Article

Moving Targets: The ‘Canned’ Hunting of Captive-Bred Lions in South Africa

February 2018
African Studies Review 61(01):1-25

DOI:10.1017/asr.2017.94

Authors:

So-called canned hunts take place within fenced private game ranches and typically target animals bred in captivity solely for that purpose. Thousands of semidomesticated lions form the focal point of South Africa’s canned-hunting industry. Notions of animal welfare, “fair chase,” and conservation have been deployed to varying degrees to sway public opinion surrounding canned hunts in South Africa and abroad. While state regulatory efforts have largely failed to date, the Campaign Against Canned Hunting (CACH) has successfully promoted stricter controls on the importation of lion trophies in Australia, Europe, and the United States, in part by highlighting the recent death of Cecil, a charismatic lion shot by an American bowhunter in Zimbabwe.

Genetic diversity and origin of captive lion (Panthera leo) in South Africa: an assessment and comparison to wild populations

Article

Full-text available

May 2023
CONSERV GENET

South Africa has a large captive lion (Panthera leo) sector, but detailed knowledge on the origin of individuals and any potential genetic value to conservation targets is lacking. In 2021, the South African government committed to closing the sector and have since appointed a Ministerial Lion Task Team (2022) to initiate this process. Some have suggested that captive lions could be integrated into wild populations as part of the process but information on the genetic origins and diversity of captive lions is critical if this is to be explored further. Both the Biodiversity Management Plan for lions in South Africa (2015) and a High-Level Ministerial report for the South African government (2021) have called for more information on the genetic composition of captive lions. To determine the probable origin of captive lions in South Africa we summarised existing survey responses from captive facilities (collected 2017-2018) and CITES permit data (issued 1991-2019). Survey data suggest that most lions were sourced from within the South African captive sector. However, many CITES permits were also issued for the import of lions from across Africa and beyond, indicating possible mixed origins within the sector. To evaluate genetic relationships between captive and wild lions in South Africa we standardised existing microsatellite marker data from three laboratories and analysed genotypes of captive lions from 31 properties. A comparison of captive and wild lion genotypes revealed that the genetic composition of captive lions is currently comparable to existing wild South African lions. Captive lions cluster with similar probabilities to three of four regional reference populations of wild lions included in the study and no major signatures of inbreeding were identified. However, captive lions are highly genetically interconnected across properties and represent a smaller effective population size compared to Kruger National Park, the largest population of wild lions in South Africa, suggesting some risk of future inbreeding. There were also signatures of genetic drift which should be investigated further as it will likely compromise any potential conservation genetic value of captive lions in the future. The findings of this study should be considered when planning the fate of individuals within South Africa's captive lion sector and within the broader context of African lion conservation.

The extent and nature of the commercial captive lion industry in the Free State province, South Africa

Article

Full-text available

Nov 2022

The captive breeding of wildlife for commercial purposes is a controversial issue. In South Africa, the farming of African lions (Panthera leo) for commercial trade emerged in the early 1990s, partly as a conservation measure to reduce the decline in wild lion numbers while meeting increasing wildlife trade demands. In May 2021, the South African Department of Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment (DFFE) announced plans to end the captive breeding of lions, keeping of lions in captivity, and the use of captive lions, their parts and derivatives for commercial trade. Here, we examined the commercial captive lion industry from 2017 to 2020 in the Free State province, the heart of the lion breeding industry. We document the extent of the industry and highlight a number of key management issues. Of particular concern were issues with microchip numbers, which are used to follow each registered lion from birth to death through the system and to avoid laundering of wild caught and/or non-registered lions. Of the 4,823 unique microchips that were identified, at least 11% could not be followed through the system. Additionally, a minimum of 199 microchip numbers may have been reused by permit holders, either on captivity, euthanasia, or transport permits, indicating potential non-compliance with the Threatened or Protected Species (TOPS) Regulations. We highlight further areas of concern that warrant additional attention for these types of activities that may cause management issues during the transition period and which may also be relevant for the keeping, breeding, and trading of other TOPS regulated species in South Africa, particularly big cat species.

Ending Commercial Lion Farming in South Africa: A Gap Analysis Approach

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2021

African lions (Panthera leo) are commercially farmed across South Africa for sport hunting, tourism, and the international bone trade, primarily in Southeast Asia. Despite its legal status, South Africa’s growing lion farming industry is a contentious issue. In 2020 a high-level panel was initiated to review the policies, legislation, and management regarding the breeding, hunting, trade, and handling of four wildlife species, including lions. In May 2021, it was announced that the government intends to amend existing permit conditions to prohibit lion breeding and tourism interactions with captive lions, as well as to stop issuing permits to new entrants into the industry, effectively ending lion farming. In order to follow this line of action, a comprehensive, well-managed plan will be necessary to execute a responsible exit from the industry as it currently stands. Using a “gap analysis” management tool, we aim to: (1) outline some of the key considerations regarding the current state of the lion farming industry in South Africa; and (2) propose specific action steps that could be taken within five key areas (regulation, animal welfare, health and safety, equitability, and conservation) to help inform a responsible transition away from this type of wildlife farming in the biodiversity economy. For our gap analysis, we conducted a semi-systematic literature search to compile key background information about the current state of the industry. This information was then used to identify corresponding desired management states, and steps that could facilitate a successful phase out of lion farming in South Africa. We hope our approach helps identify key considerations for a responsible transition and can help aid decisions during the management of this process.

Shooting pheasants for sport: What does the death of Cecil tell us?

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2020

People hunt and kill animals for sport in many parts of the world. This raises many issues, some of which were brought to the fore when a lion Panthera leo, nicknamed Cecil, was killed by a trophy hunter in Zimbabwe in 2015. Cecil's death led to an unprecedented public reaction in Europe and the USA, and a debate in which opponents and supporters of sport hunting advanced different types of argument based on, inter alia, conservation, animal welfare and economics. The reaction to the Cecil event provides a perspective for scrutinizing sport hunting more widely. In this article we explore parallels between lion trophy hunting in Africa (which can involve either wild or captive‐bred lions) and shooting of common pheasant Phasianus colchicus, a sport which is largely sustained in the UK by the annual release of over 40 million captive‐bred birds. These two forms of sport hunting share common themes that are likely to be influential for the future of sport hunting more widely. These include the extent to which sport hunting maintains land for wildlife, and the impacts of intensification (e.g. the extent to which quarry are reared and released). Concern for the welfare of quarry animals is a dominant theme in debates about hunting. These themes are likely to be relevant for the conservation of many species hunted for sport. Increasing distaste for the killing of animals for sport in many countries may lead to the end of some types of sport hunting, with implications for both habitat and wildlife conservation. It would be both prudent and appropriate for conservationists to increase the urgency with which they seek alternative methods for preventing loss of biodiverse land to other uses. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

The Morality of Trophy Hunting

Chapter

Apr 2023

The most basic moral dilemma in sport hunting is the dispute between deontologists, arguing that animals have inalienable rights to life, and consequentialists, arguing that hunting can lead to less total suffering and the conservation of species and habitats. This dilemma has already been presented in the historical chapter, mainly in Chapters 2.9 and 2.10.What we will attempt to demonstrate in Chapter 8 is that deontology vs. consequentialism is not the only important conflict between paradigms of normative ethics in the trophy hunting discourse. What seems to be unique about the conflict over trophy hunting compared to the conflict over sport hunting is that there is less emphasis on the death of animals per se and more emphasis on the persons who cause said deaths. The emphasis is on the character, motivations, behaviour, and attributes of the hunter.Our claim, following from this observation, is that in order to understand the moral conflicts underlying the trophy hunting discourse, it is no longer enough to understand the obvious incompatibilities between deontology and consequentialism. We must also be open to the possibility of incompatibilities between virtue ethics (i.e. the character of hunters) and consequentialism.To illustrate this, we present in Chapter 8.1 and 8.2 our observations from Twitter, where comments to trophy photos were categorized as pertaining to either the character of hunters or animals/the death of animals. A far greater number of comments about the character of hunters were found, supporting the notion that virtue ethics play an important role in antihunting sentiments.

