Fiona Macleod
Animal-welfare groups were scrambling madly this week to prevent Roy Plath, a central figure in the “canned” lion-hunting scandal, from exporting 17 lions to a hunting operation in Mozambique.
Plath has sold the lions to a professional hunter, Andr Booysen and his father-in-law, Dick de Villiers, who own a farm called Pandane in the Inhambane province. The deal has the approval of the governor of the province.
After the exposure of the “canned” lion industry last year, the hunting of lions bred in captivity was banned in Mpumalanga, where Plath’s game farm, Marlothi, is situated. Plath has been putting pressure on the Mpumalanga conservation authorities to allow him to resume hunting his lions, but they have refused.
Hunting of captive-bred cats is permitted in Mozambique, and authorities there say they are aware Booysen is trying to circumvent the Mpumalanga regulations by importing the lions. They are worried that other hunting operators may want to follow suit.
Plath this week denied the lions are going to Mozambique for hunting purposes. The Mpumalanga authorities who gave him permits to export them say they will be going to a new reserve of some 15 000ha in Inhambane, and will have a better life there.
These are the same authorities who granted a permit for the shooting of a lioness on Plath’s farm which horrified the world when it was flighted on the international TV documentary, The Cook Report.
Video footage showed the middle-aged lioness being separated from her three cubs and shot up against an electric fence.
Plath had told the authorities the lioness was old, no good for breeding, aggressive and he didn’t have the space to keep her. They investigated charges of fraud against him, but the attorney general declined to prosecute.
Kobus Raath, a former National Parks Board veterinarian now in private practice, was asked by Booysen to give the required clearance for the lions going to Mozambique and to accompany them in transit. But because of the controversy surrounding Plath, he decided this week to pull out. “I’ve worked hard to build up a good reputation, and I don’t want to mess it up,” he said.
Gareth Patterson, South Africa’s “lion man”, and officials from the International Fund for Animal Welfare, the Society for the Protection of Animals, and the Front for the Liberation of Animals and the Conservation of Nature are putting pressure on authorities at provincial and national level to stop Plath exporting the lions.
But it was the Mozambican authorities who put a spanner in the works this week. Bonito Sensao, chief warden of anti-poaching, refused to allow the lions into the country until he knew more about Booysen’s management plans.
Sensao is chiefly concerned about how Booysen will feed the lions, and how he will prevent them from eating people. “Booysen says he will feed them with goats. But people here are dying of hunger. It’s not good politically to feed lions with goats when people are hungry.
“It is not necessary to introduce new lions to Mozambique,” he added. “We have lots of lions here. If they want lions, they can move them from somewhere else in Mozambique. We don’t need any from outside.”
After meeting Booysen in Maputo this week, Sensao forwarded his application to the minister of agriculture and fisheries, who has the power to give it the go-ahead.
In the meantime, the pressure on the South African authorities to intervene continues.