The South African Government’s latest moves to shut down the commercial lion industry have sparked outrage. In this interview with BizNews, Richard York, the CEO of Wildlife Ranching South Africa (WRSA), slams the government’s handling of the issue, and expresses concern that Forestry, Fisheries and Environment Minister Dr. Dion George is being “ill-advised”. He says: “I feel sorry for Dr. George…I think he’s been handed a hospital pass…” York also asks: “…is the Minister more concerned about climate change and about bringing funds over from overseas than actually addressing the challenges taking place in his own backyard.” York warns that should the lion industry be closed down, it would have a huge ripple effect. “We’ll talk about disinvestment from other forms of game-ranching, where farmers will just convert to other forms of commercial agriculture because their right and their right to private property is being placed in jeopardy.” Meanwhile, WRSA is set to challenge the two Government gazettes containing a call for the “voluntary surrender” of African lion bones and the announcement of a draft notice to prohibit new captive lion breeding facilities.
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Extended transcript of the interview ___STEADY_PAYWALL___
Chris Steyn (00:02.248)
The fate of over 8,000 captive lions hangs in the balance as the government moves to shut down the commercial lion industry. We speak to Richard York, the CEO of Wildlife Ranching South Africa. Welcome Richard.
Richard York (00:20.878)
Good day, Chris.
Chris Steyn (00:23.87)
Richard, exactly what does the government propose?
Richard York (00:27.8)
So Chris, recently there’s been two government gazettes that have been put out for public comment. Both were released on the 15th of November, 2024. The one gazette is a single page and the other one is a two and a half page government gazette. The first gazette is calling for specifically the voluntary exit and surrendering of legal stockpiles of lion bones and derivatives.
Members of the public have got 120 days to submit their information on this platform. And then the second gazette is slightly longer. It’s two and a quarter pages long. It’s calling for public comment pertaining to the prohibition of certain activities. In short, the prevention of new commercial establishments.
What is concerning for us is that both gazettes are vague and don’t reach the required muster of terms of public participation process as stimulated by the National Environmental Management or Biodiversities Act, commonly known as NEMBA, as stipulated under Section 102B, that public participation, the notice must contain sufficient information to enable members of the public to submit meaningful representation or objections.
The gazette calling for the voluntary surrender even admits, and I quote, a detailed implementation process plan of surrendering lines, stockpiles, and derivatives will be communicated and shared in the public domain once approved by the minister and the registration process is concluded. So how we anticipated to register something that we don’t even know what’s going to be done with it or how the process is going to be facilitated.
And what is concerning for us as an industry is despite millions of rands that have been spent, I remember reading in the high-level panel report that the initial budget was six million rand and that budget was extended three times. We then had an extended high-level panel task team. We then had a ministerial line task team and then we had an extended ministerial task team. So how many millions has been spent…
Richard York (02:30.922)
in terms of all these processes, but yet we still don’t have any progress in terms of addressing the core issue that has brought us here, and that’s the welfare of lions. What has the minister done to address the welfare issues of the lions, and how are they proceeding here with?
Chris Steyn (02:47.256)
Talking about the minister, what do you make of the Forestry, Fisheries and Environment Minister, Dr. Dion George’s stance on this issue?
Richard York (02:56.472)
So I feel sorry for Dr. George. I think he’s in rugby terms, I think he’s been handed a hospital pass. He’s been given a topic that’s exceptionally difficult. He’s taken over from the former minister, Minister Creasy. And I think he’s been ill-advised. And the reason why I say he’s been ill-advised is because on the high-level panel task team, on the extended high-level panel task team, on the ministerial task teams that they were, there was never any one of real substance that actually breeds and looks after lions. So the fate of the commercial lion industry was never represented. In that high-level task team that was instructed to go and do site visits, they never even did a single site visit to actually go out and determine what is happening on the ground and what is transpiring with lions.
If we even have a look at the task team performance of last year. I know it was established in December 2022, I think it was. In June of 2023, I was shocked when one of the panelists went on national news and said that to date, we’ve only had one person that’s willing to voluntary surrender. And that was actually one of our members from WRSA that approached us and said, we would like to put our name forward because we see value in this and we’d actually like to exit the industry to create a cattle farm. However, the property that we’ve got our lions on is not financially viable without its lions. So it’s not a property that can get converted into any other forms of agriculture. We want to just get rid of our lions and then we’d like to move to a different area and set up a cattle ranch.
