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Business as usual for captive lion breeding after SA government keeps the door open

Adam Cruise
By Adam Cruise
20 Nov 2024
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The Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment has issued a general notice that effectively means lion breeders can voluntarily choose to stop captive breeding of lions – and end their source of income – or continue.

The Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) has effectively left the door open for the continuation of South Africa’s notorious captive lion breeding industry, which involves canned lion trophy hunting, the sale of lion bones and derivatives, and the export of live lions internationally.

The industry has been branded as being harmful to South Africa’s tourism industry and, as a result, there has been a concerted effort in the past six years to end captive lion breeding once and for all.

Voluntary exit


However, rather than end the industry outright, on 15 November 2024 the DFFE issued a general notice in the Government Gazette calling “for persons to participate in the voluntary exit from the captive lion industry programme by surrendering their legal stockpiles of lion bones and derivatives”. This means that lion breeders can choose to either stop captive breeding of lions – and end their source of income – or continue.

The general notice is a feeble response to recommendations from a high-level panel of experts who formulated a 250-page report to end an industry that has increasingly embarrassed South Africa.

South Africa has the world’s largest captive lion population of around 8,000 for the purposes of canned lion hunting, and the export of live lions and lion bones to Asian countries as a substitute in tiger-bone wine.

According to the DFFE’s notice, “the captive lion industry faces escalating ethical, regulatory, conservation, economic hurdles, as well as misalignment with global conservation trends and persistent animal welfare, and other issues. The industry’s deficiency in social license and departure from international norms present formidable problems to its sustainability.”

The DFFE was assisted by extensive public stakeholder engagement that began in 2018 when the parliamentary Portfolio Committee for Environmental Affairs held a colloquium on captive lion breeding for hunting. The colloquium’s recommendations, adopted by the National Assembly, urged the department to urgently review policies and legislation on the captive breeding of lions for hunting and the lion-bone trade with a view to shutting it down.

As a result, in December 2022, the then Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Barbara Creecy, appointed a Ministerial Task Team (MTT) to identify and recommend pathways from the captive lion industry. Recommendations, dated 15 February 2024, were submitted to the minister and the report was released. The minister re-appointed some of the MTT members to facilitate the implementation of the outcomes of the report.

No incentives to shut down


However, current Minister Dion George has left the door wide open for a continuation of the trade. The voluntary exit will not incentivise lion breeders to end their trade.

In a meeting with concerned NGOs in May this year, Kam Chetty, chair of the task team appointed by the department to “close” the industry, stated that the government will not put any money to shut it down. “All will have to come from civil society,” he said. This means government will play no role in the process of enforcing or even funding a closure of the captive lion breeding industry.

Worse, the department expects NGOs and welfare societies to effectively pay for lion breeders to end the trade. Chetty calculated that the process would need R100-million in total.

To just close down a third of the facilities, R36-million would be required to get every lion sterilised and 2,800 legal skeletons destroyed. About 500 lions will have to be killed. 

Lion breeders also have no intention of closing down their industry. The South African Predator Association (Sapa) has vowed to challenge the voluntary exit strategy.

After last year’s Sapa AGM, professional hunter and outfitter Clayton Fletcher stated on Facebook that some of the biggest wildlife groups have joined forces in fighting for the lion industry in South Africa. He cites support from a number of hunting and captive breeding associations being onboard with Sapa in resisting the department’s invitation to shut shop.

In response to the latest general notice, Wildlife Ranching South Africa (WRSA), which represents individuals in the captive lion industry, has urged its members “to carefully consider their participation in this process and will continue to advocate for greater transparency in the DFFE’s handling of wildlife policies”. The WRSA says it “stands ready to support members and provide legal consultation to members pertaining to their private ownership rights”.

The DFFE justifies its reluctance to completely close the industry on the grounds that it is “highly litigious”. It is fearful of the threat of being sued by industry stakeholders and associations. Chetty noted that certain provinces have argued they are not obliged to follow national legislation.

In short, the department has absolved itself from any meaningful action against the industry and has effectively pulled back from achieving the goals as set out by the panel of experts.

According to the minister in the latest notice, all they can do is to “encourage” breeders to “consider the voluntary exit options involving lion bones and derivatives, to register their interest by submitting their details to the Department”. But the minister hastens to state that “all information provided is treated confidentially, and registration does not constitute any obligation to proceed with voluntary exit options”.

In other words, it’s business as usual.

Trade continues in full swing


Before being halted by the department in 2019, South Africa had in the past allowed for a legal quota of 1,500 full lion skeletons to be exported. However, international trade continues unabated. EMS Foundation, an organisation at the forefront of the campaign to close down the industry, has found that in just six months between April and September 2023, 140 lion trophies, bones and derivatives, and 61 live lions – all from captive-bred lion farms – were flown out of OR Tambo International Airport for overseas destinations.

Michele Pickover, CEO of the EMS, says that these figures from just one port of exit in South Africa show the captive lion breeding industry continues in full swing. Pickover states that the government “can and should be able to shut down the industry. If they are so worried about the effect this nefarious trade has on tourism in South Africa, they have enough tools themselves to end it once and for all.” DM

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