Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa Canned lion shooting legal again in SA

5 appeal judges overturned a ruling from earlier this year, so Canned lion shooting is legal again in SA.

if any one wants to come here and under these circumstances to take a lion, then do so but i dare you, be a man, do not call this HUNTING!! it is not, it is SHOOTING!

I disagree with you Dan....it isn't even shooting.

Sir, i can live with that! thanx

I respectfully disagree with you guys. (Full disclosure: I have booked a 2011 free-range lion hunt in Zimbabwe.)

If someone wants to shoot a planted lion, what difference is that to the rest of us? Maybe he/she is physically infirm. Wht's wrong with shooting pheasants on a preserve? What about deer or elk properties where the herd is "managed?"

I hunted elk on a property with no high fences (without even a low fence on one side) where the herd is managed and only two groups of six hunters are allowed each year. All 12 got at least a 5X5. It cost me $9,000. The same year it cost $14,000 to hunt elk at Ranch Vermejo and there were cheaper hunts as well. Just look in the Cabela's catalog. Basically you get what you pay for. Are we all immoral because we hunt with elk guides and pay more for areas where there is more likelihood of shooting an elk?

Canned lions are a little different but where does one draw the line?

Very easy.

Free range...line.......all the other cr_p!


You may, on the other hand do as you will.

Personally, I wouldn't do ANY canned lion hunting, but lions are in trouble and if canned hunting helps perpetuate the species AND free range hunting then it's a good thing. Bottom line line assign a value to an animal and he survives. jorge

This is a tough issue, and worthy of debate. I have hunted behind high fences in Namibia for plains game. In a quater of a million acre "enclosure," is a plains game animal which lives in a very small part of that confined space truly enclosed? For me at least, that represents a hunting scenario with which I am comfortable. Put the same animal in a 2500 acre enclosure, and then I at least feel like I am shooting something off the back lawn. For me, many of the penned/managed herds of elk and red deer in the midwest fall squarely in that catagory. If, however, I had mobility issues, I might have a different view.

Predators complicate the debate even more. I have hunted leopard on fenced concessions, but those fences were no barrier to leopards so the leopard was not a "penned" animal even though individual ranges often did not extend beyond the fences. But at the end of the day, it was the leopard that decided on which side of the fence he would do his hunting.

For me, for whatever reason, a lion, would be a different issue. He was placed there. And regardless of how long he had been on his own within the enclosure, he is truly a penned predator; an animal which likely would have had a much broader range than the area within that enclosure. I have issues with hunting such an animal.

I also don't say that to an impune another's decision - just where I am.

none, thats my point. he is a shooter like you said, probably a good guy even a gentleman, but not a HUNTER.

Jorge, the advantages of canned lion shooting is well known, if you look at my opening post you will see that i don't criticize anyone who wants to come here and do it, as long as he doesn't call himself a HUNTER.

I'd rather not leave Ohio
Please ship it here and I'll blast it in my backyard!

( that's sporting enough isn't it? )

I think it might be preferable to shoot the lion while it's caged - but in a big cage, mind you. In that way, risk could be minimized, a humane kill assured - even by a flinching cowardly type of man, and you could have a taxidermist on hand with a supply of good knives and a sturdy table at the ready. Once you mount it on your wall - no visitor to your trophy room need be the wiser while admiring your kill.

Yeah guys,
the bottom line is, just because its now legalised again, does not mean we have to support it. So I feel it is us outfitters duty from this side to simply air these operators out and bring respect back to the dangerous game industry in South Africa.
Fair Chase is the name of the game

I fully believe in the rights of the individual to do whatever has been deemed legal in the jurisdiction where the hunt will take place. Not my cup of tea but I don't see it too far off from the guy that drives around and shoots a deer or anything else from the car.
I do wish there were a way for the breeders to help the native and free ranging groups by releasing one for five or a better ration into areas not being hunted in order to open the genetics pool and help perpetuate the species.
Frank

I suppose there can be circumstances that would dictate someone having to go by way of a canned hunt, especially if they were disabled etc.

However, I myself would never go that route and consider myself as have hunted the animal in it's natural setting. Same goes for catching fish in a barrel with a handnet.