And we pointed this out to the task team. We said, chaps, without the lion as part of the commercial viability of this ranch, it won’t be economically sustainable and it will actually be detrimental. And the task team’s plan at that stage was, no, we need to donate the farm for transformation purposes and unfortunately, to transform people into what? Into poverty. That was their suggestion at the stage. So I am concerned and as an industry,
Richard York (05:03.202)
we were one of the very first people to send Dr. Dion George, as well as his deputy ministers, an email on the 2nd of July, welcoming them to their position. And we outlined all the challenges that we face as an industry, from the setting of quotas to the welfare of animals, to the non-recognised species that we have that are not recognized for…conservation benefits under the IUC and Red List assessments. And we highlighted these issues and we said, we really value a meeting with you and an opportunity to discuss these challenges. We’ve never even heard a word. Despite several emails, the best response that we’ve got is a response from one of the secretaries saying, we acknowledge receipt of your email.
What was even more concerning for us is in October of this year, when we had another national meeting with the department, a high ranking DG said to us, I’m yet to meet with one of the ministers, yet alone a deputy minister, about my portfolio. And that for us is a huge concern. we tend to label this situation as is the minister more concerned about climate change and about bringing funds over from overseas than actually addressing the challenges taking place in his own backyard.
Chris Steyn (06:18.218)
So meanwhile, to what extent has the Biodiversity Management Plan for African Lions been implemented? That’s from 2015.
Richard York (06:27.214)
You’re quite right, Chris. So the Government Gazette on the BMP was implemented in 2015 and it had a clear strategy. Now, public, broader public out there might not be aware of this, but there are three distinct categories of lions. We’ve got wild lions, those come forth in Kruger National Park in Kalahari. We’ve got managed lions, which all come forth in reserves smaller than 100,000 hectares. And then we’ve got captive lions that are kept in controlled environments.
And that includes both lions for commercial purposes as well as lions and sanctuaries. And each category is managed in a unique way. The 2020-15 Biodiversity Management Plan for lions was developed to ensure that all three could be looked after. And I’ll read here for you what the vision was. The vision of the BMP was through the existence of stable, viable, and ecologically functional populations of wild, and managed wild lions, along with well-managed captive populations that can have minimal negative conservation impact, lions will provide a key opportunity for biodiversity conservation, economic development, social benefits, and improved management capacity. To date, unfortunately, this BMP has never been successfully implemented, and it’s been blamed on budgetary constraints and lack of capacity.
Now what the general public doesn’t know out there is that even our managed lions are being euthanised. To quote one press release by a veterinarian, as the extreme examples of levels of culling in recent years, Madikwe Game Reserve culled its lion population down from 110 individuals in 2009 to just 40 individuals in 2012. And this is despite the BMP having clear sets of objectives. The one objective being, maintain the current degree of protected wild lions, two, reassess the status of lions in South Africa, three, enhance the conservation status of managed wild lions, and four, assess the management of the captive lion population. Now, if we hone in on that point, 1.4, assess the management of captive lion populations, there were various actions that were put in place, five of them. One was to develop standards for the captive breeding of lions, two,…
Richard York (08:42.996)
execute an audit on lion-keeping facilities of all current permit holders. Cancel the permits of those that are not compliant with their permit requirements. Three, introduce mandatory marking of captive-bred lions through microchipping and tattooing. Four, to create and maintain a database of all permitted lion breeders and keepers and their DNA profiles. And five, conduct a study to determine the contribution of captive bred lions to conservation.
The intended five-year outcome was to have these standards to be developed and implemented, and then for provinces to enforce these norms and standards. And they said here their due date was by 2019, all permit holders have to comply with the minimum standards…or be closed down permanently. A detailed report on all conducted research by 2017…we are in 2024, and we are yet to even comply with parameters that were set down in 2015 to say that this needs to be addressed by 2019. None of this has been achieved. And they blaming it on lack of resources and budgets. So it boils down to the following. The minister’s now doing a blanket ban in terms of his one Gazette saying, we will not allow any new entrants because they failed to provide these standards. Despite the 2019 NSPCA, DFFE judgment that said the minister needs to put welfare standards in place. They have failed to do so. Now all of a sudden, we as the industry that are being regulated and monitored by government that gives us a permit to perform a certain function is being blamed for their failure. And that’s highly unacceptable. And in terms of a department, they failed us totally.
Chris Steyn (10:33.338)
About the government, how are they performing with regards to management of reserves, of State reserves?
