If you're wondering about these white lions, we are blessed here in South Africa to have this color mutation of the Kruger subspecies of lions--which means we have the white lions here in South Africa. As you can see they are beautiful! Excerpt from personal email. The term "barn blind" comes to mind.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Sent by an irate chap from Africa, who takes offense to my comments about "white lions"
Posted by
Wade G. Burck
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12 comments:
Wade, that's kind of funny, because the breeder of champagne lions that I know doesn't care much for tigers of any color, or domestic cats either.
Mary Ann
In fact, there must be a surplus of these pale animals in South Africa. They're breeding them in the canned hunt preseves for the new breed of great white hunters to make trophies out of.
Ian
Ian, sadly enough you are correct about the canned hunts, but not the surplus of animals. One of the zoos, either Johannesburg or Pretoria, loaned out some of these animals to four private breeders, three of whom breed for the gun. They are so inbred that some of the cubs require open-heart surgery so that they can grow to adulthood, only to be shot for trophies. It is very heartbreaking. Linda Tucker documents this in her book "Mystery of the White Lion - Children of the Sun God". Also, Gareth Patterson, the successor to George Adamson, has written a number of books, the most disturbing of which is called "Dying to be Free". The prologue starts with the canned hunt of a lioness in front of her small cubs, and relates how her milk and blood ran together on the floor of the skinning shed. Don't look for it, you won't find it. I believe that it is being suppressed, and Gareth Patterson's life has been threatened. I read a copy some years back through an inter-library loan from the University of Florida, and I had to pay $10.00 to do so. I had planned to rant about this at some point in time, but instead I feel like crying.
Mary Ann
Ian, sadly enough you are correct about the canned hunts, but not the surplus of animals. One of the zoos, either Johannesburg or Pretoria, loaned out some of these animals to four private breeders, three of whom breed for the gun. They are so inbred that some of the cubs require open-heart surgery so that they can grow to adulthood, only to be shot for trophies. It is very heartbreaking. Linda Tucker documents this in her book "Mystery of the White Lion - Children of the Sun God". Also, Gareth Patterson, the successor to George Adamson, has written a number of books, the most disturbing of which is called "Dying to be Free". The prologue starts with the canned hunt of a lioness in front of her small cubs, and relates how her milk and blood ran together on the floor of the skinning shed. Don't look for it, you won't find it. I believe that it is being suppressed, and Gareth Patterson's life has been threatened. I read a copy some years back through an inter-library loan from the University of Florida, and I had to pay $10.00 to do so. I had planned to rant about this at some point in time, but instead I feel like crying.
Mary Ann
Mary-Anne, my father had pictures of many large animals (including lions, elephant and rhino) he had shot when we lived in East Africa - though the mentality of the day was different in the 50's. It's unbelievable that people from the Western world still pay enourmous amounts to play at the 'good old colonial days'. Neither can I understand the continual hero worship of Frank Buck who encouraged untold numbers of animals to be killed for their young. I don't care if it was 50 years ago - continuing to paint him as a colorful character is apppalling.
Ian
Ian,
I think for historical accuracy the Frank Bucks are important figures. It illustrates how much the world and it's thinking have changed. I talking to many animal people of my generation, we grew up wanting to be the Frank Bucks of the world. The stories and exploits put the fires in our bellies, our thinking just changed.
Wade
Yes, Wade, I agree, but many things have changed in our way of thinking about the ethics of just about every aspect life. But those who hanker for the old days are seen as something of dinasours nowdays. There are many in South Africa who still pine for the days when you could get domestic servants for ten bucks a month. The real changes will only be seen when the current generation has passed into history and there will be no one left with any admiration for the 'good' old days and the new generation will look upon what we considered normal, with horror.
Ian
Ian,
I don't know if it is an "admiration" or a way to try to show how much better it was. We have to study the history of where we came from, and I think the Bucks, the Corbetts, the Martins all of them are important. There are a very few individuals in the world who still revere Hitler and Nazism. I think if the Holocaust is jambed down humanity throat for the rest of eternity it will make us stop, rethink and do every thing to prevent.
As for "canned hunts" or any hunting for that matter, I am not convinced in a controlled/licenced setting for a greater cause, that it is far removed from a zoo fund raiser, which offers steaks, chops, hotdogs, cheeze, anything made from eggs(bird embryos after all) to solicit funds for the continuation of animal conservation. I purchase a North Dakota Duck License each year, and haven't had the chance to duck hunt in years. But it aids in the conservation of prairie wetlands and that's a good thing.
Hagenbeck had an ostrich farm to harvest feathers and meat to support the zoo. They aren't an endangered species. If you are going to kill it, kill it. Don't take a piece of once a day for the rest of it's life. I will try to stop that.
Wade
Wade, although, I personally couldn't bring myself to shoot an animal, in the scheme of things, an animal that lives a natural existence and then ends up on the dinner plate is in far better shape than a factory farm raised animal. So, I hold nothing against hunters of food animals. Death is a natural part of life, for humans or animals, but it's the quality of life that's the important thing. I've never aquired a taste for deer, rabbit or duck, so I eat the factory raised protein, which, I suppose makes me the hypocrite. It's tough living up to every ideal, and in that regard, I admire hunters who kill their own food.
Ian
Wade - re yesterday's email ...... I take your point.
If these lions are "white" then I'm an aboriginal!
Just another poodle... As with tigers I think the legitimate question is -- how many years have been wasted breeding along abnormal color lines while legitimate locality populations of cats went extinct through habitat destruction, hunting, etc? It's ironic, yesterday Natural Selection came up. Natural Selection clearly has weighed in against white cats. I'm surly and it's early in the morning, not enough coffee, and I may not see the internet again for a week -- but I can't help but think that reproducing Javan tigers or Atlas Mountains lions would have been of so much greater value in term of biodiversity than ever breeding a single white tiger, or lion, or tabby tiger, or whatever the flavor is going to be next week.
Ben,
Those have been my same sentiments, with the exception of the Rewa White tiger, Mohan. I believe they did have a historical significance and were viable for that reason. The rest are for strictly entertainment purposes. And any thoughts or statements at "preserving an endangered species" is so much hocum. I don't recall Circus, Entertainment, night clubs, having a true mission about saving a species, and it was a perfect place for impure white, snow white, tabby, liger, Champagne lions, etc., but I have never felt in a zoological setting, unless it was temporary like a representative Panda, to generate revenue for viable species.
Wade
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