Breeders of ”canned lions” in the Free State are brazenly advertising what must be the biggest sell-off of endangered and exotic big cats in captivity that the world has seen to date.
Six breeders are auctioning more than 84 big cats — including jaguars, tigers, white lions and lionesses that have been ”sonar-tested” to guarantee they are pregnant.
Conservation officials say the unprecedented sales being advertised indicate either that there will be a shooting frenzy in anticipation of a legislative clampdown on ”canned” hunting next year, or that the sordid industry is expanding in a new guise.
Five Bengal tigers, including a white tiger; two jaguars; two white lions; and more than 30 brown lions are being advertised by four dealers in the classified columns of a farming magazine. They plan to auction them in Hoopstad at the end of this month.
Two other dealers are advertising eight black-maned lions, 15 young lionesses guaranteed to be pregnant, 21 other adult lions and an unspecified number of cubs. Their auction is due to happen in Reitz at the end of January.
Trophy hunters are reportedly prepared to pay more than R500 000 to shoot rare predators such as tigers and white lions, which are pale because of a recessive gene. The breeders say they managed to get hold of the endangered exotic cats because they were ”surplus zoo animals” or were bought from other local breeders.
”These breeders have far too many predators on their properties. They are just letting them breed,” says Free State conservation officer Tom Mostert. He says the cats will be sold off a catalogue at the auctions because it would be chaotic to bring them all together.
One of the breeders involved in the auctions keeps about 100 cats in cages in an area of about a square kilometre.
Photojournalist Ian Michler, who recently visited some of the breeding farms, describes the scene in Africa Geographic magazine: ”[It] is extremely stressful for a species that is strictly territorial; the lions are constantly aware of the movements and roaring of their fellow inmates. The males, no more than a road’s width apart, paced up and down the fence roaring at each other without break.”
On one farm there were at least six white lion cubs. One-week-old cubs had been removed from their mother and placed in an enclosure.
One of the breeders was advertising an adult white lion male for hunting at a price of $165 000.
The estimated 45 to 50 breeders of large cats in South Africa keep at least 2 500 predators. These figures indicate that the industry has mushroomed since the exposure of the local ”canned” cat breeding and hunting industry caused an international furore in 1997, when it was estimated the breeders had about 300 cats on their farms.
This large-scale breeding of captive carnivores for hunting profits is a South African phenomenon, though a few similar outfits are found in Namibia, Zimbabwe and the United States. Most of the local farms are based in the Free State and Limpopo.
Mostert says the Free State auctions may indicate that the breeders are worried their market will collapse when draft legislation aimed at clamping down on ”canned” hunting of predators comes into effect.
The draft proposals, drawn up by provincial conservation officials, are expected to be passed early next year and give the breeders a year of grace before they have to comply with the new regime.
The proposals outlaw hunting of big cats in captivity, hunting at night, using drugs to tranquilise target animals and luring animals by using sound, scent or bait. They stipulate that dogs may not be used and that hunting must be done on foot.
Critics of the proposals say though ”canned hunting as we know it” will be outlawed, a loophole could mean business as usual for the breeders — and this may explain why they are advertising pregnant lionesses for sale. The loophole allows for ”managed wild populations” of large predators to be hunted six months after being introduced to an area.
Conservation officials will be monitoring the sales at the auctions and checking up on where the cats are going, says Mostert. ”But some of these breeders are skelms [thieves] and if they want to carry on being skelms, there’s not much we can do about it.”