Canned Lion Hunting

Canned hunting, also known as captive hunts, is a term used to describe the confinement and hunting of animals in small enclosures. The animals have no way to escape and no chance of surviving the “hunt.”  The “shooters” pay large sums of money to kill the animals. Most of the lions used in canned hunts have been bred on a farm to be killed.

Canned Lion Hunting in Africa

In South Africa, canned lion hunting is big business, generating approximately $70 million a year in revenues. Many of these lions are bred for canned hunts on farms.

When young, the lions are used to attract visitors who pay money to see, pet, and walk with them. Because they have been bottle-fed and raised by humans, they have no natural fear of people. As the lions mature, “they become handsome targets for trophy hunters. Hundreds more are slaughtered and shipped to the East for the burgeoning lion bone trade.”

Thousands of canned hunters from the United States, the UK, Germany, France and Spain come to South Africa each year to kill lions in canned hunts.

“Moreson ranch is one of more than 160 farms legally breeding big cats in South Africa. More lions are held in captivity (upwards of 5,000) in the country than live wild (about 2,000). While the owners of this ranch insist they do not hunt and kill their lions, animal welfare groups say most breeders sell their stock to be shot dead by wealthy trophy-hunters from Europe and North America, or for traditional medicine in Asia.” The Guardian (2013)

The Cook Report

From Roger Cook (The Cook Report), who reported on canned lion hunting in Africa:

So-called ‘canned hunting’ involves unfairly preventing the target animal from escaping the hunter, eliminating ‘fair chase’ and guaranteeing the hunter a trophy – for which he will have paid up to £25,000. The hapless animal is handicapped either by being confined to a small enclosure or because it has lost its fear of humans as a result of hand-rearing. Some are even tranquilized, as the Cook Report found in South Africa when it brought this ghastly trade to public attention in 1997.

After the program, the Mandela government outlawed the practice, but this enlightened change in the law was successfully challenged under succeeding administrations by the influential Predator Breeders Association – and is now both legal and flourishing. There are fewer than 3000 lions left in the ’wild’ in South Africa, but more than 8,000 in captivity, being bred – like grouse – exclusively to be shot. What’s more, some of the volunteers who have paid to help raise them have been deliberately misled into believing that they are helping conservation. Nothing could be further from the truth.

This is a multi-million pound industry, founded on cruelty and fuelled by money. It is certainly not a sport. The South African Government needs to be persuaded to close it down once and for all…”