SCI Adopts Policy On Captive Bred Lions

Herewith a document sent to SCI . We hope this will be informative to the group.

Mike70560 said:

Out of curiosity from where does the 2% number come? I am assuming it is just a guess. As a guess I would say there are 100 properties selling CBL. Only 8 are approved for the 30 day period. I would venture to say the majority, if not the vast majority of CBLs are shot well within several days of being released.

I agree with your last statement 100%.

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It was just an arbitrary number I used to represent the X number of bad apples at occur in any industry, just not hunting.

Aaron Nietfeld said:

Here’s a question for all the members who have hunted CBL in the past.

Would you have taken part in the hunt if the current SCI stance in place at that point in time?

What I wonder is what proportion of the hunting population will not partake in a certain hunt just because they won’t be record book eligible.

They aren’t breaking any laws, but like we all say, hunt for the experience, and leave the tape at home. There’s a whole lot more to this sport then SCI’s book.

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A fair and appropriate question in my opinion.
"Would you have taken part in the hunt if the current SCI stance in place at that point in time?"
Yes I would have taken part regardless. Makes no difference.

"What I wonder is what proportion of the hunting population will not partake in a certain hunt just because they won’t be record book eligible."
Record book eligibility means absolutely zero to me. Not a factor when considering a hunt. I have never entered an animal in any record book and don't believe I ever will. However, for those who wish to do so, I have no issue or criticism of that. To each their own.

Mike70560 said:

Better question,

If you knew the lion you hunted slept in a pen the night before you arrived would you still hunt it?

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"If you knew the lion you hunted slept in a pen the night before you arrived would you still hunt it?"
Nope. Wouldn't and didn't. I do not support or condone that type of hunting and I do not believe those AH members who are supportive of Captive Bred Lion hunting support release one day and shoot the next either. It is those kinds of inflammatory mischaracterizations that serve only to divide and don't really add anything to the conversation but division.

IvW said:

Stop referring to people who have a difference of opinion to your own with regards to CBL as being attacking. The man has a difference of opinion, respect that, he is still a hunter and not a bunny hugger.

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"If you knew the lion you hunted slept in a pen the night before you arrived would you still hunt it?"
I believe this is the comment Richard was referring to. It is not a difference of opinion, it is a blatant mischaracterization.
NO ONE IS ARGUING IN SUPPORT OF THESE TYPE OF HUNTS! Jesus!

IvW said:

Agreed and please do not condemn or condone hunters who do not agree with or who do not practice CBL hunting.

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Good advice for folks with opinions on both sides of the debate, yourself included.

PHASA said:

Herewith a document sent to SCI . We hope this will be informative to the group.

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Welcome!

Nice to see PHASA join AH officially. I hope that in the future PHASA will be available to address all concerns related to PHASA on this site, and not just related to CBL.

It's also nice to see a detailed report on PHASA position, regardless of which side of the argument one is on.

Thanks for sending. I read every word and applaud your efforts and attention to detail on the facts provided.

Thank You!

PHASA said:

Herewith a document sent to SCI . We hope this will be informative to the group.

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I am glad to see PHASA present their position. I need to read the entire piece and not just glance through it.

However you may want to check some of your "facts" against your own references.

Phasa report states:

Do we wish to solely promote this type of hunting in South Africa, considering the resounding public outcry over Cecil? In Zimbabwe prior to Cecil it was determined that 82% of sport-hunted lions were shot within 1 km of the Hwange National Parks boundary, and 72% of adult males and 60% sub adult males that were tagged in this study fell prey to hunters. (Loveridge, 2007)

First of all Cecil was in 2015 and this report was in 2007. Your snippet reads 82% of lions killed in Zimbabwe prior to Cecil were shot within 1 KM of Hwange.

The report reads:

Of the 62 (18 adult male, 10 sub-adult male, 34 female) marked individuals 38 died or disappeared during the study. The majority of lion mortality was due to sport hunting (24 individuals; 13 male, 5 female and 6 sub-adult male). The mean distance from the park boundary that tagged study animals were shot was 1.7 ± 3.5 km (n = 17 adult and subadult males, 2 females; range 0–15 km, exact locations for the remaining 5 animals shot could not be ascertained). 82% of sport-hunted lions were shot within 1 km of the park boundary.

The 82% of sport hunted lions they are referencing were in the study, not in all of Zimbabwe as your report suggests.

I do find that disgusting but one would have to look at who was hunting the Hwange park boundaries and for that matter inside the park at the time.

PHASA said:

Herewith a document sent to SCI . We hope this will be informative to the group.

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Welcome to AH. Drop an introduction post when you have a minute.

Aaron Nietfeld said:

There’s CBL, and then there’s the 2% in which you are referring to which are 100% unethical. And I don’t think that there is anyone on this forum that would hunt a loin released the day they’ve arrive.

