British businessman and philanthropist Lord Michael Ashcroft has written a book and cover film about South African hunting industry practices.
According to shocking new findings, he was struck by the fact that thousands of lions raised in African captivity each year have been killed by tourists who want to hunt them.
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The book, titled Unfair Game, describes the exposure of captured lions in South Africa, exploring the cultivation of captured lions, reveals how there were now about 12,000 lions bred in South Africa, and that their numbers were four times greater than in the wild.
Thousands of lions were raised on farms each year. They were separated from their mothers when they were just a few days old and used as pawns in the tourism sector to then be either killed in ‘hunting’ or simply slaughtered for their bones and other body parts, which were very important in the drug market.
They were poorly fed and kept in unhygienic conditions, and were constantly beaten and mistreated if they do not perform for paying customers, and drugged.
Lord Michael Ashcroft’s research suggests that there is now a high probability that there are now at least 12,000 lions bred in the country, against a wild population of only 3,000.
Only a few people benefited from this offensive business, respectively only a small number of people, so thanks to the constitution and laws of South Africa, they seemed to be able to work as they wished.
Ashcroft involved two covert operations that lasted two years. They were called Operation Simba and Operation Chastise.
The teams involved in the operation found evidence of lions bred in captivity hunted for sport. One video showed a lioness shot dead in a tree by two owners of a hunting lodge, they then shot her nine more times as she died on the floor.
Ashcroft said he would donate money of the book to South Africa for wildlife, saying that hunting lions were a disgrace to South Africa and that the country he had loved for many years realized that it was a country with a harsh, barbaric industry and had no place in the 21st century.
