Conservationist warns that lion bones quota will kill SA’s tourism industry
EMS Foundation director Michele Pickover is ‘gobsmacked’ by decision to ‘take lions and kill them for their bones’
Exporting lion bones is killing South Africa’s brand. So says director of the environmental non-profit organisation EMS Foundation Michele Pickover. She was responding to the new lion bones export quota that Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa announced on Monday. "[I am] completely gobsmacked. The fact that we are actually taking lions and killing them for their bones; shame on SA. The worst part [is] that tourists will not want to come to this country‚" Pickover said. "They [the Department of Environmental Affairs] might be supporting it [the canned lion industry]‚ but they’re slitting their own throats‚ because they are killing brand SA and killing tourism in this country." Molewa and the department said on Monday that 1‚500 lion skeletons can be exported a year from SA; the quota is effective retrospectively from June 7. The department said the quota was based on new evidence from a research project by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (Sanbi) and the univ...
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