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Hank2211 said:

Aaron, agree completely.

But you see, this is how the argument is framed. Take the most extreme example and state with certainty that you must support it if you support CBL hunting. Because those who oppose CBL hunting, along with a group of organizations which want to be seen to be PC, have ethics, while the rest of us, and the Government of South Africa, have none.

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IdaRam said:

If you knew the lion you hunted slept in a pen the night before you arrived would you still hunt it?"
Nope. Wouldn't and didn't. I do not support or condone that type of hunting and I do not believe those AH members who are supportive of Captive Bred Lion hunting support release one day and shoot the next either. It is those kinds of inflammatory mischaracterizations that serve only to divide and don't really add anything to the conversation but division.

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Serious question, on the average, lets say over the last five years, how many days elapse between the release of a captive bred lion and it being shot by. Not extremes like the night before or some reserves where they actually live and breed, but your average run of the mill CBL hunt.

Notice I did not used "canned", you guys are softening me up.

To answer the question, I would do my CBL hunt again. I have never entered anything in the record books and do not intend to. There are moments in time that stand still and approaching that lion was one of them. I am kind of wanting to do it again.

But I want to give a little background, my hunt was my first trip to Africa and my sole reason of doing this hunt was that the perception was you better do it now, the anti's will shut it down and you won't be able to import it. I had never even considered hunting Africa until I got a phone call from a friend. I did my research before booking got more information and knew what I was signing for. But the preception was do this hunt now!

Now look at where we are now even the most pro-hunting organizations are not supportive of this hunting practice. I think there has been a tremendous effort to clean this industry up, but if I was new to hunting africa again and not having gone through the hunt before, I am not 100% sure I would do it.

To me this is the is the bigger risk we face, we might be doing two things that might hurt future conservation efforts, making lion hunting unaffordable for most...and they won't see a public need to support it and/or risk losing African and future African hunters. We have seen little support from your average deer hunter as they have already written Africa off as a hunting destination. I have said it numerous times this is a slippery slope.

PHASA said:

Herewith a document sent to SCI . We hope this will be informative to the group.

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Welcome to the forum. Thanks for posting this.

I have to say it seems much more evidence based than the SCI release announcing their decision.

But you say that SCI’s decision does not respect the freedom of choice for hunters. All SCI says is that no one can advertise these hunts at the annual convention nor enter the lions in the record book. As for the first, I think some creative marketing will solve the problem, and as for the second, how many lions really went into the record book anyway (could be many or few - I have no idea, but lions aren’t really record book type hunts anyway, unless you pick that kind of lion in advance, I suppose).

I think South African lion hunting will survive this in the near term. Whether hunting survives longer term is an open question, and whether these sort of decisions help or hurt remains to be seen. I think on balance it will hurt hunting more than it will help. Time will tell.

Mike70560 said:

Serious question, on the average, lets say over the last five years, how many days elapse between the release of a captive bred lion and it being shot by. Not extremes like the night before or some reserves where they actually live and breed, but your average run of the mill CBL hunt.

Notice I did not used "canned", you guys are softening me up.

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I’ll be the first to tell you that I have zero idea what goes on behind the scene in any of these operations. But what seems pretty clear to me based on this thread, is that the conversations organizations like SCI, DSC, and PHASA should be having, is how to better regulate, and enforce a better code of practice, there by cleaning up the image these types of hunts have within the hunting fraternity, so it doesn’t continue to divide us.

Here’s a question, because I have no idea:

How does one know when his lion has been released? Does the outfitter send a video of it running away upon release?

How can this be tracked and audited?

They are microchipped and scanned on release and again when hunted . This is the way it will work on the 8 properties Phasa approved

Mike70560 said:

Serious question, on the average, lets say over the last five years, how many days elapse between the release of a captive bred lion and it being shot by. Not extremes like the night before or some reserves where they actually live and breed, but your average run of the mill CBL hunt.

Notice I did not used "canned", you guys are softening me up.

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Mike, I know you did not ask me this question, but I'll give you my take. It's an impossible question for you or I to answer without having been there. To answer it requires making an assumption.

Have there been those operations that let them the day of or just the day before. There can be no doubt, I've seen the videos too. CBL hunting has without question a tarnish on it that has been earned. That said, not all outfits work the same way. As such, I'm not inclined to throw the baby out with the bath water.

I've hunted one CBL, a lioness. When I arrived in Jo'burg in October, 2016, I had no intention of doing so. It was either the first or second morning that my wife and I awoke to the sound of roaring lions. Those cats had been out for quite sometime, 30 days or more as I recall. They were not feeling the effects of any sedatives. And they'd been out long enough to make their own kills which were being spotted.

About day 3 or 4 of my hunt, I asked Jacques if there were any lionesses out and there were. So I decided to give it a go. There can be no doubt that lioness was hunting. She was responsible for busting up an eland stalk to misfortune of my wife. We didn't know it exactly when it happened, but we figured it soon thereafter.

