All the lions were held illegally without permits in a captive breeding project.

The conservation department turned down the permit application, but despite their refusal the owner simply went ahead and constructed breeding camps.
The two adult females had already given birth once before, but had all their cubs removed within days after being born. The removal of cubs from their mothers is a common practise amongst South Africa's lion breeders to allow females to come into oestrus sooner so that they may produce more cubs for their owners who have turned the breeding and hunting of captive bred animals into a very lucrative trade. Little or no consideration is given to the lion’s physiological and physical welfare. Liones's have become breeding machines and male lions instant trophies.
SanWild condemns the practise in the strongest possible terms, it is disgusting and morally and ethically totally unacceptable, but there again, one can question how many ethics and humanity remain in our wildlife industry where wild animals are regarded merely as commodities to be traded and exploited in any way as long as they earn large amouns of money for their owners. Despite South Africa’s lucrative tourism industry there are those who simply do not have the compassion neither the brains to appreciate wild animals for their intrinsic value.
The lions that arrived will need veterinary care, we need to urgently raise enough funds to feed the animals properly. All the adult lions are obese and have not been fed nutritionally correct. The three little female cubs already suffer from a mineral deficiency and we will have to immediately act to ensure their long-term welfare. A rehabilitation program will start immediately to prepare the lions for possible release back into the wild as soon as the legal machine has run its course. We trust in the ability of the conservation and criminal investigations department to ensure that these six lions in particular will never be returned to the “canned lion” hunting industry to either breed cubs or to end up as trophies.
Please support this worthwhile conservation and law enforcement project with your donations as soon as possible in order to allow us to continue our support for our conservation department so that they may have the powers to prevent any further expansion of an industry, which should never have seen the light on the African continent. We simply cannot do it without your financial support.

You can help by adopting a lion to help pay for its specialised dietary requirements, using the Adopt Me section in the AfriTrust website. We also need more land so that we can release the lions into a sanctuary large enough to accommodate these magnificent predators. See the Set Me Free section to help Sanwild acquire more land.

For more information on canned lion hunting kindly email info@afritrust.com or visit the following websites: www.careforthewild.com or www.sanwild.org