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Campaign Against Canned Hunting (CACH)

Aftermath of the Colloquium on lion farming in SA

11/3/2018

10 Comments

 
Picture
​                                       Aftermath
         
The Parliamentary Colloquium on lion farming in SA.
by 
​Chris Mercer.

I’ve been re-reading the transcript of the submissions made to the Portfolio Committee of Parliament in Cape Town recently.

Some of the arguments advanced on behalf of the hunting industry made me wonder if they were written by a five-year-old child, whereas in fact they were made by senior officeholders of hunting associations. Tragically, unbelievably, these puerile arguments are accepted as gospel by conservation structures in South Africa. At least, I think they’re childish - you make up your own mind.

Here are some howlers, along with my comments.
  1. “It was not the practice of canned lion hunting that is damaging the conservation image of the country, it is the activists who keep publicising it. Government should ban people from commenting negatively on canned hunting. South Africa should only show the good news and kill the bad news.”                                                         
My comment:
Yes, this was a serious submission made to Parliament by an executive member of a hunting association. I did not make this up!
Do I really need to comment? I rest my case on this. Sigh!
   
2.  “The 1000 people who work in the lion sector have a right to earn a living.”     
My comment:
What a sweeping statement! So everyone has a right to make a living in any way he chooses. Like robbing banks?  Surely, this right applies only to occupations that are not harmful. Otherwise on his claim you could argue that everyone involved in human trafficking or drug dealing had a right to earn a living in that way. (Oh by the way, the number of workers is grossly exaggerated – a few hundred at most directly involved in hunting.

3.  The DEA should not pay any attention to foreign NGOs who give input on how African wildlife should be managed. The DEA should only listen to Africans. And the Chinese.  Not to any western colonial national.

My comment:
Does that also mean that the SA government should not listen to any foreign hunting organisations such as Safari Club International?  Oops – a little bit of special pleading here in an effort to play the race card.

4.  Hunting brings in more than 1 billion rands of foreign currency to South Africa every year.

My comment:
Ah! So now the criterion for legitimacy is how much money you make. The argument is that, if the industry makes a lot of money for its members, it should not be banned. On that argument the sale of narcotic drugs should be legalised immediately since drug dealers surely make many times more money than the lion hunting industry. And what about the human trafficking industry? Should we also legalise that as well because it makes a lot of money for its perpetrators?

Surely the question is not how much money an industry makes but whether it is harmful. That is why human trafficking and drug dealing are banned and it is why canned lion hunting and lion farming should be banned too. How much money the industry makes is completely and utterly irrelevant. We are talking conservation here, not finance.

5.  Lions should be hunted because otherwise they would be “an economic burden on South Africa. One lion consumes food to the value of R120,000 per year. That equated to R250 million in economic value that they ate.”

My comment:
Again, I’m not making this crap up. We must kill lions because they eat too much?  Really?  Seriously?  This is taken verbatim from the transcript.

And it is not only the hunting fraternity that is guilty of muddled reasoning and crooked thinking. Here from the hallowed halls of Oxford University comes a wondrous academic who advances the following perverse reason to promote canned lion hunting and the lion bone trade.

6.  According to the precautionary approach, Dr Sas-Rolfes stressed, it should be incumbent upon proponents of a zero quota to provide assurances, backed up by scientific evidence, that it would not lead to expansion of illegal trade and the poaching of wild lions or other wild cat species.

My Comment:
Wow! Let’s unpack this little gem of logic. The cautionary rule is a law in South Africa that requires conservationists to take action against any potential threat even if there is insufficient scientific evidence to quantify or measure it. It is a law which is designed to protect the environment, not the commercial interests of polluters or animal abusers.

The good academic takes this law and applies it to an assumption which he has made that the killing of a tame lion prevents the hunting of wild lion. There is not a shred of scientific evidence to support his assumption; on the contrary, tiger farming for the sale of body parts is banned by CITES because everyone knows that allowing a legal trade in animal parts will inevitably stimulate an illegal trade.

Having made a false assumption, he then stands the precautionary rule on its head and applies it against conservationists who warn of the dangers of allowing the export of lion bones to Asia.
In other words, he is taking a precautionary rule designed to protect the environment and using it to protect the commercial interests of lion farmers and canned lion hunting operators.

So on the basis of such childish arguments as these, the SA government Department of Environment (DEA) not only permits, but vigorously promotes a lion farming industry which:
  • Inflicts routine cruelty on helpless animals on an industrial scale;
  • Sabotages the efforts of the Department of Tourism to promote SA as a responsible tourism destination;
  • Causes controversy, confusion and division in conservation
  • Has no conservation benefit; and
  • May very likely stimulate the illegal trade in body parts of big cats globally.

Oh! I also found some other interesting snippets in the transcripts:
SANBI (the scientific authority of the South African National Biodiversity Institute) who was consulted by the DEA in regard to the quota for lion bone trade to Asia, indicated that “it was not answerable to the public.” Wow! Even though it operates 100% on public funds? Is that acceptable?

The TOPS (threatened or protected species) regulations were only implemented in some provinces eleven years later after being promulgated. Wow! Again! How could it take these SA provincial conservation structures eleven years to start implementing their own regulations? On such an important matter? How dysfunctional is that?

Conclusion
At the end of the transcript the committee announced that a report on the colloquium would be prepared and handed to the committee for further consideration. That has been delayed – perhaps partly due to the untimely death of Minister Edna Molewa, but is expected to be handed to the Portfolio Committee next week.

Then what? I’d love to be an optimist but I suspect that in five years time lion farming will still be flourishing in SA.
 

10 Comments
Stephen Wiggins
11/3/2018 02:59:22 am

The arguments proffered in favour of the lion bone trade and 'canned' hunting are truly crass - even the academic input from Michael ‘t Sas-Rolfes (Oxford University) is poor beyond belief.

