Global March for Lions -- New York -- 2014

I am linking this post with Rambling Wood's Nature Note meme. Global March for Lions took place yesterday (March 15, 2014). It took place across the globe, in sixty-two different countries, in protests against the canned lion hunting. My husband and I along with our friend Joolz participated in the protest.

The protest was against canned hunting. The canned hunting takes place primarily in South Africa. But, in the US alone, there are 1000 such canned hunting sites with 500 of such sites being only in Texas. NY states also allows canned hunting. In canned hunting, lionesses are captured and kept in secluded captivity and constantly impregnated through artificial insemination (much like what happens to all the catles in industrial meat-farming) so that they can keep on producing lions.

These canned hunting organizations then earn lots of money by luring tourists and volunteers to look after the lion-cubs, to pet them and play with them. So, please be aware of such organizations/rehabilitation-centers in Africa which will allow you to pet cubs, play with them or look after them. Once they become adults, they are confined in cages or small areas where hunters go and shoot them for trophy hunting. The lions die of painful death because they are never shot in the head or heart to be killed at once. They are never shot in such places because then the beauty of the trophies will be gone. Rather they are shot in such places in the body where they die an agonizing death over long hours. The trophies are then collected by the hunters for which they more than ten thousand dollars are more. The rest of the body/bones/meat get sold at sky-rocket prices in Asia for Oriental-medicines. Now, I don't think I am sounding that much gory or horrific but you can imagine the analogous situation where human-females are kept under lock-and-key to keep on producing children; then their children are looked after my volunteers who are thinking that they are helping in orphanage; but as soon as the children of some age, the male-children are hunted down in a confined cage; the female-children are either sold into prostitution, or to produce more babies or in research labs. So, now I hope you get the picture. Here is one such ad where a female white-lioness is being sold. I AM ASHAMED TO SAY THAT 55% OF SUCH HUNTERS ARE FROM THE USA :-(:-(...

Here the story told in picture about what happens to canned lions.

People argue that these hunters provide money to conservation. How? That $10,000 or more that they pay for hunting goes towards these business-organizations -- their goal is to earn money through such hunting practices. If anyone really wants to give to conservation-groups, then there are no scarcity of good conservation groups like National Wildlife Federation who use money to protect everything in nature. People also argue that such hunt take down the pressure on wild lions as they are not being hunted. But the sad reality is that wild lion population is going down dramatically in the last fifty years. Lions once used to roam from Africa to India through Middle-East. No wild lions are found anywhere in the Middle-East; a small pocket of lions is found in Gir National Forest in India; only 4000 wild lions are left in Southern Africa. The lion population in Africa has gone down by 50%.

Here is Archbishop Desmond Tutu leading a prayer for the global march for lions:
Here is a video about canned hunting:

Here are some pictures from the protest. About three hundred signatures were collected; more than three hundred people participated. If you live in NY state, you can go to this site and sign the petition to ban canning animals in NY state. Such canning sites not only kill and put in danger exotic animals from outside the USA, but also the native (and often time endangered, exotic species) animals. If you are wondering how can such sites put in danger the endangered species like say Bald Eagle, then let me assure you that they do so by exploiting the loop-holes that exists in non-profit status and laws for organizations. All these canning sites have declared themselves non-profit organizations because they claim that whatever money they earn by letting canned hunting goes towards conservation.

If you live in other states which has canned hunting, then you can try to find out which organizations, legislator or senator is trying to ban canned hunting and thus support their petitions. Here are some more ideas through picture.