A Gauteng-based wildlife dealer is planning to import 16 old circus and zoo lions from Brazil, raising fears that the big cats will be used to feed the lucrative ”canned” hunting industry.
There are about 60 ”abandoned” lions up for sale in the South American country. Casualties of an uncontrolled animal trade, most are ill and decrepit, and the claws and teeth of many have been removed.
Pablo Urban, owner of the Animal and Reptile Zoo in Muldersdrift, has asked Gauteng conservation authorities for permission to import 16 lions from Brazil. He says he wants to use them for breeding purposes to sell to other zoos around the world.
Local wildlife watchdog groups counter that Urban does not have enough room to keep so many lions and that they and their offspring will soon find their way into the shadowy, lucrative network that supplies predators to canned hunting operators.
”Urban does not have the necessary facilities to hold the proposed number of lions … It is evident the lions will be sold or held at other large predator facilities scattered around South Africa,” says Rick Allan, manager of the wildlife unit at the National Council of SPCAs.
Allan has lodged an objection to the proposed importation with the Gauteng conservation department, which is considering Urban’s application for permits to bring in the lions. Lourens Badenhorst, director of conservation, says a decision is due by the beginning of next week.
Urban has a small, cash-strapped zoo that already houses two lions, a jaguar, some wolves, baboons, jackals and snakes. His landlord is trying to kick him out and the eviction proceedings are due to be heard in the Krugersdorp Magistrate’s Court on November 25.
”It is unclear why you need to import 16 more lions. The primary reason for a zoo remains to educate the public, and to a much lesser extent protection of endangered species, and having a total of 18 or more lions will, in my view, not add to education of the public,” the head of the Gauteng department, Patricia Hanekom, wrote in reply to Urban’s application earlier this month.
Zoos and circuses often end up with ”surplus” wild animals that have been brought up in captivity and been tamed, says the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA), which originally raised the alarm about Urban’s plans.
”Some of the almost 60 lions abandoned in Brazil are sick and in bad condition,” says WSPA’s Brazil representative, Elizabeth MacGregor. ”Many circuses are going bankrupt as people are becoming aware of the plight of their animals and laws banning their use of animals have been recently approved in several municipalities.”
WSPA is pressurising Ibama, the Brazilian environmental agency, to put an end to the ”uncontrolled” animal trade. It recommends Ibama set up sanctuaries to house the abandoned circus animals.
Urban maintains he want to rescue the lions and bring them to his zoo ”to keep them out of the hands of other people”. He denies any intention to sell them to hunters.
South African lion breeders — there are at least 50 of them — have turned the trophy hunting of captive predators into a speciality. Known as ”canned” hunting, it is a lucrative business —operators charge overseas hunters up to $165 000 to shoot a rare specimen.
In an attempt to put a lid on the industry, the national Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism has introduced draft proposals outlawing canned hunting. It has undertaken to subject these to public scrutiny as soon as the new Biodiversity Bill, presently before Parliament, has been passed.
Until a proper policy is in place, says the Johannesburg Zoo’s general manager, Eloise Langenhoven, lions in captive breeding programmes should be put on contraceptives. ”Just about all our lions are on the pill. We have enough lions — we can’t keep on breeding them with no place to put them,” she says.
Johannesburg Zoo appointed a new CEO last week. Jennifer Grey, a civil engineer who is chairperson of Metro Bus and previously worked for First National Bank, succeeds Thembi Mogoai.