Elise Tempelhof

Beeld South Africa
Jan 2010

Decision may allow canned lion hunting to continue

South Africa’s 123 lion breeders have been given another chance to try and convince the High Court to change proposed new legislation relating to the hunting of captive bred lions.

Appeal Judge Tom Cloete and acting judge Steven Majiedt ruled yesterday in Bloemfontein that lion breeders many appeal a High Court ruling in which a stipulation in the proposed new laws that captive bred lions may only be hunted after being released to the wild for 24 months.

The lion breeders are of the opinion that a lion should be hunted within days after being released from a camp in which it had been bred and raised.

“We are thankful that the judges felt that our case should be heard again” said Mr. Carel van Heerden, chairman of the Predators Breeders Association.

Conservation organisations are of the opinion that this decision is extremely worrying.

Ms. Louise Joubert, of SanWild, a wildlife rescue and rehabilitation centre and sanctuary that also speak on behalf of various other animal welfare groups said that the ruling to grant the right to appeal against the High Court ruling is “very bad news”.

“This highly unethical and cruel industry should have been summarily banned many years ago, but government allowed it to expand. Government already knew in 1997 that breeders were breeding lions specifically for hunting. All attempts to regulate the industry up to now have failed dismally”.

Joubert said that it will be a tragedy if an appeal court delivered a ruling in favour of lion breeders.

Van Heerden said that they were busy preparing the appeal application documents and that their appeal would probably be heard by the end of the year.

Judges Ian van der Merwe and H.M. Rampai ruled last year in Bloemfontein’s High Court that captive bred lions did not contribute in any way to biodiversity conservation. The lions which are bred in small camps must be free ranging (and hunting for themselves) before they may be hunted they ruled. With this ruling they upheld the decision of the previous Minister of Environmental Affairs, Martinus van Schalkwyk’s stipulation in the law that the industry should be regulated. It is exactly the reason why the lion breeders challenged the new law in court.

The lion breeders in the interim had reached an interim agreement with government that they may continue the hunting of captive bred lions.