Fiona Macleod
Setting up a big cat commission would help put an end to “canned” lion hunting, says a report that will be submitted to Parliament in the next few weeks.
The commission would ban the hunting of big cats in small enclosures, from vehicles or hides, by drugging or baiting them, and while they are pregnant or feeding their young. Video footage of hunts in South Africa in all these situations shocked the world when it was flighted in the British documentary The Cook Report last May.
Eight months later, the “canned” lion- hunting industry is still thriving. Conservation authorities have done little more than promise to investigate the situation. Their attitude appears to be that it is private individuals who are creating the problem – and it will take private initiative to sort it out.
Soon after the release of The Cook Report, Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Pallo Jordan met the nine environmental MECs and promised stricter hunting regulations in provinces where illegal hunting is taking place. Towards the end of last year, the minister also recommended that all the MECs impose a voluntary moratorium on granting licences for new lion-breeding facilities.
But it is this balkanisation of responsibility to the provinces that enables the “canned” lion-hunting industry to thrive, argues Dillon Hale, the researcher who compiled the parliamentary report. He is calling for a national policy, which will be implemented by the big cat commission.
Hale points out that the regulations being applied by the nine provinces are still those used by the old Transvaal, Natal, Orange Free State and Cape, some of them dating back to 1969. They are not only outdated, he says, but impossible to administer.
“The result is that permits are being issued on an ad hoc basis, and it’s virtually impossible for anyone to find out what the criteria are. It’s anything but an open, transparent decision-making process.”
Hale’s 150-page report, commissioned by the International Fund for Animal Welfare and partly researched in the United States, makes wide-ranging recommendations on the hunting, trade, transportation and captivity of big cats. It calls for the special protection of lions, leopards and cheetahs, not only because they are “rare and endangered”, but because of their “traditional African historical, religious and social importance”.
Cheetah, it argues, should never be hunted, poisoned, snared or killed under any circumstances. “To all intents and purposes, cheetahs are extinct in Southern Africa,” says Hale. “Their reproductive success is very low, particularly in the wild.”
There is disagreement about how many leopards are left in Southern Africa. Two experts appointed by the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species came up with the figure of 9 000 in 1992, but local scientists say this is way too high – they argue it’s more like 2 000 to 3 000.
Among the more controversial of Hale’s recommendations about hunting leopards are that they should not be “ambushed” near their lairs, and they should not be lured on to a bait. “One of the fallacies about leopards is that you can’t use the walk- and-track method to find them,” he says.
If Hale’s proposals are accepted, hunting of all captive-bred cats would be banned. Wild leopards could be hunted in areas ranging from 3 500ha to 17 000ha, depending on the terrain. Similarly, wild lions could be hunted in areas between 5 000ha and 20 000ha.
“The objective is to ensure these animals are hunted under fair, ethical conditions. Although range is to a large degree dependent on prey density, setting minimum- size hunting areas is the safest way to ensure that a non-artificial hunt takes place.”
He recommends the big cat commission should comprise 12 members from a broad range of organisations. It should be funded by money raised from the permits it grants, “in order to avoid criticisms, particularly in the run-up to the next election, that it will be expensive and the money would be better spent on people”.