Freedom

This image of 2013 breaks my hart as I recall the joy and happiness of that day, but also the sadness (maybe regret) that followed years later. Uploading the original in Jan'2016, it start for me about the image itself and not about the larger picture behind this scene. With more obvious questions coming from members, I thought it appropriate to respond with much more details than what was asked of me. Never wanting to pretend that this image was taken in the wild, nor did I thought of this as another social media opportunity to continue with raising awareness and actively inform the general public.
I took this photo while partaking in an 3 hr morning walk with 3 semi wild sub-adult (18 months) lions at a 4 star lodge co-owned by a local and US hotel group. As teenagers the safety risk to the participants are much less and the lions are literally less loose and allowed to express themselves in typical cat like behavior, practicing their skills and ambushing each other. One could sense they enjoyed the morning excursion as much as I did. Big cats are my favorite specie and I was on cloud 9.
Two years later and some more uncomfortable details started to emerge about the lion "industry" in my country South Africa. This coincided with the illegal trophy hunt of of the famous Zimbabwe lion called Cecil that captured the world news headlines. A local undercover documentary called Blood lions revealed more shocking details about the sometimes legal or illegal hunting industry in SA. The sad reality as I uncovered last year is that this breeding facility is only one of 150 of its kind in SA. And these 3 lions are part of the nearly 8000 lions in captivity. Nearly 40% of the lion population in Africa. Maybe a few 100 cats will end up at a zoo or sanctuaries, but none of these 8000 can be re-introduced into the wild. With local permitted hunting quota set at 100 annually, one begs the question how does the numbers adds up? How many lions don't disappear under the radar each year in illegal activities. Some unscrupulous operators will take the young born lions away from its mother so that she can go into estrous again and produce another litter sooner. Some of those same operators will promote cub petting programs and will tell international volunteers who care for the cubs and the public that these cubs are orphaned. The cubs will be exploited from a young age in petting programs, walking with lions will be in the teenager years, but ultimately they will be "bred for the bullet" when they become adults. Where first world country hunters will pay a fortune to shoot what they believe is a real wild lion in canned lion hunting operations. If you the stomach to watch true reality TV of some unethical hunting practices, see Blood-lions the movie. Or check out their Facebook page.
I know that some of these bred lions are being exported to the US like Arizona for instance where similar hunting practices seems to occur. Lately because of the decline in tiger's globally, there is a strong demand from the far east for lion bones. A cultural habit of mixing the bones into a concoction beverage to give strength and virility similar to the rhino horn problem.
In summary the lion breeding industry in SA has gone commercial similar to farmed live stock and exploitation driven ego and financial greed is rife. And our government you may ask? Well they turn a blind eye to most of these practices because they are also after the big money to make from taxes and hunting tourism as it is known. This industry also creates many jobs which is far more important to them than the well being of these iconic big cats of Africa. They tend to agree with these scrupulous operators that these lion breeding programs adds value to lion conservation in Africa. That is just a big load of BS cause captive bred lions cannot be sent back into the wild. For our government to exploit these cats (and the rest of the Big 5) for hunting tourism as well as promoting the Big 5 for Eco-tourism is having your bread buttered on both sides, thus pure financial greed.

BUT it does appear that the tide has turned recently, with international governments of first world countries and public taking a strong stance. For the past 6 months good news have been flooding in from all directions. Australia, France and the Netherlands all banning the imports of trophies from Africa. The US for the time being tightening their policies. Most major international air transport operators banning the transportation of trophies. Our own professional hunting organisation taking a stance against canned lion hunting operators until such time that they can prove the conservation value that lion breeding brings to the table.

The winds of change have been blowing at gale force in the past 6 months and hopefully the best is yet to come. I urge View-bug members to support any initiative that may help tightening the screws and help sustaining the international pressure on trophy hunting in Africa at large and more particularly the exploitation of these iconic socials cats of Africa.

It saddens me to think that these lions in this image (4 or 5 years old by now) could have already become part of the commodity trade of animal products - trophies. Not knowing if the lion walk that I supported was manage by (hopefully) one of the good guys in the lion breeding industry. South Africa's well known lion whisperer Kevin Richardson did his own undercover investigation last year, which included this 4 star lodge operation and since then I decide rather not to trust any operater that is generating an income from public interaction programmes.

But I would not forget the happiness I felt on that day, interacting with these 3 lions full of fun and games, expressing themselves in their world of limited freedom.

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