‘Unfair Game’ reveals the cruel reality of canned lions

‘Unfair Game’

 

Don Pinnock

IWB. $27

 

Almost without exception, every single captive-bred lion in SA faces a miserable fate – petted and played with as a cub, then becoming the target in a canned hunt or ending up being slaughtered for the bone trade. As Environment Minister Barbara Creecy’s questionable Advisory Committee determines future policies regarding the consumptive use of our wild animals, it’s been handed a devastating book by British philanthropist Lord Ashcroft on the ongoing cruelty of SA's captive-bred lion industry. In an elaborate two-year undercover operation funded by Lord Michael Ashcroft, former Special Forces and security operatives documented in detail the names, places, cruel practices and trafficking routes of the industry. He estimates there are now 12 000 captive lions in the country and only 3 000 wild lions and has proof that wild lions are being poached in Botswana to improve the captive breeding stock. The book names many lion breeding outfits and their owners, some fronting as wedding venues. This is a painful but necessary book to read. It faces terrible cruelty and doesn’t blink.

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