Fair Chase and Sport Hunting

Chapter

Apr 2023

“Sport Hunting” is highly contentious and confusing, because it can have two meanings. One meaning of sport hunting is to hunt in a sporting way and give the animal a sporting chance. This is equivalent to the ideal of fair chase. The other meaning is to hunt for sport. It portrays hunting as competition and fun.In Chapter 6, we summarize the history of these terms – also discussed in Chapter 2 already – and discuss the meaning of sport hunting. We then discuss how fair chase is sought achieved by decreasing the power gap between hunter and prey through technological handicaps (like using a bow instead of a rifle – Chapter 6.1) and behavioural handicaps (like not shooting a deer on ice or in water or deep snow – Chapter 6.2).We then cover in Chapter 6.3 what we suggest could be an inverse relationship between fair chase and animal welfare. Bowhunting is one such example where, by making the hunt more difficult and therefore “fair,” evidence suggests that wounding rates and thereby animal suffering may increase.Finally, canned hunting is the practice of hunting animals that are fenced in, thus limiting their chance of escape. We discuss the very controversial issue of canned hunting in Chapter 6.4, as it is generally held up as an example of the opposite of fair chase. Plenty of hunting ranches in America, notably Texas, offer canned hunting, and captive-bred lions in South Africa for lion-petting tourism and canned hunting has until now been a big industry but seems to be shutting down. We cover all of this in 6.4.

Trophy Hunting and Conservation

Chapter

Apr 2023

This chapter investigates conservation claims and issues as they pertain to hunting. After a description of the major regulations governing trophy hunting imports and exports (5.1 Trophy Hunting Regulations), this chapter examines the conservation situation in two geographically different sections.The first section (5.2 Hunting and Conservation in Africa) concerns the stereotypical perception of trophy hunting. The trophy hunting situation and conservation issues are completely different in Africa than in Europe and USA and the problems are more diverse and complex. African hunting is more controversial because the species involved (lions, elephants, giraffes, etc.) are iconic, highly anthropomorphized, and sometimes endangered. Both species extinction and species overpopulation are issues in Africa. Corruption, poverty, poaching, and the West imposing their wildlife ideals on Africa are also important factors that we cover here.The second section (5.3 Hunting and Conservation in Eurasia and the Americas) concerns trophy hunting mostly in Europe and USA, where they have few natural predators of deer, so hunting is broadly considered the most feasible way of keeping deer populations from outgrowing carrying capacities of habitats. There are issues, however, with keeping populations down, because hunters favour bucks (because of trophy-fixations and ingrained fair chase ideals), and shooting bucks does little to keep populations in check. Also, shooting the wrong bucks or shooting them too early leads to genetic problems in the populations. These are the primary conservation issues that we discuss in a European- and US context.Other conservation-related matters discussed in this chapter are hunting and genetics, management alternatives to hunting, photography, and poaching.

Trophy Hunting Now

Chapter

Apr 2023

In this final chapter, we present the challenges that recent years and especially 2020–21 have presented in the context of trophy hunting.In Chapter 9.1, we cover Covid-19 and how it has affected hunting and conservation differently in Africa, Europe, and the US. African countries and communities have suffered greatly economically from a lack of tourism, which has led to increased poaching and habitat loss; British venison could not be offhanded as it is largely supplied to restaurants, which have been closed because of Covid; and rural hunting and self-sufficiency mentality has increased in the US.In Chapter 9.2, we deal with the increasingly prominent issues of misinformation and disinformation in science communication and communication about trophy hunting especially, and with how social media amplifies misinformation. We describe a couple of the major trophy hunting disinformation campaigns on both sides of the fence and note how both celebrities and certain celebrity scientists seem to use anti trophy hunting campaigning as a popularity booster.

Trophy Hunting

Book

Jan 2023

Hunters and Antihunters

Chapter

Apr 2023

We have three goals in Chapter 4.The first goal is to describe who hunters are (and to a lesser extent antihunters). Demographical information about hunters is much better for USA than for Europe, and trophy hunting is ten times the scale in USA as in the rest of the world combined, so we focus on a portrayal of American hunters. We use mainly the United States Fish and Wildlife Service statistics and the Virginia based Responsive Management survey research firm combined with demographical information about members of the Boone and Crockett Club and Safari Club International. Education, income, gender, ages, race, hunting efforts, and prey species of American hunters is laid out in Chapter 4.1, and we discuss common backgrounds of antihunters in Chapter 4.4.Our second goal (in Chapter 4.2 Hunting, Privilege, and Social Schisms) is to present and defend the hypothesis that hunter-antihunter conflicts are not just about hunting, but about many other social and sociocultural differences and conflicts. The trophy hunter stereotype (based on the demographics described in Chapter 4.1) is a male, white, conservative, protestant, wealthy, pro-gun, business owner. The antihunter (Chapter 4.4) is typically a female, non-white, liberal, anti-gun student. Hunting is just one representation of a mutual dislike that stems from many underlying societal tensions.Our third goal (in Chapters 4.3 and 4.5) is to explore why hunters hunt. We take our departure in the works of Stephen R. Kellert, and supplement with scholars like Jan E. Dizard, Simon Bronner, and Allen Morris Jones to discuss the three different archetypes of hunters (the nature hunter, the meat hunter, and the sport hunter), their reasons for hunting, and what hunting means to them. In Chapter 4.5, we discuss hunting motivations outside or not fully covered by Kellert’s framework and motivations that pertain specifically to trophies.

Anthropomorphism and “Viralability”

Chapter

Apr 2023

Anthropomorphism – assigning human characteristics to nonhuman entities – plays an important role in trophy hunting, because the animals that are hunted for trophies are generally some of the most anthropomorphised animals with prominent and often highly anthropomorphized representation in movies. Deer are Bambis, lions are Simbas, elephants are Dumbos, etc. We argue that anthropomorphism is an important reason that trophy hunting is so disdained.We introduce this subject in 7.1 by way of an examination of a giraffe called Marius, who was killed in Copenhagen Zoo in 2014. We use Marius to introduce a discussion of what makes some animals anthropomorphised and loved while others are hated. The various features of animals that research has shown elicit human empathy are covered and the strategies of zoos in using those features for their benefit are explored. We also consider what makes some stories about animals more likely to go viral than others, such as animal names.We discuss what this all means and how it matters in a trophy hunting context in 7.2 and demonstrate that trophy hunted animals have many of the relevant features.

