“Big yellow taxi” by Joni Mitchell and the popular version by Counting Crows says it quite well:
“they took all the trees and put them in a tree Museum
and charged the people a dollar and a half to see them
don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone
they paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”
Just like South Africa - they took all the wildlife, put it behind fences and charge people a fortune to see/hunt/photograph it.
Canned lion hunting which flourishes in South Africa is a national embarrassment to everyone including the hunting industry. A canned hunt is one where the target animal is unfairly prevented from escaping the hunter either by physical constraints such as fencing or by mental constraints such as being bottle fed and hand reared. In South Africa more than 300 lion farms breed captive lions for the trophy hunting fraternity.
Even more shocking than turning the King of beasts into the equivalent of a battery hen to breed living targets on an industrial scale is the fact that this is merely the thin end of the wedge. Lions are the sentinel species. What happens to lions today will happen to all wildlife tomorrow. They will all be bred on hunting farms on an industrial scale to become living targets for hunters.
This is not a prediction; it is already happening. The South African government has already published official regulations classifying most well-known wildlife species as domestic animals to be farmed. Game farmers are not conservationists; they are merely people who farm with alternative livestock.
The wild has been taken out of South African wildlife and the animals are now officially classified as domestic livestock.
The long-term consequences of turning wildlife into farmed animals can only be imagined. Conservation was all about protection. Livestock farming is all about production and profits i.e. exploitation. It is an alarming paradigm change to the way we treat the natural world.
People like ourselves who speak out against such reckless and cruel policies are in the minority. It is very difficult to raise funding for animal advocacy. Virtually all sponsorship and funding for conservation - especially in corporate South Africa - goes to the pro-hunting organisations such as WWF. And while the millions flow into WWF’s coffers, WWF never misses a chance to lobby on behalf of the hunting industry.
So when someone new comes along to raise money for organisations like ours we are very grateful.
LuxurTraveller (https://luxurtraveller.co.uk/) is a new wildlife community which has already donated +$9642.74 across 5 charities so far, in an effort to make this a better world for animals. Their main goal is to end wildlife abuse worldwide. It was founded in the UK at the start of 2018, by Arnold Debiyi as an online e-Commerce store, dedicated solely to the preservation of wildlife. The Luxurtraveller team first started on Instagram where they gradually grew their following by posting breathtaking wildlife photography.
Luxurtraveller (https://luxurtraveller.co.uk/)decided that the best way to raise money for animals around the world was to sell relevant items and donate a portion of the profits directly to charities such as ourselves.
A few months ago Luxurtraveller started a new campaign, which you may have come across on Instagram, to raise awareness and help end canned lion hunting. https://www.instagram.com/luxurtraveller/?hl=enwww.instagram.com/luxurtraveller/?hl=en
“they took all the trees and put them in a tree Museum
and charged the people a dollar and a half to see them
don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone
they paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”
Just like South Africa - they took all the wildlife, put it behind fences and charge people a fortune to see/hunt/photograph it.
Canned lion hunting which flourishes in South Africa is a national embarrassment to everyone including the hunting industry. A canned hunt is one where the target animal is unfairly prevented from escaping the hunter either by physical constraints such as fencing or by mental constraints such as being bottle fed and hand reared. In South Africa more than 300 lion farms breed captive lions for the trophy hunting fraternity.
Even more shocking than turning the King of beasts into the equivalent of a battery hen to breed living targets on an industrial scale is the fact that this is merely the thin end of the wedge. Lions are the sentinel species. What happens to lions today will happen to all wildlife tomorrow. They will all be bred on hunting farms on an industrial scale to become living targets for hunters.
This is not a prediction; it is already happening. The South African government has already published official regulations classifying most well-known wildlife species as domestic animals to be farmed. Game farmers are not conservationists; they are merely people who farm with alternative livestock.
The wild has been taken out of South African wildlife and the animals are now officially classified as domestic livestock.
The long-term consequences of turning wildlife into farmed animals can only be imagined. Conservation was all about protection. Livestock farming is all about production and profits i.e. exploitation. It is an alarming paradigm change to the way we treat the natural world.
People like ourselves who speak out against such reckless and cruel policies are in the minority. It is very difficult to raise funding for animal advocacy. Virtually all sponsorship and funding for conservation - especially in corporate South Africa - goes to the pro-hunting organisations such as WWF. And while the millions flow into WWF’s coffers, WWF never misses a chance to lobby on behalf of the hunting industry.
So when someone new comes along to raise money for organisations like ours we are very grateful.
LuxurTraveller (https://luxurtraveller.co.uk/) is a new wildlife community which has already donated +$9642.74 across 5 charities so far, in an effort to make this a better world for animals. Their main goal is to end wildlife abuse worldwide. It was founded in the UK at the start of 2018, by Arnold Debiyi as an online e-Commerce store, dedicated solely to the preservation of wildlife. The Luxurtraveller team first started on Instagram where they gradually grew their following by posting breathtaking wildlife photography.
Luxurtraveller (https://luxurtraveller.co.uk/)decided that the best way to raise money for animals around the world was to sell relevant items and donate a portion of the profits directly to charities such as ourselves.
A few months ago Luxurtraveller started a new campaign, which you may have come across on Instagram, to raise awareness and help end canned lion hunting. https://www.instagram.com/luxurtraveller/?hl=enwww.instagram.com/luxurtraveller/?hl=en
