Wildlife As A Wingman

Two recent incidents in the United States have gained widespread attention–in public opinion circles, and local news, if not nationally–and while each incident encapsulates very different tones, both represent one of the greatest challenges faced by wildlife advocates: the vast majority of humans see animals ad nothing more than wingmen to their main character. Whether it’s beloved domestic pets comforting us when we’re sad, providing us comic relief when we’re upset, or wildlife being used to validate us as ‘adventurers’ or ‘special people with special skills’, animals do not feature in their own stories. Rather they are only valued for the commodity they can provide to us.

The first case, which actually took place in late February, and only came to public light in early April involved a man named Cody Roberts, and took place in Wyoming. Roberts has since been described by various locals as just a normal guy. One letter to the editor opened with a dramatic statement painting Roberts as ‘a decent hard-working family man. He was absolutely heroic in saving the life of his wife, who was in a horrific snowmobile accident.’ The opening to the letter went on to say ‘she flipped and almost tore her leg off. Somehow he was able to control the bleeding and haul her back to the pickup by himself and then to the hospital.’

This referenced scene of attributed heroism is brimming with painful irony considering that in February 2024, Cody Roberts used a snow machine to intention chase down and repeatedly run over a female juvenile gray wolf, mangling it so badly it could not even fight back. Roberts then duct taped the wolf’s mouth shut, loaded it onto his snow machine, and hauled it back to town–just as one of his defenders states he had done in such ‘heroic’ actions with his wife. Only instead of seeking aid for the grievously injured young wolf. Roberts took the animal to a local bar where, for hours, he tortured it, posing with it for photos, putting a collar on it, kissing it for videos, offering others to take photos with it. When not being used as a prop for photos and videos, the young wolf was left lying in a corner, bleeding and slowing dying of internal injuries. There have been some reports that a shock collar was used on the animal, but those remain unsubstantiated. That a collar was put on it is evident in photos and videos but the type of collar is not clear. Eventually, after hours, Roberts dragged the juvenile wolf out behind the bar and either bludgeoned it to death or shot it, accounts vary on how it met it’s final end.

Perhaps the only thing more stomach-churning than the torture and abuse itself is the reaction of those who witnessed it, the reactions of the town, and the reactions of the state of Wyoming. They range from statements that are fully, aggressively supportive, stating all wolves should be killed Roberts did nothing wrong, to supportive of only Roberts while grudgingly admitting it wasn’t a great idea to bring the wolf to the bar and torture it, to virtual indifference that it happened at all. Official Wyoming state reaction ended up being an indifferent sort of shrug, fine of $250 USD with a sense of annoyed ‘What more do you want? We followed the laws about this’ to their few public issuances regarding the case.

And state officials did follow the laws.

The problem is, there literally are virtually no laws in the state of Wyoming in regard to protecting wolves or other predators. Although Wyoming’s Yellowstone area enjoys raking in around $35million dollars annually from wolf-related tourism, the state itself doesn’t care enough about the wolves themselves to put even basic abuse protection laws in place. As broken down in this article from Outside Online, the Republican led Wyoming Statehouse passed a bill in 2021 calling for the extermination of 90 percent of Wyoming’s wolf population–despite that it brings them $35million dollars annually. The bill passed was formulated on lies and misinformation designed to intentionally mislead voters, pushing the mythology of the ‘big bad wolf’ which most places of the world evolved past decades ago. Wyoming’s wolf laws differ from any other of any state inasmuch that they actually encourage cruelty towards wolves, rather than protecting them.

A thin rime of land around the perimeter of Yellowstone is the only area in which there is any regulation about killing wolves–not protecting from killing, merely regulation in how they’re killed. The rest of Wyoming in its entirety is a ‘predator zone’ where wolves can be killed in any manner, without reason, or justification. Multiple other Wyoming species fall into this category as well. As stated by Amaroq Weiss, Senior Wolf Advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity, “You could pull a wolf apart with horses in 85 percent of the state” and this would not be considered animal cruelty.

Repeat that slowly.

