It
seems unfathomable to those of us who
love these magnificent animals but trophy hunting is currently a very
serious threat to the African lion.
Trophy hunting not only depletes the population of the African
lion, but threatens its gene pool as well.
Killing the dominant male of a pride (normally the target of a
trophy hunt) sets off a chain of instinctive behavior in which the
subsequent dominant male kills all the young of the previous dominant
male (6-8 estimated deaths result from each male shot).
A hole in the reproductive cycle, a dwindling population, and a
diminishment of the reproductive gene pool replace the natural process.
Despite this fact, approximately 1,500 lions are killed every
year in Southern Africa alone. Given
the urgent need for revenue among African locals, and a willingness to
pay handsomely for such trophies among Asians, Europeans and
Westerner’s, predators are increasingly hunted for sport, even as they
disappear.
Over the past few years, we have been
shocked and outraged by what we have seen and heard with regard to the
"canned” hunting industry, an industry in which lions in captive
conditions are bred for the hunter's gun. Witnesses have described
scenarios of lions being taken to hunting farms and then shot in small
confined areas by high-paying foreigners.
The following excerpt from Gareth
Patterson's book "Dying to be Free - The Canned Lion Scandal"
is a gruesome description of an actual "canned" lion hunt:
She
stared around her with confused, amber eyes. The lioness, sleek and
beautiful, had just been separated from her three young cubs. They stood
calling their mother, divided from her by a tall, electrified wire
fence. Try to imagine that you have been separated from your children
and are about to be shot, execution style. What you feel was mirrored in
those amber eyes.
Later,
an impala carcass was used in an attempt to lure the lioness away from
the fence, and away from her cubs. She followed the lure almost
reluctantly, despite having been starved for the previous two days. She
was a mother, and she turned back to be with her young ones. The lioness
walked alongside the fence, calling to the cubs. They, clearly as
confused as she, called back.
Then
she saw men approaching in a vehicle. She stared at them, without
aggression, though with eyes that spoke of disbelief at the
inconceivability of the situation, of being close to her cubs, yet
apart. She moved a short distance away from the fence, then turned back
to her cubs. She stepped towards them.
A
thunderous crash violated the gentle sounds of the bush. She spun
crazily, high in the air, and tumbled onto the electric fence. The wires
bit at her, shocking her body and she shuddered down on to the ground,
where young eyes witnessed a mother's murder. The cubs fled. The last
sound the lioness heard was the second crash. Then everything turned
black. . .
Her
death was a shocking testimony to the monster which greed and
self-hatred make of some men. The professional hunter and his German
client approached the crumbled, lifeless form of the lioness. The
client, typical of his kind, crouched next to the dead lioness,
demonstrating the perversity of his sport by admiring and patting that
which he had just destroyed. He opened her jaws and turned his
hypocritical face to the cameras. Shutters clicked.
Later,
the lioness was taken to the skinning shed. There the trackers worked
with skill as they removed her coat, the first stage of the process of
her later transformation by taxidermists into a "trophy." On
the floor, as they worked, the mother's milk spilt from her teats and
mingled with her blood.
