting fees help conservation, particularly in nations known for corruption.

And about trophy hunting of captive lions …

Last summer saw the release of Blood Lions, a documentary about canned hunting in South Africa, where a hunter pays up to $50,000 to pursue and kill a lion that had been hand-reared and is kept in a confined space, making it an easy target. There are up to 7,000 of these “ranch lions.”

Since the film aired, South Africa’s hunting association voted to distance itself from the captive-bred lion hunting industry. The world’s leading group of African lion researchers and conservationists also advised that any assessment of the country’s wild lions shouldn’t include these ranch lions.

“It’s important to stress that South Africa’s ranch lions are a horror that has nothing to do with lion conservation,” Hans Bauer, a lion researcher and lead author of a 2015 assessment of lions’ conservation status, previously told National Geographic.

Walter Palmer went back to his dental practice.

After a weeks-long hiatus, Palmer went back to his dental practice last September. Zimbabwean authorities said that he had shown the proper documentation to hunt Cecil, so he was never charged with a crime. Once news of the lion’s death broke, Palmer said he didn’t know that the animal he’d shot was the beloved Cecil.

Cecil’s cubs are doing just fine.

There’s one bright spot in the Cecil saga. Cecil and another male, Jericho, had led a pride with 14 offspring, including eight young cubs. All but one are now alive and well under Jericho’s protection, according to Wildcru’s Macdonald. Scientists had worried that another male would overthrow Jericho and kill those cubs, as incoming males often do so that the females will quickly become fertile again. But that hasn’t happened. “Jericho has managed to hold the fort,” Macdonald says.

Cecil the Lion: One year on, taking stock of trophy hunting in Africa

One year ago, on 1 July 2015, Cecil the Lion was killed by an American trophy hunter in Zimbabwe.

The circumstances surrounding his death, re-exposed the excesses of trophy hunting, and led to public outcry around the world. Although the practice is not a novelty, more and more pressure has been put on the industry’s distorted ethical arguments, in a bid to stop lion trophy hunting for good.

On this first anniversary of the loved Zimbabwean lion’s death, the world remembers the unnecessary death of one of Zimbabwe’s most iconic predators.

In relation to Cecil’s death, international animal welfare organisation FOUR PAWS has expressed their thanks to the lion and all other victims of unscrupulous trophy hunting.

Fiona Miles, Country Director at FOUR PAWS South Africa, explains, “The case of Cecil the Lion was one specific case that came to public attention and caused outrage. However, this tragedy should make us aware that Cecil was just one of many – he represents the innumerable lions killed every year by trophy hunters.”

For years, organisations like Blood Lions, NatGeo’s Big Cats Initiative,Panthera, WildAid, WildCRU and Four Paws have fighting against the particularly cruel practice of canned hunting in South Africa, and globally.

This brutal form of trophy hunting sees animals that are accustomed to humans given no chance to escape, as they are forced straight into the gun sights of high-paying hobby hunters. South African Government figures show that 6 000 – 10 000 lions are currently being bred on over 200 breeding stations, specifically for this type of hunting.

Frankly, many feel South Africa has done little to hinder this shameful practice.

Hunting documentation detailing an individual’s skill are not required, meaning that hunters – who are often inexperienced – frequently have to shoot an animal several times to finish it off. This leads to a slow and agonising death.

But a glimmer of hope has come from the public outrage that came from Cecil’s death, and the anti-canned hunting campaigns that followed the 1 July 2015 hunt. New restrictions on the import of trophies in several countries are making business increasingly difficult for the lion breeders.

“In certain areas, steps were already taken in the right direction, for example new import regulations, and a ban on transporting trophies on some airlines. Several hunting associations have also come out against canned hunting,” Miles says.

Here is an overview of the successful ground made to protect lions in Africa:

– Australia and France have placed bans on importing lion trophies

– The Netherlands has placed a ban on importing trophies from lions and 200 other endangered species

– The US (the country with the most hunter-tourists) has made significant changes to have stricter import requirements.
Since January 2016, hunters wishing to import lion trophies must prove that the killing was necessary to protect lions living in the wild – which is in general very difficult to do. South African sources show that lion hunts involving hunters from the United States have decreased by 70%.