In Wyoming, it is not considered animal cruelty to capture a wolf, tie each leg to a horse, and tear it apart alive, and that is not considered animal cruelty by Wyoming state laws. In fact, running wolves down, then over with snow machines as Roberts did is considered a fun sport in Wyoming. It’s called ‘wolf whacking’. And it’s been going on for decades. Even in the aftermath of this recent incident, the very government agencies who you would expect to protect wildlife from such gross abuses can only offer up shrugs and insistence that it’s not their problem, and they cannot stop it.

For Wyoming, wolves are a disposable wing man. They make the state look amazing, they draw crowds int he millions to Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park. They gather millions of online followers who eagerly track the movements of famous Yellowstone pack members. They also bring huge sums of money to things like The Yellowstone Wolf Project which funds studies on the wolves, as well as providing money to the park itself, a park which provides Wyoming with roughly $653millions dollars in economic benefits and 7,000 jobs annually.

And in research articles, after articles after articles, scientific study has shown that the existence of wolves in Wyoming has stabilized the entire ecosystem of Yellowstone park, allowed for the recovery of entire forests, and recovery of historical ecosystems which had been systemically damaged by elk overpopulation, and that wolves have actually strengthened the health of the elk populations, and increased their resilience to disease. Wolf tourism actually brings in about four times more in revenue annually than elk hunters, and has allowed venues which feared the arrival of wolves since they relied on elk hunters to make ends meet actually increase their operations. Where when they relied only on seasonal elk hunters in the past, they can now keep their establishments open year round for wolf-watchers.

And for all the fears about how wolves would ‘destroy’ the elk population if they were reintroduced to Yellowstone, the fact that without wolves, elk over populated and died off by the thousands in lean years, or in some cases were mass culled by humans preemptively. With the reintroduction of wolves, these mass starvation events stopped, as did the need for human management. Almost as if… wolves belonged there where they had been for millennia prior to humans eradicating them…

Yet for all of this, Wyoming does not care about wolves as living things, Wyoming does not care about wolves in regard to their value to the ecosystem, Wyoming does not care about wolves at all beyond their existence of a disposable wingman to the state. Since the repugnant actions of Cody Roberts a number of posts by Wyoming residents have protested that he doesn’t represent the state in its entirety, that Cody Roberts isn’t a an accurate representation of all Wyoming residents. But their protests ring hollow because actions speak louder than words, and those in power in the government of Wyoming, those who could enact laws protecting wolves from cruelty and abuse, laws that respected them for the unspeakable value they have in our world, were elected by the public of Wyoming. And Wyoming residents elected people into power who think it’s perfectly reasonable to allow thing like dismembering wolves alive. The reality is, residents of Wyoming don’t care what happens to wolves until they’re getting bad press about it. (In the case of this last linked article, CWW does not condone threatening establishments or residents do not do that, ever)

As of yet, it’s unclear what, if any, greater actions might be taken against Cody Roberts. In some respects, it is surprising that Roberts was even burdened with a fine by wildlife officials, considering he was not only known by the Wyoming Fish and Game Commission, but also employed by them, along with the Department Of Transportation, for various contracts. It seems impossible to believe they were not aware that he enjoyed engaging in ‘wolf whacking’ in his free time.

The second incident we will address had not so much to do with intentional cruelty as with an utter disconnect with the natural world, and complete indifference to the lasting damage that can be caused by a momentary choice. In North Carolina, a group of people noticed several small black bear cubs in a tree outside their apartment complex. It is 100% normal for female black bears to leave their cubs in trees, or other locations for hours at a time while they forage for food. What is not normal, are the actions the onlookers took, which was to physically rip one of the small cubs out of the tree (they tried valiantly to get both, but the second cub was in a better position to resist) then hoist the cub up in the air, squealing and jumping up and down with excitement and posing for photos. A word of warning, the video is disturbing, as evidenced by the horror of those filming the incident who recognized the abuse for what it was.

After managing to get multiple photos, the young woman holding the cub either throws, or drops it, apparently after having been bitten, though no mention of a bit was has been made. It is possible she was simply done with it, and tossed it to the ground. As the small cub had been pulled over a chainlink fence when it was forcibly dragged from the hiding spot where its mother had left it, it was unable to climb back over and escape. It was later captured by animal control and is being housed at a wildlife facility where it will hopefully survive and eventually be released. While early articles lamented the behavior, even national publications covered it, while some offered ‘bear etiquette’ information, there was no mention of what the repercussions for these actions might be.

