Cabinet approves ban on lion, rhino breeding

South Africa’s Cabinet approved a phased end to the captive breeding of lions and rhinos as the country seeks to end practices that have sullied its reputation as a custodian of some of the world’s biggest wildlife populations.

Plans to end lion breeding began more than a decade ago as the practice of releasing tame big cats into small enclosures and having them shot by hunters for a fee spawned the term ‘canned hunting’ and attracted international condemnation.

More recently, the collapse of a rhino breeding programme left the fate of an eighth of the world’s southern white rhinos, or 2 000 of the beasts, in limbo before their gradual relocation was funded by billionaires.