NELSPRUIT – Locals that feel strongly about the protection of wildife and eco-friendly tourism in the Lowveld region can add their support to the Global March for Lions on March 15.
Yolande Scott and Ingrid Raikes combined their efforts together so that locals can join 44 other cities to create awareness about the plight of an estimated 8 000 lion bred for canned hunting. Join them on March 15 at either Riverside or I’langa mall.
Raikes explains, “This is not a march but an awareness campaign to help us explain to people about this absolutely outrageous practice taking place throughout Southern Africa!” According to the Campaign Against Canned Hunting, There are fewer than 4,000 lions left in the ‘wild’ in South Africa, but more than 8,000 in captivity, being bred for the bullet or the arrow.
However, lion farming is a threat to wild lion prides for a number of reasons. The ongoing capture of wild lions to introduce fresh blood into captive breeding will negatively affect the wild population, while the the explosive growth of the Asian lion bone trade, fuelled by canned hunting, will impact severely on wild lions through an increase in poaching.
Want to help?
According to the women, sponsors of the following would be grealty appreciated, namely:
• Face paint
• Face painters
• Banner
• Leaflets
Contact Raikes at 083-725-0380
Message to Marchers by Chris Mercer, Director of CACH (Campaign Against Canned Hunting, registered SA NPO.)
I am here because I am angry.
Angry at being told that the cruelty is only sustainable use when I can see that it is sustained abuse. Must we all swallow the lie that the only way to save African wildlife is by killing animals?
I’m angry about the pampered trophy hunters who come to SA for no other reason than to torture and kill hand reared lions.
Angry about lion farmers who breed lions for no other reason than to provide tame targets to be executed by sadistic killers.
And I’m angry about tourists who are being duped into feeding the canned hunting industry through cub petting.
Angry that volunteers are being misled to work at lion farms that pose as wildlife sanctuaries.
I’m also tired of being told that hunters only want to kill lions to help the impoverished masses in Africa. Let them donate money if that is a real concern.
And here is CITES standing by watching while Africa’s wildlife heritage collapses in front of our eyes. CITES is supposed to control the international trade in wild animals. Instead, it facilitates wildlife trafficking by ignoring the many loop holes.
I see how the hunting industry has invaded and occupied conservation space, in order to pervert conservation policies. How moral outrage is cunningly deflected with slick public relations. How hunters have paralysed conservation structures in SA. And made preservation a dirty word.
And so it is up to us to fight for change.
I want to thank you all for coming out today and showing the world that we care. But this is only the first step. I need you to do more.
Boycott all tourism facilities in SA that offer cub petting. And persuade your own tourism agencies to promote only ethical tourism to Africa.
We want your tourism dollars to become a force for good in Africa; not a force for evil.
Go to the Global March for lions website www.cannedlion.org and follow the instructions there for writing protest letters:
ask the SA government to ban lion farming and trophy hunting; lobby the European Commission to ban the import of trophies; write to US Fish and Wildlife calling on it to raise the status of lions to ‘endangered.’ That would stop the import of lion trophies there.
Our wildlife is being victimised and our heritage destroyed.
We have the power to save African wildlife; although it will not be easy. The hunting fraternity is rich and powerful. But as long as each and every one of us takes on this fight, there is hope.
Lion trophy imports from South Africa to the EU Member States from 2007 to 2012 inclusive:
Austria 44
Belgium 23
Bulgaria 17
Croatia 6
Cyprus 5
Czech Republic 105
Denmark 55
Estonia 5
Finland 57
France 95
Germany 99
Greece Nil
Hungary 47
Ireland Nil
Italy 29
Latvia Nil
Lithuania 10
Luxembourg Nil
Malta Nil
Netherlands 7
Poland 62
Portugal 18
Romania 8
Slovakia 36
Slovenia 4
Spain 443
Sweden 11
United Kingdom 20
