快猫短视频

When Cecil the lion, a star attraction in Zimbabwe鈥檚 Hwange National Park, was killed for sport in 2015, outrage followed. But there is scant attention for a far bigger threat to the king of the beasts than trophy hunting.

Lions are increasingly being destroyed for their bones, which are exported to China for use in a wine sold as an aphrodisiac.

For centuries, tiger bones were used in bogus treatments, reputedly meant to boost male libidos. Now, however, as tiger numbers plummet because of habitat loss and poaching 鈥� with maybe as few as 3200 left in the wild 鈥� cheaper and more plentiful lion skeletons are being used.

Proponents of this practice argue that the bones are not from wild animals, but from lions raised in southern Africa鈥檚 鈥渃anned lion鈥� industry.

The way this works is that trophy hunters pay tens of thousands of dollars to legally shoot a captive-bred lion and take the animal鈥檚 skull, skin and paws home as grisly keepsakes. Hunters usually leave the skeletons to the bone traders, who sell them for about $2000 to the booming Asian market. In 2016, South Africa alone had permission to export hundreds of sets of lion bones to China and South-East Asia.

However, this legal trade is being used as a cover for poachers in other parts of Africa who are anxious to get in on the lucrative act. , a zoologist and researcher in South Africa, told 快猫短视频 that at least three lions from a population of 70 have been poached for their bones in the past year in Limpopo National Park, Mozambique.

Cautionary tales

We have seen a similar situation before with elephants, after international wildlife authorities allowed southern African countries to sell stockpiles of elephant ivory in 2008. Then, unscrupulous wildlife traffickers, in cahoots with corrupt officials, laundered export papers to make poached tusks look legal. This opened the floodgates to the elephant poaching crisis that we face today.

Will the same thing happen to Africa鈥檚 lions? Again, history offers a cautionary tale.

At the meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in 2007, China sought approval to allow commercial trade in captive tiger bone, arguing that it would take the pressure off wild tigers. CITES said 鈥渘o鈥� 鈥� but the Chinese went ahead anyway and created a network of tiger farms to breed these magnificent cats for use in bogus wines and remedies.

Did this cut poaching, as its advocates promised? Not at all. of conservation fund the Cat Action Treasury says that tiger poaching continued unabated and captive breeding further stimulated consumer demand for tiger products, putting the animals at greater peril in the wild.

South Africa recently announced a new . But history tells us that any quota is a mistake. We need to close down the trade in these animals鈥� bones entirely if we are serious about nipping the lion-poaching crisis in the bud.

And while we鈥檙e at it, let鈥檚 end the 鈥渃anned lion鈥� industry too. These fierce symbols of wild Africa have no place being raised in pens like livestock for slaughter.