Cape Town – Wildlife campaigners in South Africa on Saturday took part in an international push to protect the lion and save the king of beasts from being raised in cages for “canned hunting”.
South African archbishop and Nobel peace laureate Desmond Tutu supported t the rally with a prayer read by his daughter Mpho who called for success in “saving all wildlife especially the “white lions”.
“Save the lion” rallies are set to be held in cities around the world, but the focus is on South Africa, where the hunting of lions raised in captivity is lucrative business.
When canned hunting takes place the lions get released into a confined area where they cannot escape then hunters are allowed to take home a lion head or skin as a memento from their kill.
“I don’t believe in canned hunting. It shouldn’t be hunting for trophies,” said Madeleine Goetsch, 54, who joined around 3,000 people at a march in Johannesburg.
“There is a place for regular hunting but certainly not for near extinct species,” she said.
Drew Abrahamson, 43, one of the rally organisers and also a conservationist works in tourism, said the process of canned hunting starts when cubs are taken away from their mothers and are tamed so tourists can pet them.
“Then when they become too dangerous, they enable them to grow, especially the males, and they release the mature males for the hunters,” she explained.
“They can shoot at close range as the lions are tamed.”
Hunting for wild animals is a big tourism draw in South Africa bringing in 1.24 billion rand (83 million euros, $115 million) in 2012, according to a study.
More than $3,000 a day is paid by foreign hunters for the hunting, which requires a special permit.
Rich Americans (55 percent) and Europeans (40 percent), especially Germans, French, Poles, Finns, Austrians and Hungarians are some of the foreign hunters.
The campaign was criticised by South Africa’s association of professional hunters who said the campaign was confusing illegal hunts with forms that are legal and responsible and “have a positive impact” on wildlife preservation.
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