A History of Hunting and Hunting Perceptions

Chapter

Apr 2023

The purposes of our second chapter are to provide a summary of hunting’s historical role and show how attitudes toward hunting have evolved. Our goal with this book is to foster a comprehensive understanding of trophy hunting, but to understand any hunting today, we must understand its history. Hunting’s association with privilege today stems from Medieval Europe, where hunting was the prerogative of nobility. The perception of hunting as courageous challenge and test of manhood comes from Antiquity in Greece and China. Conservation arguments in favour of hunting rely on the conservation experiences of late nineteenth century American sport hunters like Theodore Roosevelt and their confrontation with market hunters. Animal rights arguments against hunting today are mostly identical to those of Henry Stephens Salt in 1892. The impression of hunters as indiscriminate exterminators of wildlife comes from market hunters’ decimation of bison- and passenger pigeon populations in colonial America and Great White Hunter stereotypes and their autobiographies from colonial Africa. Etc. This chapter also serves as a chronological literature review of hunting-as-conservation and antihunting arguments. We do not dwell on general explanations of e.g. animal rights, transcendentalism, or ecofeminist theory, as this is covered in other literature. We examine specifically the attitudes of these positions to hunting.

Hunting Trophies

Chapter

Apr 2023

The third chapter is about the namesake of trophy hunters: The trophy. We have roughly four goals in this chapter:We start this chapter by explaining how we define a Hunting Trophy in this book. Next, we provide a thorough technical description of hunting trophies in two categories. First category (3.1 Taxidermy) is taxidermy. We summarize the history of taxidermy, dating back to the use of animal skins in the Palaeolithic, the much later embalming practices of Ancient Egypt, and its modern professional history. We detail how a mounted trophy is made, how the techniques have evolved, and what the attitudes toward taxidermy are and have been over time. In the second category (3.2 Skulls, Antlers, Skins, and Other Trophies) we describe everything that can be considered a hunting trophy but isn’t taxidermy. Most famous of these is the half-skull mount (euromount). We also make note of various related subjects, such as the freeze drying of dead pets, Gunther von Hagen’s plastination, mock trophies, etc.Second goal (in 3.3 Trophies and Record Books) is to make clear the connection between hunting trophies, trophy scoring, and trophy record keeping. We explain the history of trophy evaluation methodology and scoring methods/award systems and histories of six hunting organisations that are responsible for six established scoring methods for hunting trophies in chapters 3.3.1 to 3.3.6. In Chapter 3.4 we discuss the consequences of trophy scoring for hunting ethics.Our third goal is to discuss the meanings of trophies (3.5 The Meanings of Hunting Trophies). The two sides to this discussion are what trophies symbolize and mean to hunters and to nonhunters/antihunters.Last goal (in 3.6) is to provide an analysis of trophy photos. Trophy photos are important because they are all the public sees from trophy hunting, so they come to represent the activity in general, and the hunters in them come to shape the trophy hunter stereotype.

The unregulated nature of the commercial captive predator industry in South Africa: Insights gained using the PAIA process

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2022

South Africa has allowed the commercial captive breeding and trade of African lions ( Panthera leo ) and other large felids since the 1990s. However, publicly available information to quantify the extent and nature of this industry, as well as insight into the diversity of relevant provincial nature conservation statutes, are lacking. Our study reviewed the provincial regulations that govern the captive predator industry in South Africa and used the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) to obtain records held by the nine provincial departments regulating the captive breeding, keeping, and trade of large felids. The information obtained through the PAIA process was highly inconsistent across provincial borders, demonstrated the absence of standard operating procedures, and highlighted the convoluted and decentralised permitting systems. The research postulates that varying and sometimes conflicting provincial regulations can lead to further exploitation of legal loopholes and unregulated growth of the industry. In addition, provincial resources are inadequate for authorities to carry out their fundamental mandates of nature conservation. Although the PAIA process was challenging, the information received provided valuable insight into the unregulated nature of this industry and demonstrated major concerns in addressing the necessary challenges associated with animal welfare. Furthermore, with more than half of the PAIA requests either refused, rejected or ignored, the true magnitude and nature of South Africa’s commercial captive predator industry cannot be accurately quantified. The evidence from this study supports the notion of transitioning away from the commercial captive predator breeding industry, as intended by the South African government.

Poor Welfare Indicators and Husbandry Practices at Lion (Panthera Leo) “Cub-Petting” Facilities: Evidence from Public YouTube Videos

Article

Full-text available

Oct 2022

There is growing concern about captive lion hunting and breeding operations in South Africa, including cub-petting tourism. For the first time, we assess the quality of cub-petting facilities and code the stress behaviors of lion cubs when handled by tourists by analyzing four stress-related behaviors and six indicators of poor husbandry in 49 YouTube videos of tourist–lion cub interactions (from at least 11 South African safari parks, 2008-2019). We also categorized videos as regular tourism vs. voluntourism (tourism under the guise of helping those in need). We found a median of four poor husbandry practices per video, with all but two videos involving very young cubs (under 7 months) and the majority (61%) involving cubs estimated under 3 months old. Two videos claimed to show cubs as young as 9 days old and 1 day old, with their eyes still closed. The lion mother was apparent in only 1 of 49 videos. All but one of the interactions took place during the day, although young cubs are primarily active at night. The majority of videos (77%) showed cubs engaging in at least one stress behavior, and the most common stress behaviors were avoidance and aggression. Comparing voluntourism to regular tourism, we found no difference in instances of poor husbandry or observable stress behaviors (p’s > 0.6). These results show that cub-petting operations are characterized by poor cub welfare, including features that are inherently harmful to cub development (e.g., separation from the mother at an early age and forced activity outside normal waking hours). Existing research suggests that many tourists are likely unaware of these negative impacts and may even believe that they are helping the cubs. This analysis provides evidence to the contrary.

Towards a cost-benefit analysis of South Africa’s captive predator breeding industry

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2020

Ross Graeme Harvey

This paper critiques the conservation and economic claims advanced by the captive predator breeding industry in South Africa. It contends that captive lion breeding offers no direct conservation value. Similarly, claims of economic significance and indirect conservation value are tenuous in light of the potential opportunity costs that the industry generates, which remain largely unquantified. Therefore, a new type of cost-benefit analysis (CBA) method is required for quantifying the potential reputation damage and opportunity costs associated with the industry. One element of the industry’s supply chain worth examining in this regard is predator interaction with tourists. This paper estimates that total gross revenue for the sub-sector is estimated at roughly

180 million per annum. These revenues represent a mere 0,96% of tourism’s total GDP contribution in 2019 (

18.8 million) but may entail extensive opportunity costs. Moreover, if the land currently supporting the interaction sector were joined up to create a number of more integrated wilderness landscapes, the total land area that could be transformed would be in the region of 160,000 hectares. Used for non-consumptive ecotourism, this could yield 960 direct jobs. Finally, the paper estimates that the potential net present value of the reputation damage being wrought on South Africa’s critical tourism sector through the industry is $2.79 billion (discounted at 5% over the next decade).

The Hunt for Kinder Practices: Minimising Harm to Wild Boar Welfare, Insights from a Qualitative Study in Wallonia (Belgium)

Article

Full-text available

Nov 2024

As in the rest of Europe, the Belgian boar population has been tending to increase, posing new challenges to management by hunting. Moreover, in autumn 2018, the African Swine Fever (ASF) virus penetrated Belgian territory. In response to this so-called overpopulation and to this health crisis, wild boars were massively culled by hunters and other nature managers. The wild boar was then debated by some stakeholders as a sensitive animal and that its welfare mattered even if it must still be killed. In this article, we explore the management of wild boar through a qualitative sociological survey focusing on damage to the welfare of wild animals and ways of limiting it. This survey is part of an innovative process launched by the Walloon Region and the Walloon Council for Animal Welfare (CWBEA). It was conducted in order to qualitatively describe current hunting practices and their impact on animal welfare; it then integrated knowledge from the human sciences into the CWBEA’s work; and, finally, those from the hunting world were invited to debate with the usual animal welfare advocates and managers. By identifying, based on the knowledge of hunting stakeholders and wildlife specialists, a multitude of issues and avenues for action to limit the harm to the welfare of wild boars, this paper highlights the relevance of an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approach to the welfare issues of wild animals. It supports the hypothesis that animal welfare advocates can work toward establishing new norms in human/nonhuman relationships in collaboration with hunters but also to include wild animals—wild boars in this case—as sentient beings whose welfare must be considered and debated in discussions on global health.

