Are wild Lions losing the fight?

Lions in South Africa are treated like livestock. They are classified as farm animals. Ca. 8.000 to 12.000 Lions live in captivity in the most incredibly bad conditions. 

The Lion farmers have ONE GOAL, to make money from their livestock. This circuit starts with volunteer projects. Volunteers pay to be able to raise young cubs that are taken away from their mothers a few days after birth. When they are too old to be fed, the animals are exploited on Lion walks. Once they’ve grown up, they end up as cannon fodder for hunts and bone sales. Sadly, lions are often traded between breeding facilities, volunteer projects as well as Canned Hunting farms. 

They breed Lions to be sold as targets in Canned Hunts, where the animal is brought into a confined area, often just hours before the hunter arrives and often drugged, just to be shot by a wealthy person coming from Europe or America, recently also from Russia. 

Now the cruellest part of the Lion exploitation begins

The confined animals are easy targets for these safari-loving hunting tourists. They have no chance to escape. 

The hunters pay up to $5.000 for a female and up to $40.000 to shoot a male Lion. The export of trophy heads is booming. But only 10 % of the farmed Lions are destined to be hunted. And the greedy breeders have discovered a new market.

Lion bones are now sold to Asia. A whole lion carcass can bring up to $7.000. Nobody in the SA government cares what bones are sent to Asia. Nobody checks if the skeletons are complete with a skull or not. Therefore, bones from trophies and bred lions are mixed in bags and sent to Asia. 

Lion bones have replaced Tiger bones in Tiger Wine, sold all over Asia. Still, the South African Breeders claim that they conserve the wild Lions, but all that happens is that the demand for the bones is steadily increasing. But why should the criminal syndicates that organize the bone trade buy expensive bones from breeders when it’s cheap to poach wild Lions? 

Wild Lions are under enormous threat. The species has lost more than 90 % of its range in the last 100 years. If we don’t act, the lion species will be wiped out in 2050. Please help us to prevent wild lions from losing their fight against extinction!  Share and join our Facebook Group.  

Video: Courtesy of .Brut
Featured Image: Courtesy of The Guardian