Prior to South Africa’s eagerness in 2008 to create a lucrative market to supply ‘captive’ lion skeletons from its abhorrent ’canned’ hunting and ‘captive’ lion breeding industry, there was no threat to wild lions being poached to supply the ‘lion bone trade’ (the ‘lion bone trade’ simply did not exist). Where was the precautionary principle consideration prior to such trade commencing, or was it lost in the swill of $$$ to be made?

Now the industry is seeking to use the risk posed to wild lion populations by the self-created demand for lion bones as an excuse to perpetuate the ‘captive’ lion industry and ‘lion bone trade’, plus as you say, promoting the notion that if 'hunters' can't shoot captive lions, then the claims is that hunters will be forced (sic) to shoot more wild lions (try not shooting any!).

Michael ‘t Sas-Rolfes et al are trying to say it is up to the 'animal rightist' to apply the precautionary principle (that the DEA/industry failed to do) and prove that setting a zero lion bone trade quota and/or an end to 'canned' hunting will not be detrimental! This is clearly ludicrous hypocrisy, symptomatic of the muddled thinking and self-interest driven machinations of South Africa’s captive hunting/breeding industry and its cohorts (all with the DEA’s complicity).

Reply
Carel Zietsman
11/3/2018 05:37:47 am

Low me to unpack the precautionary principle. It is not an approach but the ground rule that underpins environmental descisions. It sets out a number of rules as to how to judge environmental interference. Please note "environmental interference' CBL to my knowledge is a farming practice so I struggle to find application for rhe precautionary principle. If we did apply the rules of the principle Dr Sans Rolfes may find him at the wrong end of the stick. The rules are

1. No further environmental degradation untill findings of innocence are made.
2. Proceed with caution until either science figures out what to do
3. Proceed unabated untill findings of guilt are made.

The acceptable route is chosen on a per case study. So all action stops while the investigtion to which route is appropriate is finalised.

I think some academics should spend less time in the pubs and more time in the field.

Reply
Alexia Abnett link
11/3/2018 08:12:45 am

The only way is to shut it all down. Completely. We need to effectively phase out captivity by banning captive breeding imports and exports and abbatoirs and canned lion hunting. It has to declared cruelty to these animals. Legislation needs to include in the Animal Protection Act that caging, breeding and hunting of lions is cruelty to animals. Unless this cruelty stops soon as Chris says it will be business as usual.

Reply
Cheron Moodra
11/3/2018 03:16:44 pm

The tragedy is plain to see in the arguments and statements which defies all logic and even common sense. The welfare of lions and all of African's animals should be in line with scientific research and development and the understanding of bio-diversity requirements. Her primary concern is sales and profit and greed. Lions will continue to be slaughtered indiscriminately in the name of economics. There can never be conservation in economics and this undermines conservation. The government don't even understand economics, if she did, protecting her natural heritage would be her number one priority. There's a fine line between stupidity and common sense. I'm not surprise that the government has no idea or clue what it means since she clearly consults with 5 year olds. All of Africa's majestic animals are moving closer and closer to extinction and the South African government is so ignorant even to realise that she is the main contributor and it's absolutely unacceptable and unethical to be cruel to animals. This corrosive behaviour is at a level that should shame the South African government.

Reply
Cecilie Davidson
11/4/2018 05:49:18 pm

It can be instructive to trace back to some of the highly formative underpinnings of the cult of cruelty which informs first the so called hunting mentality, which has itself legitimized all the economic spin-offs of the cult of cruelty.One can read some very interesting history in " The Hiram Key ". At first read one could wonder how does this book relate to hunting for pleasure and ego. Indeed this book details all the early history that lead to the fraternity of acceptance of cruelty as not only okay, but desirable.The annual ritualistic drowning of a hippo in ancient times can be laid at the modern door of the thinking that drives Safari International.

Reply
michael hayman
11/8/2018 05:21:50 am

After reading this,once again I am embarrassed to be a South African citizen.

Reply
Shirley Lincoln
5/19/2019 08:22:29 am

Was there any further development on this matter? If not when can we expect any? Who is responsible for this now? I cannot abide the thought of this continuing indefinitely.

Reply
Chris Mercer
5/21/2019 09:44:45 am

Hi Shirley
thanks for your concern but I'm always happier to get feedback from people asking how they can help rather than those who demand to know would I'm doing to make them feel better about the treatment of Lions. All our teams and all our colleagues around the world are working very hard to shut this industry down. For example have a look at the Parliamentary debate in UK only the other day.
https://bantrophyhunting.org/media/
look how many decades it took before slavery was abolished notwithstanding widespread moral repugnance towards the institution of slavery.
So we soldier on doing what we've been doing for 20 years, whittling away at the industry's spin-offs such as cub petting and the lion bone trade.
People who are interested to participate in saving lions from the hunting industry are free to join me at the Karoo wildlife centre in the Klein Karoo for my three day course on how to challenge the hunting industry more effectively. A sort of working holiday.
Whereabouts are you based? I could put you in touch with one of our local representatives and you could assist if you had a mind to do so.
Kind regards
Chris.

Reply
Shirley Lincoln
5/21/2019 11:11:04 am

I was trying to find out from yourselves who or which SA Govt organisation was dealing with this. I was not asking you what you were doing about it. I don't understand what the UK has to do with this. These lion farms are in South Africa.After googling to find information I emailed the DEA and was told that the matter was dealt with long ago and now was in the hands of courts. Since then I have discovered that these breeding farms still exist. I have work commitments and very little time but will do what I can.

ibrar ahmad link
6/12/2019 08:14:27 am

very nice pic

Reply



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