PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Lions: South Africa (5 December 2017)

International trade in hunting trophies is controlled under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), which is implemented in the UK through EU Wildlife Trade Regulations.

With respect to African lions, the Government commissioned a report on lion conservation from Professor David MacDonald with particular respect to the issue of trophy hunting. This report is available online at https://www.wildcru.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Report_on_lion_conservation.pdf. In addition, the JNCC participated in an EU mission to Tanzania in August 2016 to examine the governance and management of trophy hunting of African lions and elephants there. The report of the mission fed into considerations by the EU CITES Scientific Review Group (SRG) of the import into the EU from Tanzania of African lion and elephant trophy hunting imports. Imports of hunting trophies of African elephants from various countries have been assessed regularly at meetings of the SRG, most recently at their 79th meeting in June.

The UK has been party to assessments of hunting trophy imports of white rhinoceros from South Africa at the SRG. The UK has not assessed imports of hunting trophies of black rhinoceros; there have been no recent applications for imports to the UK.