The South African canned lion industry is one of the cruellest industries in the world. The SA Minister of the Environment, himself a former hunter, has publicly described the canned hunting fraternity as “environmental thugs.”  How could Animal Planet stoop to white washing this industry, and present canned hunting as conservation? To see what Marius Prinsloo does to his lions, see below extract from his website www.ingulule.com  and feast your eyes on the photographs of magnificent lions, into whom you are invited to go and shoot arrows or bullets - at a price.    Mr Prinsloo meets criticism of canned hunting with the old argument “we breed cattle for slaughter; so why not lions?”  He wants to treat wild animals as alternative domestic livestock - but cannot imagine the outcry if farmers charged around their farms shooting arrows and bullets into their sheep and cattle. Animal Planet does not mention that Mr. Prinsloo acquired some of his white lion breeding stock from Johannesburg Zoo.  What kind of a Zoo is this, which rents out lions for the canned lion industry?                                                                                                   CLICK HERE FOR UP TO DATE INFORMATION

CANNED LIONS

…THE BARBARITY CONTINUES…

WHY DO SOUTH AFRICANS IGNORE IT?

Many people naively believe that the South African government is attempting to close down the canned lion hunting business.  This is simply not true. . The December amendment to the new regulations, surprisingly, excludes lions from the listed predators.  Lions will therefore continue to be canned hunted with SA government approval.   This leaves the lion hunting industry free to carry on with business as usual.  Last year 2007, after the promulgation of the new TOPS regulations, more than 1000 lions were canned hunted in one SA province alone. (North-West) 

One of the restrictions which will no doubt be a central issue in the Bloemfontein High Court, where the lion breeders are challenging the validity of the new regulations, is the so-called two-year wilding rule.  The hunting industry is trying, through government regulation, to foist on to a gullible public the idea that if a lion is kept in a camp for two years where it has prey animals (such as goats, donkeys and horses) available to hunt, it is no longer tame and therefore hunting it can no longer be termed ‘canned’ hunting.  This is obviously nonsensical: no intelligent person will swallow the argument that ‘if we pretend that the lion is wild, you can pretend that canned hunting has been abolished.’

 

After receiving a petition with over 23,000 signatures from South Africans who find this sort of hunting a disgrace, and an online petition signed by thousands of potential tourists from overseas who categorically state that they will never visit a country which institutionalizes cruelty to wild animals, the SA government doggedly continues to pander to the hunting industry.   Why is that, do you think?   Money, perhaps?  If South Africans are really serious about the well being of their wildlife now is a good time to tell Minister Van Schalkwyk.

 Email:  ministry@deat.gov.za

Telephone 012 3103611