MARITZBURG College, in collaboration with Wildlands Conversation Trust and the film’s producers, is hosting a screening of the internationally acclaimed documentary, Blood Lions, which exposes the canned lion hunting industry in South Africa. The screening will take place at 5.30 pm on Ocrober 19 in the Alan Paton Memorial Hall.

There will also be a screening of the doccie on Thursday, October 15 at 6.30 pm at Ster-Kinekor, Musgrave, Durban.

Lions bred for slaughter in South Africa are big business. Over 700 captive-bred, hand-reared lions were killed in the country last year, fuelling a multimillion-dollar international industry.

Blood Lions follows acclaimed environmental journalist and safari operator Ian Michler, and Rick Swazey an American hunter, on their journey to uncover the realities about predator breeding and canned lion hunting.

Michler investigates the breeding farms where lions are hand-reared to be sold to the hunting industry. They also witness the results of battery farming that provide stark contrast to lives of wild lions.

Aggressive farmers resent Michler’s questions, but the highly profitable commercialisation of lions is plain to see – cub petting, volunteer recruitment, lion walking, hunting, and the new lion bone trade are all on the increase. It is a story that blows the lid off all the conservation claims made by the breeders and hunters in attempting to justify what they do.

This challenging conservation production is being hosted at Maritzburg College in acknowledgement of their exceptional efforts and support of Project Rhino KZN, and the Youth Warriors conservation theme ‘#LetOurVoicesBeHeard’.

To book tickets for the Maritzburg College screening email collegebloodlions@gmail.com or buy them at the door.

Tickets for the Durban screening are available online at http://www.webtickets.co.za.

For more information please go to http://www.bloodlions.org or log on to our social media pages – Facebook page: BloodLionsOfficial and Twitter @Blood_Lions.