Can we continue to justify it?
In South Africa, almost 400 captive wildlife facilities exist across the country. Keeping animals in captivity has increasingly been acknowledged as exploitative and profit-driven despite claims by those in the industry about its educational and conservation value. Stephanie Klarmann, Blood Lions campaign coordinator takes a closer look.
This photo series critically examines life behind bars and asks the question: are we actually comfortable with exploiting captive wildlife for profit and entertainment?
As a burgeoning industry, it solely exists to feed an insatiable demand for entertainment, live wildlife trade, hunting trophies, and big-cat body parts. According to Blood Lions research* conducted between 2017 and 2020:
- Captivity permits were issued for at least 5,508 lions, 496 cheetahs, 198 leopards, 382 tigers, and a staggering 804 other wild cats.
- Over this same period, at least 1,707 hunting permits were issued for 1,572 captive lion hunts in addition to cheetah and leopard hunts.
- The data gathered regarding CITES permits show that 6,380 export permits were issued for 1,366 lions and 294 other captive wild cat species. This included 456 lion skeletons and live exports for 188 lions and 76 other cat species.
The commercial captive wildlife industry is big business. But the commercial captive-predator industry is fighting harder than ever to stay alive, and it has turned into a voracious sector built on exploitation.
More than ever, we need to scrutinise the greenwashing claims of environmental education, community upliftment, and conservation benefits made by those most invested in keeping wild animals captive.
We also need to ask ourselves how comfortable we are in allowing the exploitation to continue. Public advocacy can help inform policy decision-makers to prioritise animal well-being and genuine wild conservation.
Urgent action is required to prevent further exploitation of captive wildlife by closing down the commercial captive predator industry.
Unfortunately, commercial captive wildlife facilities do not provide valuable lessons about wildlife species and their conservation needs. They teach us about dominating the natural world and caging it for entertainment. Is this a lesson worthy of passing on to children?
Still more worrying, facilities hurt genuine conservation efforts. The resources and finances that go into visitor fees for predator parks, environmental management inspectorates, steep volunteer fees, and criminal enforcement could all be directed into the genuine conservation of land and species in the wild and functioning ecosystems. The entry fees for many commercial captive facilities exceed the entrance to our richly biodiverse Kruger National Park. Furthermore, the legal commercial captive industry further contributes to a dark, illegal industry in which live and dead animals enter black markets.
Following former Minister Barbara Creecy’s promise in 2021 to take steps towards closing the commercial captive lion industry, a Ministerial Task Team was appointed in December 2022 to spearhead a phase-out process. The task team included a panel of wildlife and welfare experts to devise voluntary phase-out options for captive breeders, owners, and traders. In March 2024, we finally saw the release of this extensive report.
Whilst reaching this point is certainly a small victory, the government still has to make significant progress in implementing this phase-out process. Organisations like Blood Lions strongly advocate that the first port of call needs to be a moratorium on all commercial captive breeding to halt the industry’s ever-growing growth before it continues to grow beyond control.
* The animals in this photo series are commercial commodities in the larger captive lifecycle. The images were taken at popular tourist facilities, some even claiming to be sanctuaries. These animals will remain within small enclosures for the entirety of their lives. They may be sold on, used for breeding, or killed in a captive hunt or for body parts. None of these outcomes are favourable for them.
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