 |
Just a plaything: Marius
Prinsloo (left) and a friend, Patrick Shannon, share a meal with
lion cub Beethoven, one of four bought by Prinsloo in 1996
|
Shoot a lion
for
R25 000
| HUNTING |
| A Free State
farmer starts a row when he offers hunters the chance to shoot a
captive lioness on his farm, saying he needs the money to maintain
12 more lions he keeps in pens. FIONA MACLEOD reports
|
EIGHT MONTHS after The Cook
Report blew the lid off the "canned" lion-hunting industry, a row
has erupted over the hunting of a lioness near Bethlehem in the Free
State.
Marius Prinsloo, owner of Camorhi farm, is advertising the
eight-year-old lioness for hunting for R25 000. His lions -- there are
12 on the farm -- are kept in pens of one hectare. If the lioness is
"hunted", she will probably be released into a larger area, though the
client should be told she was bred in captivity.
Prinsloo's adverts drew a heated response this week from other
big-cat breeders and from organisations which have been pressing for a
review of hunting legisation since The Cook Report, a British TV
documentary, shocked both local and international viewers with its
gruesome footage of lions being baited, drugged and "hunted" in tiny
enlosures.
Dr Peter Rogers, a veterinarian attached to the Hoedspruit Cheetah
Project in Mpumalanga, sold four cubs to Prinsloo for R40 000 in 1996.
The cheetah project is part of Kapama Game Reserve, owned by Johan
Roode, a board member of the South African National Parks and a founder
trustee of the Endangered Species Protection Unit.
Rogers is furious about Prinsloo's adverts. Though the lioness
Prinsloo is offering as a trophy is not related to his four cubs, "this
is the last thing we need right now", he says.
"My cubs were from an abandoned litter. The Prinsloos promised they
would only be used for tourism, they would be kept in a big pen and they
would never be resold. They seemed to be on the level."
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One of the first indications
Rogers had that things were not "on the level" was when, shortly after
he had sold the cubs, a Pretoria newspaper featured photographs of
Prinsloo sharing a meal with one of them and a friend of his sharing a
bed with the same cub. Rogers threatened to take the cubs back, but was
persuaded not to by Prinsloo's wife and secretary.
Prinsloo says he is selling the lioness because she has "feline
herpes" and she is aggressive. He needs the money because "nobody can
conserve lions without money.
"I love my lions and I don't want to shoot her, but the reality is
she is costing me more than R17 000 a year to keep. All these people who
tell us we shouldn't shoot our lions should give us some support, put
their money where their mouths are."
Prinsloo says shooting lions in the wild is worse than shooting those
bred in captivity. "And if people breed lions for hunting, it takes the
pressure off the wild lion populations."
It is exactly this situation -- the breeding of big cats for hunting
profits -- that Dillon Hale is investigating for the International Fund
for Animal Welfare (Ifaw). Hale has produced a 150-page report that will
form the basis of a submission to Parliament.
"We're calling for a national Act to regulate the industry," he says.
"All we have now are administrative orders issued within the different
provincial departments. The internal criteria are not open and freely
available to the public, which is unconstitutional."
Ifaw collected 55 000 petitions protesting against "canned" lion
hunting in the wake of The Cook Report. "But it's almost as if the
reaction of the public means nothing to the politicians and the
scientists," says Ifaw's Chris Styles.
"The provincial departments concerned have been tardy in getting
their act together, to say the least, and the only province that has
even attempted to address the issue is Mpumalanga." --
Mail&Guardian, February 2, 1998.