Under the lion’s paw: lion farming in South Africa and the illegal international bone trade

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2024

The African lion Panthera leo is subject to numerous anthropogenic pressures across its natural range. In South Africa, although free ranging populations are increasing, the number of lions in captivity in private commercial facilities far outnumber those in the wild. South Africa’s captive lion industry was reportedly created primarily to generate income and take pressure off wild populations through the supply of captive-bred lions for trophy hunting. However, the industry has become a highly contentious topic under ongoing international scrutiny and debate. Here, we present new information from direct interviews with workers at two closed-access lion facilities located in North West Province, on how some facilities continue to use legal activities, such as captive breeding and hunting, to facilitate their involvement in the illegal international felid bone trade. The sources also report other illegal and unethical activities including animal welfare violations, unsafe conditions for workers, potential shifts to the commercial exploitation of other felid species such as tigers Panthera tigris and incidents involving poaching of captive lions and tigers by non-affiliated actors. Sources described how some facilities use various tools and tactics, such as security cameras, patrols and messaging apps to avoid detection during inspections. If the South African Government is to be successful in meeting its publicly stated goal of ending the captive lion industry, a comprehensive well-managed plan to transition away from current practices is required. To aid enforcement, the industry should also be fully audited, with all facilities officially registered, a moratorium on the breeding of lions and plans put in place to prevent the stockpiling of lion bones.

2. Fetishising the ‘Wild’: Conservation, commodities, and capitalism

Chapter

Full-text available

Dec 2023

Welfare and Management of Civets in Civet Coffee Tourism Plantations

Article

Full-text available

Oct 2023

Towards a model for the assessment of conservation, welfare, and governance in wildlife tourism attractions

Article

Jan 2023

In the absence of sufficient regulation of wildlife tourism attractions (WTAs), standards of treatment of animals are typically determined by what tourists find acceptable. Under this model there is little motivation for operators to improve standards if tourists do not leave reputationally damaging feedback. Given this current state, the objectives of this paper are twofold. First, we highlight and categorise existing systemic barriers that prevent the operation of an ethical market for WTAs. Second, we combine knowledge of these barriers with a recently published theoretical framework on animal justice to derive an initial, robust set of practical criteria with which non-expert tourists can externally assess ethical standards at WTAs. Viewed at this stage as a prototype, these criteria allow tourists to better understand the scope and consequences of the proper and improper use of animals in tourism along governance, conservation and animal welfare lines.

Conservation and the Commodification of Wildlife in the Anthropocene: A Southern African History

Article

Apr 2021

Nicoli Nattrass

The fossil-fuelled Anthropocene, with its attendant destruction of wildlife, originated with global capitalism. Early ‘fortress’ conservation efforts focussed on delineating protected areas, but in the latter part of the twentieth century, wildlife expanded on private and communal lands in Southern Africa through schemes allowing people to benefit directly from wildlife. Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) provided people with economic incentives to coexist with wildlife, showing that in the capitalist Anthropocene, the commodification of wildlife could be a tool for its conservation. This paper reviews the history of CBNRM in Southern Africa, paying particular attention to Namibia where hunting is an important source of revenue. It concludes with a discussion of international efforts to decommodify wildlife through limiting trade and restricting trophy hunting. The shooting of ‘Cecil the Lion’ in Zimbabwe by an American trophy hunter boosted these efforts – but in the process threatened to undermine commodified forms of wildlife conservation, including CBNRM, across Southern Africa. It is an irony of history that capitalist commodification created the environmental crisis yet strategies of decommodification could prompt land-use changes which, in the absence of substantial new support to promote coexistence with wildlife, reduce rather than support wildlife and biodiversity.

Stakeholder attitudes toward the incentives used to mitigate human-elephant conflict in southern Africa: A news media content analysis

Article

Feb 2021
J NAT CONSERV

African elephant populations are under substantial anthropogenic pressure but these are not spatially homogenous. Elephant densities are high in parts of southern Africa, leading to conflict with human populations. Conservationists working to mitigate impacts of human-elephant conflict (HEC) will turn to mechanisms or incentives to achieve this, mostly financial (such as compensation, or income generation through tourism). Little is known about the attitudes of stakeholders' (such as farmers) toward financial incentives used to mitigate conflict. Here we carried out a content analysis of stakeholder evaluative expression, or valence, using reports from the southern African news media. We sourced 428 separate news articles over the past ten years, and quantitatively assessed stakeholder valence on the financial mechanisms used to mitigate human-elephant conflict. We found that stakeholder attitudes or valence differed across countries and that stakeholders were generally positive, even with regard to controversial mechanisms such as trophy hunting. Our work has some implication for conservation policy.

From Zoo to Social Media: The Evolution of Human-Captive Wildlife Relations

Preprint

Full-text available

Feb 2021

In the twenty-first century-an era of increasing domestic and international tourism-there are boundless opportunities to encounter wild animals both in their home countries and ex situ in zoological facilities around the world. Tourism activity-especially at accredited zoos and sanctuaries-plays a crucial role in the conservation of wild animal populations, and influences the welfare of individuals within involved species. Unfortunately, not all zoos and sanctuaries prioritize the conservation and welfare of their animals, such as those who promote irresponsible and mutually-harmful visitor-animal encounters for economic profit. While the relationship between visitors and animals at zoological facilities has shifted over time to match evolving morals and sentiments towards animals, there is still a storied tendency of visitors preferring close encounters with charismatic wild species. Since the 1970s, researchers' attention has increasingly focused on assessing the influence of the visitor effect, which refers to the impact that viewing, touching, feeding, holding, and riding captive wildlife has on the animals. Many wildlife attractions promote such encounters, despite research suggesting that close interactions with visitors can cause stress and harm to involved species. Such activities are further promoted through the "selfie tourism" phenomenon, in which visitors capture images of themselves in too-close proximity to wild animals to be shared on social media. In this commentary, we consider the challenge of "selfie tourism", and how it can promote unethical relationships between humans and wildlife and lead to deleterious implications for the animals' conservation and welfare.

