White Lion

White Lion

Endangered or not endangered?

On 1 February 2008, under mounting international pressure, the South African Government brought legislation into force to prohibit canned hunting. However, lions were specifically excluded from this prohibition, because of pressure from the canned hunting industry. As White Lions are particularly prized as canned hunting trophies, their future hangs in the balance.

For many years, the Global White Lion Protection Trust has been lobbying the SA.Government to have South Africa’s unique White Lions listed on the Schedule of Threatened and Protected Animals of National Importance. The legislation makes absolutely no provision for the protection of the White Lions as a unique listing. Furthermore, no prohibition has been placed on lion hunting reserves within the White Lions natural endemic habitat (such as Timbavati and APNR), where the last surviving gene pool of this critically endangered animal is being eradicated.

The white lion is not a distinct subspecies, but a special morph with a genetic condition, leucism, that causes paler colouration akin to that of the white tiger; the condition is similar to melanism, which causes black panthers. White Transvaal lion (Panthera leo krugeri) individuals occasionally have been encountered in and around Kruger National Park and the adjacent Timbavati Private Game Reserve in eastern South Africa, but are more commonly found in captivity, where breeders deliberately select them. The unusual cream color of their coats is due to a recessive gene. Reportedly, they have been bred in camps in South Africa for use as trophies for canned hunts.

Confirmation of the existence of white lions only came in the late twentieth century. For hundreds of years prior, the white lion had been thought to be a figment of legend circulating in South Africa, the white pelage of the animal said to represent the goodness in all creatures. Sightings were first reported in the early 1900s, and continued, infrequently, for almost fifty years until, in 1975, a litter of white lion cubs was found at Timbavati Game Reserve.

Picture taken from behind a glass wall in Ouwehands Animalpark in Rhenen, The Netherlands.

White Lion belongs to the following groups:

Dutch Touch, Endangered Species and Zoophoria (2 per day, approval required) Available for sale as

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