For several years, we have seen places in Africa offering visitors the seemingly appealing activity of walking “accompanied” by impressive lions. Walking with lions they called it, and at first glance, who wouldn’t sign up for such an experience?
Conservationists and ecologists have raised their voices against this practice from the very beginning, considering it to be contrary to all ethics.
The link between these activities and breeding big cats to become trophies in so-called “canned hunting” is becoming increasingly clear. Some experts estimate that 8,000 big cats currently live in cages, waiting to enter the hunting industry. In some cases, walks with tourists are an earlier stage in this process. The king of the jungle, one of the most beautiful wild animals, bred in captivity to be hunted… Utterly senseless!
The recent appearance of the documentary “Blood Lions” has raised awareness and further exposed the troubling connection between an apparently friendly activity with big cats and the trophy-hunting industry. We remember Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe as one of the most notorious recent cases. The behaviour caused a wave of indignation.
In light of this, and in keeping with our commitment to respect the natural world we share with you, we have decided not to arrange interactions with big cats for our customers, whatever local reserves or operators call these commercial activities. We will not promote them in any form. We offer safaris in Africa, but of course the only things we shoot are photographs.
We hope you understand and share our decision, so that together we can help preserve the fragile wildlife heritage of Africa, a continent undergoing constant change.