Approximately 12,000 lions are allegedly being bred in captivity for the sole purpose of being shot by tourists. The revelation comes from businessman and philanthropist Lord Ashcroft, who recently traveled to Africa to investigate just how many of these beautiful animals were part of the “canned hunts” and wrote about his experience in Unfair Game: An Exposé Of South Africa’s Captive-Bred Lion Industry.
- There are more lions being bred in captivity than in the wild. According to Lord Ashcroft, South Africa alone has 12,000 privately bred lions for killing, which is quadruple the number of lions that exist in the wild in the country.
- Animal abuse has become a serious problem in South Africa. “It is no exaggeration to say that the abuse of lions in South Africa has become an industry,” Lord Ashcroft wrote in an expert of the book published by the Daily Mail. “Thousands are bred on farms every year; they are torn away from their mothers when they are just days old, used as pawns in the tourist sector and then either killed in a ‘hunt’ or simply slaughtered for their bones and other body parts, which are very valuable in Asia’s so-called medicine market.”
- These gorgeous animals live in terrible conditions while they are alive. Ashcroft said that the lions are kept in tiny cages that are extremely unhygienic, they aren’t fed very much, and they’re beaten or hurt if they don’t “perform” for tourists. How can this be allowed?!
- Somehow, these barbaric practices aren’t against the law. “My research suggests it is highly likely that there are now at least 12,000 captive-bred lions in the country, against a wild population of just 3,000. Yet, strikingly, just a small number of people – a few hundred – profit from this abusive set-up. Thanks to South Africa’s constitution and laws, they seem able to operate as they wish,” Ashcroft wrote.
- Ashcroft worries that this could also lead to a public health crisis for humans. In the Far East, lion bones are seen as medicinal and an aphrodisiac and are sometimes even turned into wine or cakes. Ashcroft believes this could eventually lead to “another coronavirus-style pandemic.”
- It’s time for this barbaric practice to stop. “Lion farming shames South Africa, a country that I have loved visiting for many years. It’s time to recognize that it is a cruel and barbaric industry which has no place in the 21st century,” Ashcroft wrote. Something must be done!