Richard York (10:42.422)
Unfortunately, not very well. If we have a look at the WESO EWT report, which was produced in 2023, it was titled, The State of Provincial Reserves in South Africa, Challenges and Recommendations. According to this report, many reserves face critical issues. Now this report, to just give the listeners a bit of history about it, was actually answered by the managers of the reserves. And they listed the following issues, financial constraints, inadequate budgets with most funding allocated to salaries leave little for essential maintenance and conservation activities, capacity shortfalls, a lack of skilled personnel and high vacancy rates in critical scientific and management roles hinder effective operation. Many reserves suffer from a loss of individual knowledge and insufficient succession planning. Dilapidated infrastructure, poor maintenance of roads, fencing, and facilities impact tourist potential and exaggerate issues like poaching and human wildlife conflict. Management deficiencies, limited strategic planning, poor governance and inconsistent implementation in the management plans, reduce the effectiveness of conservation efforts, and poaching and invasive species, rampant poaching and proliferation of alien invasive species further threaten the biodiversity of state reserves. Now, if we go have a look at the entire report in its entirety, apart from the Western Cape, which showed limited access and to a small degree the Free State, all other preserves failed dismally. And this is…due to a lack of significant funding, capacity, building and collaborative partnerships. The government’s ability to fulfill its conservation mandate remains compromised and this needs to be addressed.
So we’re sitting with a situation that even Madikwe Game Reserve, and the reason why I mention Madikwa Game Reserve is because I grew up there. It was a reserve that was developed to be an economic financial hub for communities. We’ve had reports now recently that over 58 elephant have died of starvation in the reserve. How can we be allowing this type of welfare to be taking place in our provincial reserves, but we chastising an industry saying that it needs to uphold certain welfare standards when their own departments, State parks and government can’t even perform the same duties.
Chris Steyn (13:02.844)
In contrast, how would you say have private wildlife ranchers fared with regards to conservation?
Richard York (13:10.734)
So one thing that needs to be explained is that the 1991 Game Theft Act gave wildlife ownership to the private citizens. And this was a huge step forward. Of the estimated 20 million head of wild animals in South Africa, 16 million, 80% are in private ownership. And it can be safely said that not a single wild animal in private ownership is facing some form of extinction within South Africa’s borders.
And that includes your species such as your black rhino and white rhino. It is now estimated that the private wildlife sector looks after and is the custodian of 75% of the white rhino population in South Africa and possibly the world. And that’s a huge conservation benefit that’s been put down. And what makes our model different to a protected-areas model is that our key driver is economic sustainability. If we are not economically sustainable, our land will be used for some form of other agriculture or some other form of economic driver. So without that economic sustainability, we won’t be in business. And because we need to be economically sustainable, it doesn’t make sense for us to leave our lions, for example, in dilapidated states that brings welfare concerns because then we don’t have production. And if we don’t have production, we don’t have economic viability.
So, conservation and welfare of the animals might be our secondary objective, but we are enforcing it because without enforcing that objective, we won’t have a primary objective, which is a wealth created from wildlife that we perform.
Chris Steyn (14:49.416)
Now, is wildlife, sorry, Wildlife Ranching South Africa taking this issue further? What can you do now?
Richard York (14:59.788)
So unfortunately, we are going to be challenging both gazettes. We will be submitting our public participation documentation in time and addressing the concerns that we’ve raised within the documents and highlighting the inconsistencies of the department and highlighting the inconsistencies of the process that we follow to date. At every single stage, we have submitted information, we’ve submitted records, we’ve participated in the verbal and road shows that they’ve had in person, and we’ve raised our objections and we’ve said, chaps, base your findings on science, base your findings on evidence, and they’re failing to do so.
If I can jump back quickly and just highlight some of the inconsistencies, for instance, with the NSPCA and the welfare of lions in South Africa, the NSPCA is doing tremendous work, but the question needs to be asked, and this is just my personal opinion.