– Great Britain is threatening to ban imports from 2017 if the African countries of origin do not maintain their lion numbers more effectively

– Over 40 international airlines have banned or restricted the carrying of trophies

– The South African hunting association PHASA has taken a firm stand against the official lion breeders in the country, the South African Predator Association (SAPA) and has distanced itself from this cruel form of hunting.

– Europe’s largest hunting fair, Germany’s “Jagd & Hund”, and the Austrian “Hohe Jagd & Fischerei” fair have undertaken to oppose canned hunting products and packages

– Several African states have committed to calling for Africa’s lions to be promoted to the highest level of protection (CITES Appendix 1) at the upcoming international World Wildlife Conference, to be held in Johannesburg in September 2016. It is still uncertain whether the application will achieve the necessary majority.

Despite the positives, “we certainly have a long way to go,” Miles says.

According to a new combined Panthera – WildAid – WildCRU report, over the past two decades, the African lion population has declined by an estimated 43%, with only 20 000 lions remaining across the entire continent – and hunting isn’t the only killer.

Habitat loss, bushmeat poaching and conflict with livestock owners are the primary killers of Africa’s lions today. Compared to trophy hunting, these threats combined are estimated to kill 5-10 times as many lions each year.

Lions occupy just 8% of their historical range today. Extensive habitat loss is likely to continue as Africa’s human population grows from 1.2 billion currently to 2.47 billion in 2050, as estimated by the United Nations.

“Human population growth and agricultural expansion restrict the lion’s range and bushmeat trade is stealing their prey, leading to increasing livestock loss and human conflict,” WildAid CEO Peter Knights says.

“But with more resources for protection, there is still space and time to buck the trend and save Africa’s iconic lion. As the Cecil tragedy showed, hunting is hard to regulate and it’s difficult to ensure it’s truly sustainable, but the challenge for hunting opponents is to find alternative revenue for lion conservation in cash strapped-areas that may not benefit from tourism.”

Panthera president Dr Luke Hunter agrees, saying, “One year ago, with the loss of Cecil, the world responded unequivocally that it stands with Africa in saving the lion. Sadly, we have since lost hundreds and possibly thousands of lions.

“The species is now approaching the point of no return in many countries. Saving this extraordinary animal requires the international community to convert their outrage over Cecil into action and dollars supporting African governments, people and initiatives fighting to save the lion.”

In a new partnership, Panthera and WildAid launched a campaign on the anniversary of Cecil the Lion’s death, calling upon the global community to “Stand with Africa to Let Lions Live.”

The report calls for a greater global commitment to lions, with a focus on assisting African governments’ conservation efforts and empowering local communities to co-exist with lions and prevent loss of their prey species.

FOUR PAWS is also running a petition aimed at convincing the South African Government to place a blanket ban on canned hunting. You can sign the FOUR PAWS petition here.


If you’d like to support lion conservation, you can also:

– Take part in Traveller24’s #ShockWildlifeTruths Twitter Chat on Friday, 1 July, at 12:00, discussing the pros and cons of using wildlife apps in South Africa’s national parks. You can get more information here: ShockWildlifeTruths: Pros and cons of wildlife apps – join Traveller24’s twitter chat on 1 July

– Support Emoya Big Cat Sanctuary. This haven was opened by Savannah Heuser in 2012 and it has no breeding policy, nor is it open to the public.

– Watch Blood Lions. Canned hunting and exploitation of captive lions has gained unparalleled support and awareness through the Blood Lions documentary – bringing to the world’s attention to the horrors of predator breeding and activities using lions and other species.

As a result, Blood Lions says tourism industry leaders have collaborated to initiate a worldwide ‘Born to Live Wild‘ pledge against the predator breeding and canned hunting industry –  presenting a united front that includes the most significant tourism organisations and travel companies around the world.

Travel and Tourism operators who want to join the “Born to Live Wild” pledge can click here. Public citizens can join the movement by watching Blood Lions, and pledging your support to their work.