Canned hunting is when a hunt takes place in a confined area. Lions are raised in captivity, therefore makig them accustomed to humans, which means that they do not fear or run from a hunter as a wild lion might. They are often baited into a certain area to make it easier for a ‘hunter’ to shoot their target.
These ‘hunters’ are often tourists that are looking for a cheaper way to experience the ‘thrill’ of shooting a lion. Hunting a wild lion can cost up to sixty thousand US dollars (54,000€). However, hunting a captive lion can cost as little as sixteen thousand. Most of the time, these captive lions are raised in farms where they are bred, similar to a puppy mill. A captive female lion can have as many three liters a year whereas her wild counterpart would have one every two or three years.
This also brings tourists who are invited to ‘volunteer’ at these farms under the impression that cubs were abandoned by their mothers and need to be cared for, at which point they will be released back into the wild. However, this is not possible due to their habituation with humans. They use the excuse of conservation and helping to save the species, yet with an average of 5 volunteers a week farms can make up to 208,000€ on this alone. This does not include money made from tourist wanting to take pictures with lions making an average of 520,000€ a year and walking with lion which brings in on average 91,250€ a year.
The African Lion Working Group (ALWG) issued a statement saying “captive-bred lion hunting, which is defined by ALWG as the sport hunting of lions that are captive bred and reared expressly for sport hunting and/ or sport hunting of lions that occur in fenced enclosures and are not self- sustaining does not provide any demonstrated positive benefit to wild lion conservation efforts and therefore cannot be claimed to be conservation.”
Information on lion petting and canned hunting
Want to shoot an African lion? It’ll cost you
Conservation of captive lions