The NSPCA is blurring the lines. They can’t be the player, the sheriff, the judge, and the executioner. A tremendous part of funds has been spent to investigate commercial lion facilities. And if you have a look at their 2015 to 2017 annual reports, they investigated 1,013 facilities across South Africa, housing 3,071 lions. But after careful consideration and reviewing all their reports, no reference could be found of a single case where the NSPCA laid formal charges against a facility with welfare concerns and or for contravening the Animal Protection Act. It’s only now recent that the 2023 annual SPCA report highlighted the following on page 37, and I’d like to read this for you. Major victory for South African lions. The National Council of SPCA celebrates a major victory for lions in the country’s first successful case against the cruelty and negligent confinement of these wild animals. The individual from Stilfontein Farm was charged with seven different counts of contraventions of the Animal Protection Act 71 of 1962, including the failure to provide sufficient and adequate shelter against all elements, provide portable water at all times, provide hygienic living conditions, provide sufficient space, and for the animals in these care,
Richard York (17:22.924)
which include lions, tigers, caracals, serval, cape foxes and chickens. Initiating legal proceedings in 2022, the case concluded on 30 August, 2023, where the court found the accused guilty of contravening the act. The court sentenced the accused to a final 4,000 rand or 12 months imprisonment, which sentence was wholly suspended for five years. Now is this what we’re dealing with at the moment? We’re raising this clock in this alarm bell of huge welfare concerns, but this is the first case and it’s only a 4,000-rand fine. Surely there must be a lot more damaging information to be justifying all the millions that the department’s spending to shut down the industry when they themselves are failing to comply with the own goals that they set for themselves under the National Biodiversity Management Strategy. And the question now also needs to be asked,…
Richard York (18:19.18)
why is this welfare concern being pushed so extensively? There’s over 580 captive lions that have been imported into South Africa according to our own society’s trade database since 2000. Where’s this overwhelming amount of lions coming from? They’re going to NGOs that are using them as sanctuaries and using them as emotional traps for clickbait to raise funding. And the NSPCA themselves is guilty of this.
The 2019 lion cubs Carlos and Ivana, those lions were in dire, dire welfare concerns. The best thing that could have been done was to euthanise them. But instead of the NSPCA euthanising them, they turned them into a fundraiser to raise money for the NSPCA. Now that for me is totally, totally inconsistent with their own acts. There’s even a report recently brought up by Four Paws saying that South Africa’s out of control big cat industry and how to tackle it, but yet they themselves have Lionsrock Big Cat Sanctuary where they keep lions and they profit out of tourists visiting that sanctuary. So if you wanna write a report saying shut down the commercial industry and shut down captive-bred lions, then surely you should shut down your own sanctuary first and eat by example. Why is this separate parameters for the one and not for the other saying, if we make commercial income out of an animal, we should be shut down. But if you make the commercial income calling yourself a sanctuary, you’re fine, you can proceed. It doesn’t make sense.
Chris Steyn (19:57.753)
Richard, lastly, what will the consequences be of closing down the lion industry?
Richard York (20:05.314)
I think this will have a huge ripple effect throughout the industry. We’ll talk about disinvestment from other forms of game-ranching, where farmers will just convert to other forms of commercial agriculture because their right and their right to private property is being placed in jeopardy. But in my honest and humble opinion, considering the information we have, considering the failure of the DFFE, I don’t see how they can possibly approach a court to shut this down. They had certain tasks that they themselves said that they failed to reach, dismally so. They’ve now trying to put the blame on the commercial sector for their failure. The commercial sector’s got some of the best welfare and wellbeing standards out there, and we are making a huge difference. So I don’t see this industry being shut down anytime soon, especially if you’re not gonna shut down the entire industry.
And where are we gonna draw that line in the sand? And what are we gonna draw it? Are we gonna draw it that we’re gonna say we shutting down lions that aren’t benefiting conservation? Well, then I said it in 2018 in Parliament, then we need to shut down all the managed lions in the managed reserves because they’re importing to the IUC and not contributing to conservation. We’re euthanising those lions in the hundreds yearly. So what conservation benefit are they putting? Second, all the sanctuary lines as well as all the commercial lines will need to be euthanised, such as the ones in Lionsrock. Don’t try and put down rules for one industry and think it can’t be applied throughout the entire sector. If we’re talk about line conservation, draw that line properly and say anything below this market shutdown.
So as an industry, we stand ready to work with the government, to support the government. We’ve got game ranchers that have been in this industry and been ranching with lions since 1995. They’ve got a wealth of knowledge. If what they were doing was wrong, surely they would have been shut down ages ago. Surely they would have gone out of business and surely the entire product and model would have been a complete dismal failure in the last 30 years.
Chris Steyn (22:20.894)
Thank you. That was Richard York, the CEO of Wildlife Ranching South Africa, speaking to BizNews about government moves to shut down the commercial lion industry. I’m Chris Steyn. Thank you, Richard.
Richard York (22:35.086)
Thank you very much, Chris.
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