The Cecil Moment: Celebrity environmentalism, Nature 2.0, and the cultural politics of lion trophy hunting

Article

Nov 2019
GEOFORUM

Sandra G. McCubbin

In 2015 Cecil the lion's death sparked international furore over the practice of lion trophy hunting. Celebrities and everyday citizens, traditional news and social media alike were aflame around the globe, most notably after American celebrity Jimmy Kimmel expressed disgust in Cecil's death during a monologue on his late-night talk show. This paper explores the Cecil Moment as a case study of the cultural politics of the environment at the intersection of celebrity environmentalism and ‘Nature 2.0’ applications like Facebook and Twitter. The research asks: what can the Cecil Moment can tell us about how celebrity and Nature 2.0 environmentalisms work and to what kind of conservation politics do they lead? Drawing on the celebrity environmentalism and Nature 2.0 literatures, I develop an analytic framework for analyzing the Cecil Moment which considers and evaluates the network of actors enrolled, the representations foregrounded and backgrounded, as well as the outcomes. Empirical insights are drawn from document and media review, and key informant interviews. I argue that the Cecil Moment operated through a more-than-human network which served to channel agency unleashed by Cecil’s death to the already-empowered lion conservation actors, as well as mutable meanings that shifted Cecil Moment focus away from trophy hunting and toward lion conservation in general. Ultimately, the Cecil Moment operated to dismiss the anti-trophy hunting politics that sparked and fuelled it in the first place; yet, the momentum of the Cecil Moment was grasped and re-directed toward other lion conservation priorities. Critically, this re-direction was not neutral; rather, it shifted the politics of the Cecil Moment in a way that reproduced longstanding patterns of conservation injustice wherein blame for biodiversity loss is directed away from powerful forces onto the racialized, rural poor from the Global South.

Born captive: A survey of the lion breeding, keeping and hunting industries in South Africa

Article

Full-text available

May 2019
PLOS ONE

Commercial captive breeding and trade in body parts of threatened wild carnivores is an issue of significant concern to conservation scientists and policy-makers. Following a 2016 decision by Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, South Africa must establish an annual export quota for lion skeletons from captive sources, such that threats to wild lions are mitigated. As input to the quota-setting process, South Africa’s Scientific Authority initiated interdisciplinary collaborative research on the captive lion industry and its potential links to wild lion conservation. A National Captive Lion Survey was conducted as one of the inputs to this research; the survey was launched in August 2017 and completed in May 2018. The structured semi-quantitative questionnaire elicited 117 usable responses, representing a substantial proportion of the industry. The survey results clearly illustrate the impact of a USA suspension on trophy imports from captive-bred South African lions, which affected 82% of respondents and economically destabilised the industry. Respondents are adapting in various ways, with many euthanizing lions and becoming increasingly reliant on income from skeleton export sales. With rising consumer demand for lion body parts, notably skulls, the export quota presents a further challenge to the industry, regulators and conservationists alike, with 52% of respondents indicating they would adapt by seeking ‘alternative markets’ for lion bones if the export quota allocation restricted their business. Recognizing that trade policy toward large carnivores represents a ‘wicked problem’, we anticipate that these results will inform future deliberations, which must nonetheless also be informed by challenging inclusive engagements with all relevant stakeholders.

Tank to Table: Hong Kong’s Wet Markets and the Geographies of Lively Commodification Beyond Companionship

Article

Mar 2024

Louisa Lombard. Hunting Game: Raiding Politics in the Central African Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. 272 pp. List of figures. List of maps. List of acronyms and abbreviations. References. Index. $44.99. Paper. ISBN: 978-1108746182.

Article

Aug 2022

Kelma Manatouma

Cuddle, kill, conserve: a posthuman analysis of the African lion within the South African wildlife security assemblage

Article

Aug 2020
Int J Sociol Soc Pol

Emma Louise Fletcher-Barnes

Purpose This paper explores the life cycle of a captive bred lion in South Africa, focusing on the distinction between captive bred and wild individuals. Lions are bred in captive breeding facilities across the country to provide cubs and teenagers for ecotourism, and following this, hunting “trophies.” A distinction is made between the “wild” and “captive” lion, a categorization that I argue legitimizes violent and unethical treatment toward those bred specifically to be cuddled and killed. This analysis explores how the lion is remade or modified from wild to commodity and the repercussions this has had throughout the wildlife security assemblage. Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on ethnographic research carried out in South Africa during 2016 that involved conducting informal and semi-structured interviews with activists, breeders, wildlife security personnel and conservationists drawing out the interspecies relations that influenced the encounters between humans and wildlife. Findings Dominant conservation narratives continue to understand and interpret wildlife solely as a commodity or profitable resource, which has led to the normalization of unethical and cruel practices that implicate wildlife in their own security and sustenance through their role in ecotourism, hunting and more recently, the lion bone trade. Captive bred lions are treated as products that undergo a series of translations through which they are exposed to violence and exploitation operationalized through practices linked to conservation and ecotourism. Originality/value Through posthuman thinking, this paper contributes to debates on the interspecies dimensions of politics through challenging the dominant assumptions that govern conservation and the interspecies encounter.

Hunting Game: Raiding Politics in the Central African Republic

Book

Mar 2020

Louisa Lombard

Characteristics that make trophy hunting of giant pandas inconceivable

Article

Full-text available

Apr 2020
CONSERV BIOL

In November 1928, Theodore Jr. and Kermit Roosevelt led an expedition to China with the expressed purpose of being the first Westerners to kill the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca). The expedition lasted 8 months and resulted in the brothers shooting a giant panda in the mountains of Sichuan Province. Given the concurrent attention in the popular press describing this celebrated expedition, the giant panda was poised to be trophy hunted much like other large mammals around the world. Today, however, the killing of giant pandas, even for the generation of conservation revenue, is unthinkable for reasons related to the species itself and the context, in time and space, in which the species was popularized in the West. We found that the giant panda's status as a conservation symbol, exceptional charisma and gentle disposition, rarity, value as a nonconsumptive ecotourism attraction, and endemism are integral to the explanation of why the species is not trophy hunted. We compared these intrinsic and extrinsic characteristics with 20 of the most common trophy‐hunted mammals to determine whether the principles applying to giant pandas are generalizable to other species. Although certain characteristics of the 20 trophy‐hunted mammals aligned with the giant panda, many did not. Charisma, economic value, and endemism, in particular, were comparatively unique to the giant panda. Our analysis suggests that, at present, exceptional characteristics may be necessary for certain mammals to be excepted from trophy hunting. However, because discourse relating to the role of trophy hunting in supporting conservation outcomes is dynamic in both science and society, we suspect these valuations will also change in future.

Visioning African lionscapes: Securing space, mobilizing capital, and fostering subjects

Article

Oct 2019

In September 2016, 14 months after the illegal killing of Cecil the lion raised an international furore over trophy hunting, 58 individuals gathered at Oxford University for the Cecil Summit, a meeting of experts designed to vision the future of lion conservation in honor of Cecil. This paper explores the Cecil Summit through an analytic of government as a means to provide new insights into securitized and neoliberal conservation governance in action. On this basis, we show how the actors emboldened by the Cecil Moment claimed the authority to vision the Cecil Movement. Using video and document review, and semi-structured interviews, our discourse analysis highlights three components of intervention into African lionscapes emerging from the summit—securing space, mobilizing capital, and producing subjects—that are founded upon claims to scientific and economic rationality as well as specific representations of lions and rural Africans. Our analysis of the vision contributes to recent discussions in political ecology about the dovetailing of conservation, security, the economy—and we add—subjectivity. We conclude by pointing to the way in which militarized conservation appears to be inching closer to the lion and offering a critique of the vision for lion conservation put forward at the Cecil Summit.

Keith Somerville. Ivory Power and Poaching in Africa. London: C. Hurst & Co., 2017. 368 pp. Maps. Charts. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $29.95. Cloth. ISBN: 9781849046763.

