A restaurant owner in South Africa has decided that it would be a novel idea to sell lion meat burgers in his restaurant in order to keep in theme with the World Cup in South Africa. The owner has explained that he ordered the lion meat from a farm in Illinois, which has free-range lions in stock.
What is wrong with an African theme, with some decorations and African style music, why go the whole hog and butcher one of the animals that for most people, is a symbol of the country? Maybe they are not endangered, but with an attitude like this restaurant owners it is not surprising that so many people go to Africa in order to hunt the ‘Big Five’.
The ‘Big Five’ are the animals that are the most difficult for hunters to shoot when on a game hunting safari, the unfortunate animals in this group are; African elephant, Cape buffalo, leopard, black rhino and, of course, the lion. You only need to look at the export quotas out of Africa for skins and trophies of leopards to know that hunting the ‘Big Five’ is big business.
This restaurant owner has got the wrong end of the stick if he thinks that putting lion on the menu is a way of giving people a South African experience. Another can of worms could be opened by the question, why is there even a farm selling lion meat in America? But that is another story, as is Tony the Truck Stop Tiger.
Now, I don’t mean to be sceptical, but if his lion meat is free range are we also to assume that his normal burgers, made from beef are also free range, or do animals that are not on the protected list, like these lions, not get special treatment.
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