IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Hiller, C.; Davies-Mostert, H.T.; Friedmann, Y.; Taylor, W.A.; MacMillan, D.C. | |
| Understanding South Africa's captive lion sector and the trade in captive African lions | |
| 2022 Full Book | |
This report comprises a detailed characterisation of South Africa's captive lion sector and the trade of captive lions and derivative products. The document outlines the complex structures and functioning of the sector under the influence of current contextual circumstances. Influencing factors include mainstream and social media pressure, regulatory conditions, and divergent perceptions about the meaning of sustainability and sustainable use in relation to an iconic species like the African Lion (_Panthera leo_), hereafter referred to as "lion". South Africa is currently the only country with an extensive captive lion sector where lions in captivity significantly outnumber wild and free-roaming animals. A polarised debate surrounds the practices of keeping lions for commercial use. Particularly, captive lion hunting, the lion part trade and human interaction practices such as cub-petting garner heavy criticism. Yet, details about the sector's structure and functioning as a prerequisite for sound decision-making and governance have not been examined. We conducted 51 semi-structured interviews and verified and supplemented the findings through five focus-group sessions with experts from related fields and desk review activities. Interview parties consisted of 31 captive lion facilities in four provinces, i.e., the Free State, North West, Limpopo and Gauteng and 20 key players in the sector. These actors included professional hunters of captive lions, taxidermists, lion part traders, live lion traders, veterinarians, scientists, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and provincial environmental management inspectors (EMIs). In addition, we collected quantitative data on captive lion facilities from the South African provinces where the interviews took place to augment the research findings further. Our qualitative data analysis revealed the various facets responsible for the sector's overall complexity. Our results cover the internal, self-organising interactions of its actors, the dynamics of the sector's structures and processes, and the co-evolution of the entire sector in interrelation with its context. |
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(c) IUCN/SSC Cat Specialist Group ( IUCN - The World Conservation Union) |