Article

Oct 2018

Harry Fuller

Keith Somerville. Ivory Power and Poaching in Africa. London: C. Hurst & Co., 2017. 368 pp. Maps. Charts. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $29.95. Cloth. ISBN: 9781849046763. - Volume 62 Issue 1 - Harry Fuller

Private game farming and its social consequences in post-apartheid South Africa: Contestations over wildlife, property and agrarian futures

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2014

Spaces of privatised wildlife production, in the form of game farms, private nature reserves and other forms of wildlife-oriented land use, are an increasingly prominent feature of the South African countryside. Whilst there is a well-developed literature on the social impacts of state-run protected areas, the outcomes of privatised wildlife production have thus far received little attention. It is argued here that the socio-spatial dynamics of the wildlife industry, driven by capitalist imperatives related to the commodified production of nature and ‘wilderness’, warrant both in-depth investigation in their own right, and contextualisation in terms of broader processes of agrarian change locally as well as globally. The growing influence of trophy hunting and the wildlife industry on private land can be seen as a significant contributing factor to processes of deagrarianisation that are mirrored in other parts of the African continent and elsewhere. In South Africa, these developments and their impacts on the livelihoods of farm dwellers take on an added dimension in the context of the country's efforts to implement a programme of post-apartheid land reform. Two decades after the formal end of apartheid, contestations over land rights and property ownership remain live and often unresolved. This theme issue explores these dynamics on private land partly or wholly dedicated to wildlife production, with special emphasis on two South African provinces: KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape.

Game fences in the Karoo: Reconfiguring spatial and social relations

Article

Full-text available

Apr 2014

In this article, we discuss how farm conversions to wildlife habitats result in the reconfiguration of spatial and social relations on white-owned commercial farms in the Karoo region of the Eastern Cape in South Africa. Farmers and landowners justify such conversions stressing economic and ecological rationales. We illustrate how conversions are (also) a reaction to post-apartheid land reform and labour legislation policies, which white farmers and landowners perceive as a serious threat. They seek to legitimate their position in society and reassert their place on the land by claiming a new role as nature conservationists. We argue that game farms should be interpreted as economically and politically contested spaces for three reasons: (1) whereas landowners present the farm workers' displacement from game farms as the unintended by-product of a changing rural economy, the creation of ‘pristine’ wilderness seems designed to empty the land of farm dwellers who may lay claim to the land; (2) game farms further disconnect the historically developed links between farm dwellers and farms, denying them a place of residence and a base for multiple livelihood strategies; (3) this way the conversion process deepens farm dwellers' experiences of dispossession and challenges their sense of belonging. Game fences effectively define farm workers and dwellers as people out of place. These dynamics contrast government reform policies aimed at addressing historical injustices and protecting farm dwellers' tenure security.

The fractured state in the governance of private game farming: The case of KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa

Article

Full-text available

Apr 2014

Tariro Kamuti

Conversion from livestock and/or crop farming to game farming has been a notable trend on privately owned land in South Africa over the last decades. The rapid growth of wildlife ranching is associated with an annual increase in the areas enclosed by game fences and high demand for wildlife which is being traded privately and at wildlife auctions. Key environmental, agricultural and land reform legislation has been passed since 1994 that impacts this sector, but this legislation does not provide a clear regulatory framework for the game farming industry. This article seeks to understand why game farming is thriving in a regulatory environment plagued with uncertainty. The focus is on one province, KwaZulu-Natal. It is clear that the state is not a homogeneous and monolithic entity applying itself to the regulation of the sector. There is no clear direction on the position of private game farming at the interface of environmental and agricultural regulations. The argument put forward is that the fractured state, in fact, provides space within which the game farmers are able to effectively manoeuvre and to maximise their advantages as private landowners. While game farmers may complain about strict wildlife regulation in the province, the benefits they gain from the combination of a divided state and the presence in this province of a strong, autonomous conservation body are considerable.

Possible Relationships between the South African Captive-Bred Lion Hunting Industry and the Hunting and Conservation of Lions Elsewhere in Africa

Article

Full-text available

Apr 2012

The trophy hunting of lions is contentious due to increasing evidence of impacts on wild populations, and ethical concerns surrounding the hunting of captive-bred lions in South Africa. The captive-bred lion hunting industry in South Africa has grown rapidly while the number of wild lions hunted in other African countries has declined. In 2009 and 2010, 833 and 682 lion trophies were exported from South Africa, respectively, more than double the combined export(2009,471;2010,318) from other African countries. There has been an associated increase in the prevalence of the export of lion bones from South Africa: at least 645 bones/sets of bones were exported in 2010, 75.0% of which went to Asia. Such trade could be problematic if it stimulated demand for bones from wild lions or other wild felids. Captive-bred lion hunting differs from wild lion hunting in that lions are hunted in smaller areas (49.9 ±8.4 km2compared to 843 to 5933 km2, depending on the country), hunts are cheaper (US

20 000–40 000 compared to US

37 000–76 000 [excluding the costs of shooting other species and government charges]), shorter (3.3 compared to 14–21 days), success rates are higher (99.2% compared to 51.0-96.0%), and trophy quality is higher (skull length + breadth = 638.8 compared to 614–638 cm). Most clients perceive captive-bred and wild lion hunting to be different products but there is some overlap in markets: 48.7% of clients that had hunted captive-bred lions showed no preference regarding the type of future hunts. Owing to the size of the captive-bred hunting industry, even marginal overlap in demand could affect wild lion hunting significantly. If captive-bred lion hunting were ever prohibited, a transfer of demand to wild lion hunts could lead to elevated off-takes with negative impacts on wild populations. However, if off-takes of wild lions were held constant or reduced through effective regulation of quotas, increased demand could increase the price of wild lion hunts and strengthen financial incentives for lion conservation. These possibilities should be considered if future efforts are made to regulate captive-bred lion hunting.

Dukes, Earls, and Ersatz Edens: Aristocratic Nature Preservationists in Colonial Africa

Article

Full-text available

Feb 1996

Roderick P. Neumann

In this paper I examine the role of members of the British aristocracy in the movement to create national parks in colonial Africa. Aristocratic hunter preservationists established the Society for the Preservation of the Fauna of the Empire (SPFE) and used their access to the Colonial Office to help direct colonial conservation policies. Focusing on the Earl of Onslow, SPFE president from 1926–1945, I suggest that the aristocratic experience with the landscape of rural England influenced conservationists' ideas for preserving an idealized wild Africa. I explore the ways in which social and cultural constructions of African nature embodied by the SPFE's proposals reflected and helped to legitimate British imperialist ideology. Ultimately, the history of aristocratic involvement in conservation is critical to understanding the development of an institutional global nature-preservation movement.

“Wilding the Farm or Farming the Wild”? The Evolution of Scientific Game Ranching in South Africa from the 1960s to the Present

Article

Full-text available

Oct 2008

Jane Carruthers

This article analyses in some detail the scientific developments relating to extensive game ranching for meat production in South Africa from the 1960s onwards. Initially it recalls how game was utilised in South Africa in the nineteenth century and then reflects on the rise of the modern livestock industry and its detrimental effect on the herds of game that survived in the region into the twentieth century. The roles of scientists from different regions—Britain, the United States and South Africa—are identified and their respective scientific contributions to the wildlife industry evaluated. The narrative is situated within the con-text of a rise in environmental consciousness in the mid-twentieth century and the recent challenges that have faced the formal agricultural and pastoral sector in South Africa.

