Canned Hunting

Video: What is canned lion hunting?

After lions grew too old for the volunteering industry, especially the males are directed into the canned hunting business. Canned hunting is a term that describes hunting of animals which are captured in fenced enclosures so that the animal has no chance to escape. Lions from breeding facilities are often transported to dedicated “hunting farms” where they are released. After 48 hours, the lion is regarded as being “wild” and can be hunted officially. Often disoriented and maybe hungry, the lion makes an easy target. Together with the fact that lions coming from breeding facilities, which may have even hand-reared them, are human-imprinted and lost their natural timidity to some extent, this game is anything but fair and sportsmanlike. But yet, over 800 captive-bred lions are still killed annually in South Africa by trophy hunters.

Some hunters claim that hunting captive bred lions takes pressure off wild lions but there is a lack of data to support this. What is known is that that lion numbers continue to decline across Africa and that unsustainable hunting of wild animals contributes its part. Unethical and unsportsmanlike practices as canned hunting may further fuel unsustainable and mislead hunting behavior.

Even worse: Canned or captive hunting is more affordable than hunting wild lions and thus has merely opened up an entirely new market for people that would not have been able to pay for a wild hunt.

However, there is also a growing group of professional hunters and organizations completely opposed to the practices of canned or captive hunting. It is thus to be hoped that a strong support in the fight of this unethical practice also comes from within the industry.