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STOP Canned Lion Hunting

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by Chelsea Lowe (~Islandstar) @ victoresque.com

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Photoshop CS5, Intuos4 Medium tablet

Not for sure if there should be a Mature Content warning or not on this... It isn't too gory, but the idea is just... disturbing. Let me know if you think it needs one. I hope not, considering that this topic is just SO BLOODY IMPORTANT that it needs to be seen by as many as possible. :|

This was my final project in Graphic Design. We had to design a poster that brought awareness to a topic that was important to us... so I went with canned hunting. More specifically, the canned hunting of lions.

Canned hunting is, simply, "hunting" and killing an animal in an enclosed space. It doesn't matter if the space is a cage or an acre of land or 30 acres or even 30,000 acres of land. If the area is completely fenced in so that the animal has NO WAY of escaping, then it is absolutely canned hunting. There is absolutely no concept of fair chase like there would be if the animal was truly in the wild. It is incredibly unethical and even most REAL hunters and hunting organizations frown upon it. It's a disgusting, lazy, cowardly form of trophy hunting.

The canned hunting of lions is extremely popular over in South Africa. Unfortunately, it is legal. It was temporarily banned in 2007. However, in 2010 (after enough whining and complaining from "hunters" and breeders), a Supreme Court of Appeals ruled in favor of continuing this barbaric practice.

Game farms/ranches breed and raise lions. Soon after the cubs are born, they are taken away from their mother to be hand-raised by humans. They do this so that the lioness more quickly becomes ready to breed again. She'll have more litters of cubs here in captivity than she ever would in the wild. To the ranch owners, more lion cubs = more money to be made from canned hunting.

At these ranches, people are allowed to come in and handle and play with the lion cubs. The people behind the ranches put on a front to the public and they claim to be conservationists and that they rescued all these cubs and that they will eventually be released back into the wild. Of course, this is all BS because you just can't release a captive-bred lion into the wild.

The lions become dependent on humans to feed them. Because of the constant interaction with humans, the lions grow up to not be afraid of them. This makes them easy targets to kill. When the lions are old enough, people from all over pay THOUSANDS of dollars to shoot a lion in an enclosed space. These lions are sometimes drugged before being released into the enclosed area. Oftentimes, the "hunters" shoot the lion from the safety of their truck. It's also been reported that they request to shoot the animal when it is still in its cage. These people... these monsters don't care if it's ethical or not. They're not even real hunters. They're just lazy, cowardly people determined to prove their manhood and they just want a stuffed lion to add to their trophy collection.

It's sick. Absolutely, incredibly sick. It's awful and horrifying.

If you've made it this far, then thank you. It is really hard to properly cover canned hunting without writing an entire book on the subject. If you are just as passionate and disgusted by this and if you are just as determined to stop these barbaric acts as I am, then I highly encourage you to further research it and to please, help spread the word. There are so many people who don't know about this. The first step in stopping this bloody insanity is to bring awareness to it.

Helpful links with information regarding canned lion hunting:

CACH (Campaign Against Canned Hunting) - As far as I know, this seems to be the only organization/campaign working specifically to bring awareness to canned hunting.

LionAid - A lion-specific organization working towards conserving and saving this beautiful animal - whose population is rapidly declining. Over the past 50 years, the lion population has declined by 90%.

SanWild Lion Rescue - A blog working to bring awareness to and to expose individuals and operations that participate in different forms of lion abuse including canned/trophy hunting, the bone trade, etc. It also includes a couple of experiences of people that volunteered at these places.

A couple of articles with an overview of canned lion hunting: [link] (also includes a video) and [link]

A long research article on using State and Federal Legislation to stop canned hunting: [link]

A long but wonderful article that argues against hunters that use conservation as an excuse for trophy hunting: [link]

The illustration that I did for this poster isn't up to par with my other work... but the content, the message is the most important thing for me this time. (That, and I was on a tight schedule.) The scene depicted in my poster is based off of an actual canned hunt of a lioness that happened years ago. The following link includes a description of it: [link]

And this site has a two-part video on canned lion hunting. It includes the video footage of the canned lioness hunt that I just mentioned: [link]

Well then. That's all I have for you all. If you have any other information and useful articles on canned lion hunting, then please share it with me and I'll add the link to it here. In the meantime, let's all continue to work towards stopping this cruelty!

This makes me want to create more art promoting wildlife conservation - big cats especially. Expect to see (much) more pleasing and positive big cat art over the summer. :)
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Millenyra's avatar
This is ...  disgusting.  :( Lions may be vicious but I think it's only because we intrude on them and their lands.  They're beautiful animals and derserve the same respect we ask for.