There are some real ethical dilemmas in all of this. Lions are now being bred for trophy hunters to hunt down. So, in some respects its increasing the lion population and its funding the wildlife sanctuaries.

In the UK we breed grouse and other fowl with the express intention of shooting them for sport. I don't honestly see a difference between that and the breeding of lions for the same purpose in Africa. Perhaps we should be putting our own house in order before we go telling other countries what they can and can't do :shrug:

This elephant wasn't bred in captivity.

Yeah there is a risk of oversimplifying this. Fact is that local economies in rural regions of Africa are often heavily dependent on the income that is generated from Western tourists who are prepared to pay tens of thousands of pounds to shoot big game. In fact that money can also be used to fund conservation efforts and to protect some of these species the better. The answer doesn't lie in banning hunting imo, it lies in tightly regulating and controlling it so that the money can be harnessed effectively and invested back into the local areas and into conservation.

Five years ago, the South African government effectively banned canned hunting by requiring an animal to roam free for two years before it could be hunted, severely restricting breeders and hunters' profitability. But lion breeders challenged the policy in South Africa's courts and a high court judge eventually ruled that such restrictions were "not rational".

Breeders argue it is better that hunters shoot a captive-bred lion than further endanger the wild populations, but conservationists and animal welfare groups dispute this. Wild populations of lions have declined by 80% in 20 years, so the rise of lion farms and canned hunting has not protected wild lions. In fact, according to Fiona Miles, director of Lionsrock, a big cat sanctuary in South Africa run by the charity Four Paws, it is fuelling it,'

http://www.theguardian.com/environme...bred-slaughter