‘I’ve paid to observe lions, not map roads!’ – An emotional journey with conservation volunteers in South Africa

Article

Full-text available

Nov 2009
GEOFORUM

As fundamental as emotions may be in our experiences with wildlife, very little research addresses this topic. The following paper provides insight into the emotional responses of conservation volunteers participating on conservation holidays through four ethnographic case-studies. Six common emotional responses were identified: anguish, disappointment, frustration, exhilaration, awe and compassion. These emotional highs and lows shaped the volunteer experience, as the realities of wildlife conservation in South Africa upset the culturally constructed, emotionally appealing vision of African wilderness that the volunteers expected. While the positive emotions associated with idealised expectations of African wildlife provide an ideal basis upon which to commercialise nature conservation, they generate a series of tensions in practice. The paper makes an important empirical contribution to current debates surrounding the economic exploitation of affect, showing how emotions underpin the commercialisation of conservation, both through the configuration of the volunteers’ wildlife experiences and the scope of conservation that is practised.

The Challenge of Regulating Private Wildlife Ranches for Conservation in South Africa

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2010
ECOL SOC

We address the new attempts at regulating wildlife ranches on private land in South Africa. Although positive conservation impacts can be attributed to private wildlife ranching, there are a number of ecological consequences that often arise as a result of economic priorities. We present and analyze new national regulations aimed at coordinating provincial legislation and guiding the wildlife industry in a more conservationist direction, and examine tensions that have arisen between different sociopolitical scales as a result. Data were obtained through a desk-based study of legal documents and interviews with key stakeholders. The new regulations begin to address international obligations and national policy on biodiversity conservation by potentially combating a number of specific ecological problems associated with wildlife ranching. However, in practice, the regulations are a significant source of tension among stakeholders and will be challenging to implement. A key issue is competing agendas between incentive-driven ranchers and conservationist aims. It may be that in addressing the ecological problems at the margin, the new regulations will encourage some ranchers to convert their land away from conservation friendly land use.

Exploring the Role of Private Wildlife Ranching as a Conservation Tool in South Africa: Stakeholder Perspectives

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2008
ECOL SOC

Rich in biological diversity, South Africa’s natural habitats are internationally recognized as a conservation priority. Biodiversity loss continues, however, and limited scope to enlarge the state-protected areas, combined with funding shortages for public parks, means that conservationists are increasingly turning to private landowners for solutions. The recent boom in privately owned wildlife ranches in South Africa has the potential to contribute to conservation in South Africa. This paper explores the benefits, limitations, and challenges of private wildlife ranching as a tool for conservation in South Africa through interviews with key stakeholders working within conservation and wildlife ranching, and through case studies of threatened species programs. Respondents suggested that wildlife ranches contribute to conservation positively by maintaining natural areas of habitat and by providing resources to support reintroduction programs for threatened species. However, they reported a number of limitations centered on three themes that generally arise due to the commercial nature of wildlife ranching: (1) tourist preferences drive the industry, (2) predators are persecuted to protect valuable game, and (3) inadequate resources are made available for professional conservation management and planning on ranches. In addition to challenges of combining economic gain with conservation objectives, ranchers face a number of challenges that arise because of the small, enclosed character of many ranches in South Africa, including the need to intensively manage wildlife populations. In order to enhance the role of wildlife ranching within conservation, clear guidance and support for ranchers is likely to be required to boost endorsement and minimize economic loss to ranchers.

Africa after Apartheid: South Africa, Race, and Nation in Tanzania

Book

Sep 2012

RICHARD A. SCHROEDER

Life after Cecil: Channelling global outrage into funding for conservation in Africa

Article

Dec 2015

Trophy hunting is widely used in Africa to generate funding for wildlife areas.In 2015, a global media frenzy resulted from the illegal killing of a radio-collared lion, “Cecil,” by a trophy hunter in Zimbabwe. Trophy hunting is con-tentious and much of the media discourse is emotional and polarized, focusingon animal welfare and debating the value of hunting as a conservation tool.We use the Cecil incident to urge a change in the focus of discussion and make a call for global action. We highlight the dual challenge to African governments posed by the need to fund vast wildlife estates and provide incentives for conservation by communities in the context of growing human populations and competing priorities. With or without trophy hunting, Africa’s wildlife areas require much more funding to prevent serious biodiversity loss. In light of this,we urge a shift away from perpetual debates over trophy hunting to the more pressing question of “How do we fund Africa’s wildlife areas adequately?” We urge the international community to greatly increase funding and technical support for Africa’s wildlife estate. Concurrently, we encourage African governments and hunters to take decisive steps to reform hunting industries and address challenges associated with that revenue generating option.

Contours of a Spatialized Politics: Homeless Vehicles and the Production of Geographical Scale

Article

Jan 1992

Neil Smith

Life for Sale? The Politics of Lively Commodities

Article

Nov 2013

When so many facets of nonhuman life are commodified daily with little challenge, this paper looks to shed light on what is objectionable about commodifying nonhuman life. As a contribution in this direction, we undertake a comparative examination of the formation of two different but equally lively, and international, commodities: exotic pets and ecosystem carbon. In this paper we first set out to understand what characteristics of life matter in the production of the commodity. We argue that a particular mode of value-generating life predominates in each commodity circuit: in exotic pet trade, an individualized, 'encounterable' life; in ecosystem services, an aggregate, reproductive life. Second, we find that hierarchies between humans and other beings are highly generative in the formation and effects of lively commodities. On one hand, these hierarchies cast nonhumans in a disposable state that is integral to the functioning of exotic pet trade; on the other hand, these hierarchies are partly what ecosystem services are designed to address. Nevertheless, we find that reproduction of uneven species geographies is at work in both economies. The degree and nature of effect on the material conditions of nonhuman lives is, however, distinct, and our conclusion calls for greater attention to these differences.

Safe-guarding the colonial present: game farms on the frontier in KwaZulu-Natal's ‘Battlefields Route’

Article

Apr 2014

Josefsson

Drawing on Alistair Fraser's concept of the ‘colonial present’, I show how private game farms are both conceptualised and deployed to maintain ideas of boundaries and belonging that sustain colonial ideals and identities. This article is located on the banks of the Mzinyathi River in KwaZulu-Natal, a river that has functioned as a boundary between various groups for almost two hundred years. The game farms located in this area conserve the idea of the river as a frontier space for ‘white’ South Africa and a boundary with ‘black’ South Africa, as well as entrenching their own boundaries through the imagination and realisation of an idealised space. I argue that the game farms safeguard and perpetuate a colonial present whilst obscuring opportunities for other ways of interpreting and using the space of the farm. Ultimately, how the game farms are now imagined and the way they operate is counterproductive to social transformation in the rural landscape.

Game farm conversions and the land question: Unpacking present contradictions and historical continuities in farm dwellers' tenure insecurity in Cradock

Article

Apr 2014

Nomalanga Mkhize

This article addresses farm workers and farm dwellers' tenure insecurity and its relationship with farm conversions in the agricultural district of Cradock, located in the Eastern Cape Karoo. It argues that consequences of farm conversions for farm workers/dwellers' tenure security must be understood within the context of regional land and labour histories. Its main contention with existing positions that ‘blame’ farm conversions for increased evictions and an efflux of workers/dwellers from farms is that there is a correlative rather than causative relationship between farm conversions and farm worker/dweller displacements in the semi-arid areas. It argues that the extreme nature of the historical land question and the continued dominance of a historically white land-owning class in the semi-arid areas render farm workers/dwellers structurally vulnerable to having their residential arrangements on farms terminated at any given moment. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Cradock between 2009 and 2011, the article shows that game farm conversions tend to perpetuate existing land and power relations on farms as they have prevailed over time. However, it also argues that the distinctiveness of game farm conversions lies in their near ‘irreversibility’ as a land use form which creates more permanently securitised and sealed-off pockets of consolidated land in the countryside. These transformations increase the erosion of farm workers/dwellers' embedded social histories and cultural imprint as a labouring class on the landscape.

