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ALBERT
AGAINST LION BREEDING
AND ECOLOGICAL RE-INTRODUCTION TOURISM
A CON-CONSERVATION CAUSE?
ETHICAL PERSPECTIVES
Any project involved with captive lion breeding and human rearing/training for use in tourism should be questioned on the following ethical issues:-
- Many of these projects remove lion cubs from their mothers at 3 to 4 days old to be hand-reared so that they become habituated to humans (and therefore removing their natural fear of man) - just so that they can be used in tourist interactions. ALERT claim to remove cubs from females at 3 weeks old.
- These projects can only use lions aged only between approximately 6 and 18 months in tourist lion walks, after which they become too big and strong to use safely with tourists (although lions older than 12 months are still extremely dangerous and physically capable of killing a human). After this they are of little further economic value, apart from being sold on for use in 'canned hunts'. Antelope Park have previously sold lions to South Africa which have in all likelihood ended up being shot as 'canned hunts'.
- Because of the specific age requirements, the 'lion walking' industry requires a constant conveyor belt and turnover of young lions. A lion walking 'life-span' is only just one year, and each lion walking project requires about 10 lions. So in the case of ALERT, which operates three lion walking programmes (at Antelope Park, Victoria Falls and now Livingstone), that's an estimated 30 lion cubs each year.
- Captive bred lions can never be returned to the wild - by walking with a lion you are condemning that lion to a life in captivity. If released into the wild, without their instinctive fear of man, these animals most likely become predators of domestic animals or even man-eaters - as with the original 'Born Free' lions of George Adamson. In the case of the ALERT programme, these lions become trapped in the 'Stage Three' fenced enclosures of their project.
- Many of these projects claim elaborate multi-stage generational 're-introduction' plans for their retired captive lions and as a justification for their captive lion breeding and tourist lion walking programmes. The ALERT project has been operating for nearly 10 years - not one lion has been released into the wild (indeed they are yet to place any lions into Stage Three of their programme).
- There is no conservation need or value in a lion re-introductions. Lions have been shown to be rapid breeders, and if left un-persecuted with suitable habitat and prey, populations are quick to recover naturally. Declines in lion populations are attributed to loss of habitat and human conflict, results of rising and expanding human populations and agricultural land-use change. Re-introductions do not help address these factors.
- These projects receive paying 'volunteers' as a result of these conservation claims. These 'volunteers' pay thousands of US dollars per week to be part of what they believe is a valid conservation project.
- Supporting these projects creates demand in the industry and spawns copy-cat operations with even less commitment to conservation and animal welfare concerns. For example, soon after ALERT established itself in Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe), a second company started operating a copy-cat lion walking experience, although without the conservation claims - operated by Shearwater Adventures, who 'hire' their lions from another captive breeding operation - the Harare Lion & Cheetah Park (and which has experienced numerous incidents with its lions in the past, including the death of one tourist - see earlier sections). More recently another operation has been established in Livingstone (Zambia).
The whole ALERT project is seriously flawed. If they wanted to rehabilitate lions, and this is controversial enough on its own, then why severely human imprint them by hand rearing them?
Dr Craig Packer and colleagues, in their joint statement (Aug 2006) state that;
"… hand rearing of lion cubs will ensure that these animals are imprinted to humans, and that they will thereafter lack natural avoidance behaviors. Teaching hand reared cubs to hunt as sub-adults will not decrease their dependence on humans, nor will it alter their imprinted behaviors. Indeed, semi-tame lions may be as dangerous as wild lions. Recently (August, 2006) in South Africa, three 2½ year-old lions escaped from a game farm and killed two workers. The lions were obtained as cubs and raised by hand. In Tanzania, wild lions kill nearly one hundred people each year, the majority of them villagers. Alteration of lion behavior through captive breeding, hand rearing, and release of semi-tame animals or their habituated offspring is both dangerous and irresponsible when considering the safety and welfare of humans and their livestock in Zambia."
