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Canned hunting "The bullet slammed into the lioness and she spun into the air, falling against the electric fence behind which she was confined. Standing on the other side of the fence were her three young cubs - she had been separated from them an hour earlier. "The overseas hunter fired another shot. She slumped to the ground in a crumpled heap. Both times, the hunter shot from a vehicle. He then posed with the dead lioness and pulled at her mouth to show her teeth." This is how Gareth Patterson described a scene that some of you will recognise from The Cook Report TV documentary on canned hunting. The programme caused uproar when it was shown in 1996. Yet still today, trophy hunters can got to South Africa and kill wildlife in fenced compounds from which they cannot escape. Dying to be Free Gareth Patterson has investigated the lion breeding and hunting industry of South Africa. It is the subject of his latest book, Making a Killing. Gareth says, "Today in South Africa, an industry exists in which lions in captive conditions are bred for the hunter's gun. The demand to shoot lions is enormous, as is the economic return for providing the client with a lion to shoot." Gareth discovered one lion brought from a zoo, taken to a game farm and then being 'hunted' in a confined area by a foreign hunter. Others are being bred on game farms, some are even being lured out of the national parks and killed on neighbouring ranches. The Cook Report included a scene filmed with a hidden camera, where a lion in the Krugar National Park is lured into a game reserve, drugged and offered as a target to a reporter posing as a hunter. Legalised Killing Some canned hunts in South Africa are legal; a lion can be legally hunted if the enclosure is 1,000 ha. This is absurd, because the lion cannot escape - however big the cage, it's still a cage. Today in South Africa, approx 100,000 wild animals are hunted annually by the 6,500 visiting foreign big game hunters and the 50,000 South African hunters. These hunts have been known to take place in a National Park. The animals destined to die may have faced death already before they reach their final destination. The animals risk death during capture, at the game auction, during transportation and relocation. One South African journalist claimed a trophy hunter slaughtered a partially tranquillised rhino within hours of his/her delivery to a game farm. Stage Managed One eyewitness described how he had stayed at a lion breeding/hunting farm, where he had seen a cheetah shot. Nine lions from a zoo were 'hunted' in confined areas by high paying trophy hunters. He spoke of lions shot by elderly hunters in vehicles, too decrepit to walk. Hunters would on occasion use bows and arrows. Some animals were sedated and left next to carcasses and the client would be led there, not knowing that the set had been stage-managed. Another lioness was shot 16 times before she died. Interviewed prior to the screening of the Cook Report, Roger Cook said, "We discovered that if you have enough money and the right contacts you can go and shoot any animal in the world, no matter how rare or protected that species may be." Referring to canned hunting he commented, "You don't even have to be a good shot because the animals are often baited into fenced areas, or drugged so that they become sitting targets. And because the head is the trophy, these regal and endangered creatures are shot at close range in the body and often endure a slow and agonising death." The Last Word We will leave the last word to Gareth Patterson, who said, "People seem to have forgotten that trophy hunting is not part of African environmental culture. Why, as Africans, are we allowing such hideous crimes to be inflicted upon lions and a myriad other species as a result of the foreign culture of trophy hunting, and the foreign demand for the body parts of wild animals." HOW YOU CAN HELP
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