AnimalPlanet

Animal planet

Animal Planet has been able to use the power of television media to foster compassion for animals, and has surely done much good for the cause of animal welfare. Imagine my surprise, therefore, when I switch to my favourite channel to watch White Lions: King of Kings, only to see one Marius Prinsloo, a notorious canned lion breeder in S.A., being presented as a paragon of conservation working to preserve the white lion gene, and Timbavati Hunting Farm being portrayed as a wonderland for wildlife.

Animal Planet does not mention that Mr. Prinsloo acquired some of his white lion breeding stock from Johannesburg Zoo. What kind of a Zoo is this, which rents out lions for the canned lion industry? Instead of questioning the ethics of the Zoo, Animal Planet presents it as a fine conservationist, glossing over the selling of white lion cubs bred in captivity to foreign Zoos where they will be held all their lives in unnatural captivity, being gawked at by visitors. There is also no mention of any sordid detail about how the Zoo had to bring legal proceedings in the High Court against Mr Prinsloo to recover their rented white lion. In the White Lions programme, Animal Planet gives the misleading impression that Timbavati , where the white lions were 'discovered' (innacurate) is a wonderland for wild life. Timbavati is actually one of the hunting conservancies on the western border of Kruger National Park which has been inexplicably allowed by an incompetent South African Conservation regime to take down the fences, so that Kruger Park animals can roam freely into the APNR (Association of Private Nature Reserves) of which Timbavati is part, where they are shot by hunters for private gain. In the May 7th 2006 edition of the Cape Argus, there was extensive press coverage of the botched killing in the APNR of one of the Sohebele brothers, a pair of tourist-habituated lions. The same article mentioned the botched killing of another lion in Timbavati, where the hunter shot the wrong animal. This is not conservation. Rather, it is the asset stripping of our wildlife heritage. Timbavati is a hunting reserve, not a wildlife sanctuary. Capturing and transferring white lions from one hunting farm, to be bred in captivity to provide targets for other hunters on other hunting farms, can scarcely be described as 'conservation.' Actually, it is anti-conservation, a relocation and expansion of the bloodshed and exploitation. Surely the purpose of preservation of the species is important. Captive lions do not generally enjoy happy lives. Originally, lions were baited, darted and captured in the wild. After stripping our environment in this manner, the breeders proceeded to factory farm the captive lions. The lioness is usually driven out of her cage shortly after giving birth, so that she can come into oestrus and start breeding again sooner. Sometimes the cubs are rented out to tourist resorts to be played with by tourists. Then, when they are six or so months old, and too boisterous for tourists, they go back to their cages for a short life of miserable captivity, awaiting the bullets, the arrows and the dogs which will end their unhappy lives. Tame, hand-reared lions and lionesses are turned out into fenced enclosures to provide living targets for wealthy hunters from Europe and the U.S.A. The breeders and hunters, and now Animal Planet, ask us to blind ourselves to the miserable condition of the lives of captive lions, and to their cruel deaths. Forget the cruelty, just look at the numbers. Ten years ago there were only a few white lions, now there are hundreds. But numbers alone are not a true measure of conservation. Any compassionate person can see that if the only alternative to extinction is a pointless, miserable life of imprisonment, ending in a violent and cruel death, then the species would be better off extinct.

Response

As a result of the storm of complaints from the international animal welfare community, Animal Planet immediately pulled the offensive program. Thereafter the offensive portions were edited out and an acceptable version was eventually aired.