A Michael Broad Blog
NEWS AND OPINION: My research tells me that in 2019 (or perhaps 2020), an amendment was made to South African’s Animal Improvement Act (AIA) to reclassify lions as farm animals. The government amended the AIA to include lions as a “species” that can be bred as livestock. There was no public consultation. The amendment …
For a long time now there has been a fascination with the exotic cheetah, the world’s fastest land animal, which has encouraged the illegal trade of cheetahs as they are taken from their mothers, caged, smuggled and sold as pets in countries in the Middle East and elsewhere, where the rich feel the need …
NEWS AND COMMENT: This story comes from South Africa. I have started that way because South Africa has a bad reputation for abusing lions. They offer canned lion hunts to rich Europeans and Americans. They breed lions for these hunts. They abuse lions in the interests of financial profit. It’s a bad relationship with …
Do caracals eat livestock? Yes, must be the answer but it depends where the caracal lives for obvious reasons because livestock has to be available to be taken. And in some parts of South Africa, the caracal has a reputation for killing livestock. Further, this obviously annoys South African farmers who retaliate. It should …
The Born Free Foundation tells us that there are as many as 8000-12,000 captive lions on lion farms in South Africa. They are bred to be shot for fun or their body parts exported to China or some other Asian countries perhaps for medicinal purposes based upon superstition and not science. The whole thing …
NEWS AND OPINION/COMMENT: In her memoir, “I’ll Try Anything Once”, Dame Prue Leith has admitted that her mother, Margaret Inglis, an actress, told her to drown newborn kittens because they were unwanted. Leith states: “My mother and I, then 11, had just drowned some kittens and for weeks I imagined those poor dead creatures. …
This page was first written in 2009. I have decided to update it. It is now upgraded to the current date at the time of writing this namely 2022 (I have projected forward several days 😉). As the years roll by the distribution of this small wildcat species will shrink almost inevitably. The page …
NEWS AND COMMENTS-SOUTH AFRICA: A big cat keeper has been killed by a Siberian tiger at a wildlife park in South Africa. The Siberian tiger, Jasper, also killed another Siberian tiger and his objective was to be with a female. An electric fence had been switched off for repair. Jasper was able, therefore, to …
