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CAPTIVE LION INDUSTRY: LATEST DEVELOPMENTS REQUIRING INPUT
- 15 November 2024
- Environmental Law
- SA Legal Academy
The Department of Forestry, Fisheries & the Environment has gazetted two notices affecting captive lion industry operations.
One invites industry participants to register for government’s voluntary exit programme. The window of opportunity to do so is scheduled to expire on 14 January 2025.
The other calls for input by 15 December 2024 on draft regulations prohibiting certain industry-related activities.
According to the notice calling for voluntary exit programme participants, having registered and elected to remain in the programme each participant will be required to:
- sterilise all captive lions in their facility/ies
- ensure that the necessary standards are in place for the maintenance and well-being of all sterilised lions and those waiting to be sterilised
- apply for permits under the prevailing threatened or protected species legislation, and
- refrain from accepting or acquiring any additional captive lions.
Under the programme, lion bone stockpiles and derivatives will be acquired and legally disposed of.
A media statement on the registration opportunity provides further information on the programme, which is informed by recommendations in a report prepared by a ministerial task team established in 2022. The document was published in February 2024, as SA Legal Academy reported at the time.
Among other things, a media statement on the draft regulations notes that they are underpinned by government’s policy position on conserving and making sustainable use of four iconic species, including lions. This policy position was gazetted in April 2024, as SA Legal Academy also reported. It is envisaged that activities to be banned in the short term would be establishing and registering new ‘facilities’ for:
- captive lion breeding
- the commercial exhibition and/or rehabilitation of captive lions, and
- ‘any other controlled environments’ making use of live lions.
Please click the links below for more information:
- voluntary exit programme:
- Government Gazette notice
- media statement on the voluntary surrender of lion bone stockpiles and derivatives
- proposed new regulations:
- SA Legal Academy report
Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch
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