The measures will prohibit and make illegal the import of lion trophies and other parts, and live lions, except in limited cases. The action, more than four years in the making, will hopefully dry up the U.S. clientele for South Africa’s lion canned hunting industry. US trophy hunters are directly and fully responsible for slaughtering at least 5,647 lions in the last 10 years, according to USFWS import data compiled by The Humane Society of the United States and Humane Society International, which joined other organizations to petition this agency to protect lions.
“This U.S. action should end the free-for-all for Americans who wish to kill these animals and import them through our ports just for a head-hunting exercise” said Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of The HSUS. “More than half of the lion trophies imported to the U.S. in 2014 came from South Africa’s canned hunts, where wealthy fat-cats shoot down endangered big cats trapped behind fences and unable to escape.”
Of the 719 lions whose body parts were imported to the U.S. in 2014, 620 were imported from South Africa and 370 (or 51%) were killed in that country’s captive lion hunts. Other import data from 2014 are: 42 from Zimbabwe, 40 from Tanzania, 10 from Mozambique, three from Namibia, two from Burkina Faso and one each from Benin and Cameron.
In a US Federal Register notice published on Dec. 21, the agency states that South Africa’s captive breeders oftentimes claim that their operations help reintroduce species back into the wild, yet the notice notes that “we do not believe that the captive-lion industry currently contributes to, reduces, or removes threats to the species.” Without this evidence of contribution to species survival, no further imports of lions killed in South Africa’s canned hunts will be permitted into the U.S.
Similarly, lion trophy imports will also be prohibited from other African countries that fail to show how trophy hunting enhances the conservation of lions amounting to a near ban on lion trophy imports since this would be such a high bar to meet. Tanzania and Zimbabwe are the second and third largest exporters of lion trophies to the U.S., following South Africa, and the United States has already stopped all imports of elephant trophies from those two countries because of structural problems in the wildlife management programs of these nations.
The measure will result in the African lion sub-species Panthera leo leo, located in India and western and central Africa to be listed as endangered, and Panthera leo melanochaita, located in eastern and southern Africa listed as a threatened species.
Finally, and what a way to start the new year! - The Best Cat Page