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Airdate: Blood Lions: Bred For The Bullet

Discovery Channel screens an exposé on predator breeding and ‘canned lion hunting’ in South Africa.

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Tomorrow the Discovery Channel screens an exposé on predator breeding and ‘canned lion hunting’ in South Africa, Blood Lions: Bred For The Bullet.

It which follows environmental journalist and safari operator Ian Michler, and American hunter, Rick Swazey, and exposes claims made by operators that what they do is in the name of conservation.

Earlier this year, the world reacted with shock and condemnation when Cecil, a popular, prized male lion living in Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park, was lured from the sanctuary of the park and illegally killed by an American hunter. Sadly, Cecil is not an isolated case. Each year over 800 captive, hand-reared lions are shot in South Africa – mostly by international hunters – fuelling a multimillion dollar industry.

Ian Michler travels to some of the breeding farms to witness the results of battery-farmed lions and expose the highly profitable commercialisation of lions from cub petting, volunteer recruitment, lion walking, hunting, and the new lion bone trade – practices that are claimed to be for conservation and research. In parallel to Ian’s investigation, experienced hunter Rick Swazey – who volunteered his services after seeing footage of canned hunts – purchases a lioness online from his home in Hawaii then travels to South Africa to follow the path of canned hunters.

Blood Lions: Bred For The Bullet features interviews with recognised lion ecologists, conservationists and animal welfare experts who shut down the claims of predator breeders that these animals are involved in conservation, educational and research initiatives. It also shines a light on the Australian government’s ban on the importation of lion trophies into the country in an effort to protect Africa’s lions – a move more countries are implored to follow.

This confronting documentary highlights how lucrative it has become to breed lions for the bullet, how the authorities and most professional hunting bodies have become complicit and how frighteningly simple it is to set up a canned hunt. Blood Lions: Bred For The Bullet is a compelling call to action to have these practices stopped.

7:30pm Sunday 25 October on Discovery Channel

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