We spotted the lioness at first panting in the shade of a tree. A plan was made and we stalked to within 30 yards of her. I was quite ready to take the shot but Jacques wanted 10 more yards. Before we had a chance, the now sleeping cat, became aware of our presence. And about 2 seconds later, she was gone like a bolt of lightning. Had she chosen to charge, it could've been another BEGNO moment.

Later that day we did manage to get in on her and take her at 60 yards. She was still quite pissed and ready to charge.

I won't even in the least compare my experience to that of hunting a wild lion for a number of reasons. The first is that I don't believe that a CBL has quite the same mentality as a wild lion. From what I can tell, a wild lion is more prone to flight when humans are detected. While a CBL will at first run away, they seem to be more prone to holding their ground after being bumped a time or two, whereas the wild ones just seem to keep going till they give you the slip. But then again, that's a bit of an assumption as from what I can tell the majority of wild lions are hunted over bait and not tracked. So maybe that's not the case? Whatever is the case, I still would not compare the two. One not necessarily better than the other however, just different.

I guess my point here is that there's this acceptance by some to paint all with the same wide brush. And for the operators who do it right, I do believe they needed to do a better job of policing themselves. Had they, maybe we wouldn't be at this point. Still I don't believe it's right to hold one party responsible for the actions of another just because they share something in common.

I'm sure you remember the report over at the other place about the juvenile elephant that was killed a few years back. On the same hunt, the client bribed a Zim game scout to keep quiet and look the other way regarding a wounded buff. Lot's of wrongs in that situation. And even with Cecil, as I recall, there was some shadiness in that situation regarding quota swapping. And I'm sure there are any number of situations in Zim as well other countries that happen every year, including our own, that we would not be proud of as hunters. But I'm not going to paint all outfitters and PH's in Zim poorly due to some of their colleagues poor behavior.

When I was lodge one evening the discussion on wild v ranch lions came up. The one of PH's said he would rather hunt wild any day of the week. He said the ranch lions have no fear of man and are therefor more dangerous. I have no idea true or not.

I have a couple of questions I have not seen asked yet.
1) Why this decision NOW, not 10 years ago or when the practice began? If it is unethical now, why was it not unethical 10 or 5 years ago?
2) If you take out the word lion in these posts and insert black wildebeest, scimitar oryx, or captive bred anything (sable, buffalo, etc) does the meaning change?
3) SCI has always allowed captive bred animals into the record books, unlike Boone and Crockett. Is this a major change in policy to become more like B&C?

wesheltonj said:

When I was lodge one evening the discussion on wild v ranch lions came up. The one of PH's said he would rather hunt wild any day of the week. He said the ranch lions have no fear of man and are therefor more dangerous. I have no idea true or not.

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My PH, who's been in the business over thirty years and worked all over Africa, said the same thing. The CBLs have no fear of man and are more dangerous to hunt than the wild ones.

Approval of SCI, Rowland Ward, Boone and Crocket -- none of them mean anything, and I also don't care about importing any part of a lion, leopard, elephant, or rhino; I would like to import a Cape Buff.

I thought the big cats had to learn how to hunt from their mother. I don't see released captive born lions ever successfully hunting unless they were put into a place with an artificially high amount of game.

A CBL hunt doesn't sound very appealing, even if the lion has been released 3 months before. It might be okay on a big enough place, with enough cover, where it took you several days to come into contact with the lion. But nothing is going to beat hunting where there is an entire pride of lion on the property and that's apparently not available in RSA except alongside Kruger and one other park. But that brings up the issue that PHASA mentioned; it really triggers the public to pull lions out of parks and kill them.

IdaRam said:

"If you knew the lion you hunted slept in a pen the night before you arrived would you still hunt it?"
Nope. Wouldn't and didn't. I do not support or condone that type of hunting and I do not believe those AH members who are supportive of Captive Bred Lion hunting support release one day and shoot the next either. It is those kinds of inflammatory mischaracterizations that serve only to divide and don't really add anything to the conversation but division.

"If you knew the lion you hunted slept in a pen the night before you arrived would you still hunt it?"
I believe this is the comment Richard was referring to. It is not a difference of opinion, it is a blatant mischaracterization.
NO ONE IS ARGUING IN SUPPORT OF THESE TYPE OF HUNTS! Jesus!

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Yet it is done and happens all the time. Maybe all the hunters were not aware but the reality is it happens. No need to swear and get all upset about reality.

I am not prepared to partake that is my choice anybody has their own opinion and if this floats your boat go ahead.

Aaron Nietfeld said:

Here’s a question, because I have no idea:

How does one know when his lion has been released? Does the outfitter send a video of it running away upon release?

How can this be tracked and audited?

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You have no idea because it is not regulated.