SPENDING MONEY ON MOVING LIONS FROM CAGES TO SANCTURIES IS WRONG... DILEMMA

LIONS SHOULD BE WILD

I feel that many of my blogs examine the questions I ask about life, or the dilemmas I face over decisions regarding the moral and ethical nature of lions in captivity.

So as not to disappoint my reader, I am going to stick to this anguished genre.

Topic - Lions in captivity and the money spent on rescuing them. Divided into 3 parts.

1) When I first realised that my life was to be dedicated to creating a lion sanctuary, I questioned the rightness of such a task. I shook my moral compass about in case it was jammed. Not believing what the compass was showing me, I positioned myself up on a tall rock and extended my hand up high in case the compass had misread when I stood on the ground. I struggled to accept that what I knew in my head was not reflected in my heart.

It is not right to have big cats in fenced enclosures. It is not right to spend hundreds of thousands of rands to build these fenced in enclosures. Lions (and all big cats), should be free. Big cats should only live in their countries of origin. Money should go to habitat protection for wild cats. Humans should not be 'caring' for these mighty, ferocious, capable cats. Especially not in small man-made sanctuaries. I know this!

Yet my heart said, "do it".

Build a sanctuary. Be the person who creates a space for abused lions to come to. Build them beautiful homes in which they can rediscover pride and dignity. Be the change in 2 or 3 or 27 lions' lives. For what else is my life being lived for? 

Demira in the zoo

I often talk of the understanding which dawned on me when I was at an orphanage in Bangkok and realised that for the children living in narrow cots, in an overcrowded grey room, my painting a mural on the wall, was not a useless nor unnecessary act. The children sleeping on a piece of cardboard under a bridge would not agree with my point of view that orphanages should, rightly speaking, not exist. That all children should have families and homes with toys, dinner and educational math games.

My realisation from Bangkok informed my decision to give lions an improved lifestyle even if I could not give them freedom.

 Part 1 then, the decision to build a sanctuary and give rescued cats a better life, was decided.


2) Fundraising to save a handful of lions. Is it right?

Demira in the sanctuary

Are we skirting on the edge of yet another lion industry. "The rescue". In my blog post "Let me tell you about our 4 new lions,"

I talk about this so I won't dally, I will just touch on the salient point that a rescue, in order to be a rescue, can not be part of an ongoing conveyer belt of lions from breeder to international Org, to lion facility. A rescue does not make anybody rich. It is also not a competition between people. It has to be a sleek, finely tuned mission to remove an individual or individuals from an abusive situation and translocate them to a superior life where they are not misused ever again. No form of leveraging can take place. 

Are we right to ask the international community to help fund this? 

My heart says no. This time, in contradiction to Part 1 of this Blog, my mind and heart, though still in opposition to one another, have fallen on different sides of the dilemma. My heart wants not to reach out to others for financial aid. It wants to right all wrongs simply by knowing that wrong should not exist. But my mind knows that we have to reach out and ask for assistance if we are to fill a vehicle with fuel and buy materials for an enclosure. Rescuers have to build travel crates and buy air tickets. 

3) And on an even more complex level, taking funds away from wild lions to support captive lions. This dilemma presents another level of conundrumming beating in my head.

Are these big cats who are being saved from lives in cages taking away funds from wild cats needing wild habitats to be protected with a real conservation pedigree?

Here my mind gives credit to the donors, believing that they themselves are capable of deciding where they wish to spend their money. No one is forcing them to help move a lion from a cage to a sanctuary. They can choose to donate to wild projects, PAs, coloring wild lions or even buying up land to donate to wild lions. I am not sure that the few hundred thousand Rands spent on captive lion rescues and sanctuaries is in fact competing with real conservation. Looking at the hundreds of millions of dollars required to properly manage PAs and keep lions safe, I wonder if it is worth allowing the caged lions to slip through the cracks only because they are not wild and therefore do not benefit future wild lion populations. 

Hmmmm, and so I deliberate.

The one thing I know for sure is that everyday, I look at the change in Phoenix (puma from zoo) and my heart leaps. I see the improvement in Amazon and Brazil (jaguars from zoo) and I swell with pride. I see Demira, Diya and Frieda (lions from Ukraine) racing across their veld in mock hunt and I smile. I do not see Isibindi and Mandla all day long and I nod in satisfaction for they are doing lions stuff somewhere in there.

I also know this though. I cry inside when Cecil's climb onto a 1m high rock is an achievement of such significance we write to the world about it. I struggle with an underlying depression due to our lions living within restricted areas even though the space is 1000 times bigger than the cage they came from. 

I dream of expanding the enclosures of our healthy cats to 5 or 10 Ha minimum. My big dream is to have a wild territory of 100Ha in the middle of the sanctuary for intermittent visits from our lions. Why would my heart and mind be pulled so intensely towards these dreamed of spaces if they were not closer to right?

If in my lifetime I can help lions get from caged to carefree to actually free (within the bounds of realistic management protocol). Well then I guess my life was worth something. Maybe not as much as a conservationists life, but good enough for little old me doing the little bit I have managed to do.

And I started this post with the intention of explaining why taking lions into sanctuaries is not right, that supporting wild habitats is right....!

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