A shocking revelation comes from the new book and movie by Lord Ashcroft about the poaching industry in Africa where thousands of lions are farmed in captivity to be later shot dead by tourists for pleasure.
In the book titled Unfair Game: an Expose of South Africa’s Captive-Bred Lion Industry, the businessman and philanthropist Ashcroft takes on the captive lion breeding in Africa and his investigation into how many of these animals are killed for bone trading or for trophy hunting.
Our Sad Reality: Lions Bred in Captivity to Be Later Killed by Tourists
In one part of the book, Ashcroft explains that there is an estimated number of 12000 lions that are bred in captivity in the south of Africa or four times the number of wild lions.
He notes that the abuse of lions there has transformed into an industry. He adds that thousands of them are bred on farms yearly and then torn away from mothers very young and killed in a hunt or slaughtered for bones and other parts of their body.
These parts are highly priced at the so-called medicine markets in Asia.
Unfortunately, this farming is done under disastrous conditions-the animals are poorly fed, kept in unhygienic conditions, and beaten and drugged if they don’t perform well for the customers.
This cruel system inflicts misery on the noblest of beasts at an unimaginable scale, Ashcroft believes.
According to his research, at least 12000 of these lions are now bred in captivity in the country against a wild population of 3000.
Still, only a small amount of people, only few hundred, profit from this cruel business. Thanks to the constitution and laws in South Africa, they operate as they want.
Undercover Operations Showing the Cruelty of Wild Animals Bred in Captivity
Ashcroft commissioned 2 undercover operations over a period of 2 years and one was named Operation Simba and the other Operation Chastise.
The team discovered data of captive-bred lions being hunted and killed illegally using dogs.
Another shocking video shows 2 hunting lodge owners shooting one lioness that’s on a tree nine times until she died agonized on the ground.
Ashcroft emphasizes that experts have warned about lion farming’s and lion bone trade’s high likelihood of becoming a major public health incident in the style of the coronavirus.
He’ll continue advocating fearlessly for the end of lion farming and its ban in South Africa.
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