Carole Baskin, CEO of Big Cat Rescue Educational Sanctuary based in the US (home to more than 100 big cats) has made the following comment:
"Anyone who knows anything about rehab and release will know that this whole story is utter nonsense and that the program serves only to line the pockets of those using these lions for what amounts to petting sessions. 500 acres sounds like a lot, but is only one square mile. It takes hundreds of square miles to sustain one pride. If these cats were to actually be released, they would die horrible deaths from being ill trained for life in the wild and would cause human conflicts due to their lack of fear of people that would result in the extermination of all lions in the area. " (Big Cat News).
Questionable exports?
ALERT representatives have also admitted to the "export of lions to South Africa, some 37 lions were sold, in two groups, one in 1999 and the majority in 2002 to a captive centre in South Africa" (see LIONSCAM!).
David Youldon, the ALERT Chief Operating Officer, has also made the following statements (Facebook):
"ALERT, Antelope Park, African Encounter nor Lion encounter have ever been involved in the canned hunting industry. We have never knowingly sold lions at any point to a canned hunting operator and we never will... We took every reasonable step to ensure that our lions were not going to a location where canned hunting was practiced. However, we learnt of the apparent ability to move lions freely within South Africa, and we cannot guarantee that none of the lions we exported there have not ultimately ended up within the canned hunting industry as a result of poor local permit & hunting control systems."
"It is possible that some of the lions that we sold to South African breeders were sold on a number of times and ended up in the canned hunting industry and this is entirely regrettable."
ALERTs own Information Sheet for the Lion Encounter Project states that "the program was developed in 1999" - so by their own admission the exports happened at the beginning of the project. They basically cleared the decks of un-needed adult lions in preparation for their breeding project. This is of concern due to the unethical use of captive bred lions in the canned hunting industry in South Africa - it is highly likely all of these lions ended up in canned hunts or breeding programmes to supply canned hunts, despite ALERTs repeated claims to have no association with this industry.
It is not hard to see that the ALERT Project was 'clearing the decks' of unnecessary or unsuitable lions for their breeding and 're-introduction' project, for example to clean up the 'gene' pool of their breeding group of lions, before they launched the public phase of the project in Victoria Falls in 2005. An article printed in 2001, from Travel Africa Magazine, states "by 1999 the lion population [at Antelope Park] had increased from six to over 70; there are currently 45" - that is at least 30 lions less in 2001 than the known maximum - and this a year before the 'majority' of exports made in 2002 - so either these numbers do not add up or there are more sales of lions from Antelope Park during this period than they have admitted.
Even today, 10 years since The Cook Report (shown on British television on 6th May 1997) and Carte Blanche TV exposures of canned hunting in South Africa, there is a complete lack of accountability within the captive animal industry as to sales of animals in the country. Last year Bloemfontein Zoo sold unwanted tigers by auction - therefore with no control over the sale destinations. This incident exposed serious weaknesses in the PAAZAB (African Association of Zoos and Aquaria) Code of Ethics, of which ALERT is a member. Several major international zoos are benefactors of PAAZAB, including San Diego Zoo and Disney's Wild Animal Kingdom. PAAZAB have since undertaken a full review of their standards and codes of practice.
However, agents are also often used in the sale of captive animals, acting as middle-men between the captive lion breeders and canned hunts, and so allowing the lion breeders to distance themselves from the canned hunting industry. We believe current methods in place in South Africa to trace lions during these sales are completely inadequate.
It is also during the time of these exports to South Africa that we find references to Antelope Park working with South African authorities - with it being reported that "Twenty specimens from Kruger were darted and brought to Antelope Park to mate with resident lions from different gene pools, then delivered back to raise the resulting offspring" (See Travel Africa Magazine, Aug 2001). The impression given is of supporting initiatives in Kruger National Park to increase genetic diversity - however on contacting SANParks we received the following statement:
"As far as I know we have had no links with Antelope Park and we certainly never had any breeding and re-introduction projects anywhere with lions in SANParks in recent history. It is our policy to reintroduce only wild caught lions into National Parks that were recently established and where lion previously occurred." (SANParks Veterinary Wildlife Services representative, personal communication).
We believe that this was a 'smoke screen' for the Antelope Park exports to South Africa, to which Antelope Park had to later admit once the true story had been uncovered.
