Sadly it’s tourism that plays a major role in promoting all the abusive activities involved with breeding captive bred lions. Lion petting facilities and lion sanctuaries in South Africa prematurely remove lion cubs from their mothers, force lions to be subjected to abuse from tourists, and force the lions to live in overcrowded and unhygienic cages until they are sold as commodities.
Conservationists and animal welfare experts remain deeply concerned about the breeding practices used at Ukutula such as removing the cubs immediately after birth.ix This unethical and inhumane process is known to cause great physical stress to both the mother and her cubs, yet completely legal under South African law. Volunteers from Ukutula report lionesses are forced to produce about 2 to 3 litters of cubs each year.xi This is extremely unnatural as in the wild a lioness will only reproduce cubs every second or third year.
Lions at Ukutula are sold to third parties once they reach around three years of age.
Ukutula is just one of the many lion ranches that act as a co-conspirator to commercialize lions as a product to be exploited. Sadly, Ukutula is taking in significant sums of money from tourist and volunteers, which indirectly supports the abusive and barbaric industries connected to lion breeders.
[ix] Young, Bruce, Nick Chevallier, Pippa Hankinson, Jeremy Nathan, Ian Michler, and Rick Swazey. Blood lions. 2016.
[x] Steyn, Paul. “Is Captive Lion Hunting Really Helping to Save the Species?” National Geographic. National Geographic Society, 5 May 2015.
[xi] Jennings, Beth. “I Was Tricked Into Raising Lion Cubs For Hunters To Kill.” Blog post. The Dodo, 1 Mar. 2016.
Please ask Ukutula, to stop breeding lions intensively and to stop misleading tourist and volunteers to believe their ranch helps with lion conservation.
In the name of conservation and the fight against animal cruelty, we ask you to please stop intensely breeding lions. We also ask you to stop using misleading, and in many cases even false marketing messages, that your breeding facility is helping current lion conservation challenges. Many goodhearted tourists visit Ukutula to volunteer or visit the petting zoo, falsely believing the lions will be reintroduced into the wild. We also ask you to be transparent and provide clear data to where your lions go once they are no longer exploitable at your ranch. Please respect the nature of lions and allow the lion cubs to rightfully be raised by there mothers and not in the hands of unexperienced tourist and volunteers. We petition the government of South Africa, in the interest of animal welfare, to reconsider its stance on captive breeding of lions, allowing tourist to exploit lion cubs, hunting, or canned hunting of any sort, and to declare this practice illegal.
MISSION “GOD HANUMAAN”: CALL FOR IMMEDIATE ACTION!