Putting Animals Back Together, Taking Commodities Apart

Article

Jan 2014

Rosemary-Claire Collard

Each year ARCAS Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in northern Guatemala receives 200 to 700 animals: cardboard boxes stuffed with baby parrots, crates full of lizards, monkeys with leashes ringing their necks. Many of these animals were confiscated while being smuggled for the pet trade. Seized animals represent a fraction of overall trade (legal and illegal) in and out of Guatemala and of global trade, worth tens of billions of dollars annually. Forming wild animals into companion commodities in these bio-economic circuits involves severing them from their social, ecological, and familial networks and replacing these systems with human-provided supports: food, shelter, and diversion. Many of these commodities fail because the animals die. For the few animals that are confiscated alive, rehabilitation for return to the wild is a form of decommodification attempted through various misanthropic practices—actions and routines designed to instill in animals fear and even hatred of humans—that aim to divest animals of human ties. This article draws on participant observation and interview fieldwork and socioeconomic scholarship to critically examine the dual processes of making and unmaking lively companion commodities. It suggests that commodification and decommodification are not processes of “denaturing” and “renaturing,” respectively. Rather, following Haraway and Smith, they are both productions of particular natures. This article considers the differential contours and subjects of these natures, as well as their ecological and ethical stakes, concluding by suggesting that the collapse of the culture–nature dualism should not preclude acknowledgment of nonhuman animals’ wildness and the violence that can attend its attrition.

Wild property and its boundaries – on wildlife policy and rural consequences in South Africa

Article

Apr 2012

Dhoya Snijders

Against the backdrop of post-Apartheid neoliberal reform, South African landowners have gained the option to acquire full ownership over wild animals on their land. Corresponding with this, approximately one sixth of South Africa's total land has been ‘game-fenced’ and converted for wildlife-based production (i.e. hunting, ecotourism, live trade and venison production). This article analyzes the institutional process in which authority concerning access to wildlife is being restructured, and argues that the unfolding property regime leads to an intensified form of green grabbing. To demonstrate this, the article singles out three particular wildlife policy institutions which make clear (a) how private property rights to wildlife are negotiated and implemented, (b) how wildlife ownership is firmly interlocked with land ownership, (c) how natural entities are being converted to robust political and economical assets, and (d) what social consequences this has for rural South Africa.

Economic and conservation significance of the trophy hunting industry in Sub-Saharan Africa

Article

Feb 2007
BIOL CONSERV

There is a lack of consensus among some conservation NGOs and African governments concerning the acceptability and effectiveness of trophy hunting as a conservation tool. This lack of consensus is due partly to a lack of reliable information on the economic significance and ecological impact of the industry. We provide a review of the scale of the trophy hunting industry, and assess both positive and negative issues relating to hunting and conservation in Africa. Trophy hunting occurs in 23 countries in Africa, with the largest industries occurring in southern Africa and Tanzania, where the industry is expanding. The trophy hunting industry has remained static or is shrinking in Central and West Africa. A minimum of 1,394,000 km2 is used for trophy hunting in sub-Saharan Africa, which exceeds the area encompassed by national parks. Trophy hunting is thus of major importance to conservation in Africa by creating economic incentives for conservation over vast areas, including areas which may be unsuitable for alternative wildlife-based land uses such as photographic ecotourism. However, there are a number of problems associated with the industry which limit conservation benefits. Several of these problems are common to multiple countries, suggesting that if solutions were developed, conservation benefits would accrue over large areas.

Inclusion of Panthera Leo in the Definition of ‘Listed Large Predator.’” (Section 1 of Draft Threatened or Protected Species Regulations). Correspondence from President of South African Predator Association to Ms

Potgeiter Pieter

While Airlines Ban Hunting Trophy Shipments, UPS Says it Won’t Bow to Controversy

Larimer Sarah

Australia Bans Hunting ‘Trophies’ from Lions Entering or Leaving the Country.” The Guardian

Milman Oliver

Canned Hunting is Threat to Thriving Wildlife Industry

Business Day

Blood Lions: Bred for the Bullet.” Documentary film

Young Bruce
Chevallier Nick

Lions Bred to be Shot in South Africa’s ‘Canned Hunting’ Industry

Barkham Patrick

Cecil the Lion Spurs US Lawmakers to Draft Bills to Discourage Trophy Hunting.” The Guardian

Gajanan Mahita

Scientific Evidence on Colour Mutation/Variations.” Correspondence from the Chief Director, Applied Biodiversity Research Division, South African National Biodiversity Institute, to Nosipho Ngcaba, Director-General

Donaldson John

An Interview with Chris Mercer, Director of the Campaign Against Canned Hunting (CACH) and the Global March for Lions

Mercer Chris

Trophy Hunting in Africa: You Kill It, You Carry It.” The Economist

Ruddin Muzaffa

To Boost Gene Pool, Lions Artificially Inseminated.” National Geographic Today

Trivedi Bijal

Lion Whisperer.” 60 Minutes

Ward Clarissa

Global March for Lions - 15th

Tully Paul

The Illegal Pet Trade and the Wildlife Industry: A South African Perspective.” Wildcare Africa TrustIFAW

Trendler Karen

Walking with Lions: The Myth of Conservation.” Panthera

Hunter Luke

Avaaz Counters Accusations of Clicktivism and Takes on the Lion Bone Trade

Solon Olivia

In South Africa, Ranchers Breeding Mutant Animals to Be Hunted: Rich Marksmen Pay a Premium to Shoot ‘Frankenstein Freaks of Nature

Crowley Kevin

Service Proposes Endangered Species Act Protection for the African Lion.” US Fish & Wildlife Service News Release

Kauffman Vanessa

Lions Face New Threat: They’re Rich, American and They’ve Got Guns.” The Guardian

Mcgreal Chris

EU Set to Ban Lion Hunting Trophy Imports.” Parliament Magazine

Levy-Abegnoli Julie

Making a Killing.” The Cook Report

Cook Roger

SA Breeders Embrace Growing Asian Demand for Lion Bones.” Mail and Guardian

Parker Faranaaz

Qatar Airways Embargoes Hunting Trophies from Cargo

Crown Barbara

Melissa Bachman’s African Lion Hunt Draws Anger.” Christian Science Monitor

Pak-Harvey Amelia

Trophies in a Barrel: Examining ‘Canned Hunting

Tsui Bonnie

“Countering the Moral and Ethical Argument for Canned Hunting of Captive Bred Lions in South Africa.”

Jan 2010

Hargreaves

“Limpopo Province Considers Legalising Canned Lion Hunting.”

Jan 2002

Arenstein

“US Gets a Taste for Lion Burgers.”

Jan 2013

Bryce

“‘Canned Hunting’: The Lions Bred for Slaughter,”

Jan 2013

Barkham

“Ghost of Apartheid Returns to Farmlands.”

Jan 2004

Carroll

“Airlines Send SA Trophy Hunting Industry into Tailspin with Cargo Ban.”

Jan 2015

Bloch

“Building the Ethical Dimension of the Environmental Right: The Contribution of the South African Predator Breeders Association v the Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism.”