No-go NGO's
Three of our main international conservations NGO's - WWF (World Wildlife Fund), IFAW (International Fund for Animal Welfare) and Born Free support campaigns against canned hunting. All are lacking current and up-to-date statements on the status of the South African legislation on canned hunting and none have policy statements regarding captive lion breeding, 'rehabilitation' and 'reintroductions'.
It is now well over 10 years since canned hunting was first exposed in the international media. It is also two years since a IFAW ENACT Report on Captive Breeding of Large Predators called for a ban on captive breeding except for bona fide conservation purposes. During this time, legislation in South Africa, announced to bring an end to the national shame of canned hunting have been watered down to the current situation where they now do not even include lions! Our international conservation NGOs remain suspiciously silent on these issues - fuelling rumours of conflicts of interest within their national and regional representatives.
WWF however, are unique in their position where they accept 'sustainable' trophy hunting as a conservation (population control) tool. I recently asked Dr Rob Little (Acting Chief Executive Officer, WWF-South Africa Regional Programme Office) about WWF's position on captive lion breeding and reintroductions - he said they do not have a specific policy and that "South Africa has extensive regulation on captive breeding and reintroduction which address most of the conservation issues" - anyone who has followed the development (or dilution) of the new South African legislation, announced to bring an end to canned hunting, will probably question this statement!
The captive lion breeding, 'rehabilitation' and 'reintroduction' project proposed by ALERT certainly does not appear to meet the international WWF Captive Breeding Policy Statement Criteria (2007) for a valid conservation programme, so why the lack of a regional WWF-SARPO statement condemning it?
In fact the opposite has happened, and ALERT have used the name of Dr Russell Taylor (Conservation Programme Director, WWF SARPO) and WWF in claimed support of their project.
"We have received a lot of support for the aims of the project as well letters of approval for the 'highly ethical and extremely well managed' methods employed in the raising & rehabilitation of lions from notable individuals and organizations including Dr R D Taylor, Director of WWF’s Southern Africa region" (LIONSCAM! Lion Project Give Their Side), and:
"The program is supported by a number of notable ecologists, and although not endorsed by WWF, the organisation has visited the project and wrote a letter of support for its aims and methods" (TripAdvisor).
When cornered on this topic, David Youldon (again in TripAdvisor discussions) stated:
"The project is not endorsed by WWF, however the letter in support following an independent assessment of the projects' protocols and practices is still a strong show of support from the organization."
In fact Dr Taylor's letter, from which this 'support' arises was written before the ALERT project even started operating, and refers only to the animal health and safety issues relating to the captive lion breeding centre at Antelope Park, and not the 'rehabilitation' and 'reintroduction' stages of the ALERT project.
Dr Taylor, in a personal communication, confirmed to me that:
"WWF-SARPO does not support ALERT financially or technically. On the matter of correspondence by myself, purportedly in support of 'Walks with Lions', this has been miss-represented, and the correct statement at the time (10 January 2005) was '...no objections...' (with caveats attached)".
Perhaps it is ALERT who are financially supporting WWF SARPO?
Boycott lion breeding and re-introduction projects?
We believe that:
- The associations between captive lion breeding and the canned hunting industry in South Africa are well established and documented.
- The links to 'lion petting' and 'lion walking' tourist interactions with captive breeders and the canned hunting industry are similarly undeniable.
- The conservation claims of captive lion breeding and reintroduction programmes are unsubstantiated and deliberately misleading.
- Human habituated training of lion cubs is unethical, unnecessary and undesirable in a conservation project.
- Tourists who support these operations do so in ignorance of these facts.
We therefore ask the question - is it time to call for tourists and tourism agents to boycott captive lion breeding centres, lion walking and interaction experiences and companies which directly support them? We believe so. If not the 'fat-cat' owners of these unethical operations will continue to make large sums of money from exploiting captive animals and well-intending conservation volunteers through distorting conservation aims and perspectives - and also encouraging 'copy-cat' operations - whilst legitimate big cat conservation research continues on shoestring budgets.
Can you help?
If you have any comments, advice or information which can help us in our work to highlight the issues relating to the ALERT project, please email - emailquentinjones[at]yahoo.co.uk
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