Just days after the initial reports, we find out why possible charges or repercussions had not been mentioned initially. It is because due to North Carolina laws, there would not be any repercussions. At all. Subsequent articles specified that while wildlife officials investigated they would not be charging the people responsible for ripping a black bear cub away from its family, and nature. They did, articles specify, give the group a stern finger wag, though. So comforting for the terrorized bear cub…

Just as with Cody Roberts, the issue is that abusing animals in the way this group abused the bear cub, isn’t an issue at all, in the eyes of the current laws. North Carolina laws. As broken down with some wry wit in the first section an article by this publication’s ‘answer man’ the incident took place on private property, not publicly protected spaces, and per North Carolina law it’s only illegal to ‘capture and possess’ wildlife like black bears. But what defines ‘possess’ the term of confinement, etc. is not specified by law. A few minutes? A few hours? A few days? Generally it is only applied to cases where animals are being kept as pets, or held for purposes of trafficking and/or selling.

In this incident, the cub was only held for a few minutes, it was not removed from the area, it was ‘released’. So, no charges. North Carolina does have animal cruelty laws, both misdemeanor and felony. However, those laws require proof of ‘intent to harm’ and in this situation, the wildlife investigators state that they did not feel there was any ‘intent’ to harm the bear cubs. The statutes on animal cruelty do not address emotional distress or intent to separate the wildlife from its environment, or lasting impact, such as the orphaning of the cub in this case. The intent to physically rip a small bear cub from its natural environment, prevent it from getting back to nature, and force it to be a prop to serve human indulgence does not qualify for abuse, despite that the same small bear cub was also then thrown/dropped from standing height of a human, resulting in a limp upon capture.

Because using wildlife as our wingman, to make us look good, to make us money, to bring us attention and prestige is not illegal, or even frowned upon in the greater overview. Seeing animals as disposable commodities is not vilified, but rather excused, for any number of reasons. They were ignorant. They didn’t mean any harm. They thought it would be okay. The list goes on. Sometimes, even if the person causes great harm, as with the bear cubs in North Carolina, because they didn’t intentionally try to harm the animal by striking it, or handling it in an abusive way, it doesn’t count as abuse. Other times, even if the person intentionally tortures the wildlife, as with Cody Roberts in Wyoming, there literally are not any laws agains torturing animals. Either way, the result is the same. Wildlife is, by and large, nothing more than a disposable wing man to humans.

And until that changes, nothing else will change either.

The Enduringly Ephemeral Nature of Social Media and Captive Wildlife Exploitation

So much of our world is ephemeral that we’ve become accustomed to impermanence, even reliant on it. Poor choices, sad memories, awkward interactions, the discomfort of all are lessened by time, or distance. If we make a mistake today, we can try again tomorrow. If we say something we shouldn’t have, time gives us the chance to look back and learn. There’s always next time.

Exceedingly few things are capable of creating a mythically enduring generalized impact on the public, while simultaneously fading from existence in any specific detail within their minds.

Social media is one thing that can.

As the saying goes, the internet never forgets, but at the same time, it’s very poor at recalling the particulars. A video goes viral and everyone will remember what it showed, but not the context surrounding the video’s origin, why it took place or what the reality behind the imagery is. The exact details become a blur of hearsay and rumor, sometimes much debated, even when evidence of the genuine facts can be presented. This allows those with the intention of misleading the public much latitude in their actions, and even in how they coverup less desirable truths about their actions and intentions. One need only wait and bide their time before reposting their media with a new narrative. When they do so, chances are good that three things will happen:

1. Whatever indelible draw the media presented to the public originally will have the same attraction to a new audience.

1. The vast majority, if not the entirety, of the subsequent audience will have no idea that the media is not actually new, and that the true story behind it is not what is being presented to them now.

And

1. Those experiencing the media and story for the first time, caught up in its viral attraction, will not be easily dissuaded from whatever gut reaction they’ve had towards what’s been presented to them. Whether their response is positive or negative, they will be disinclined to alter their position regardless of the verified facts presented to them.

Thus, trying to counter the influence of popular CON-servation players on the internet is an uphill battle, at best, and even firmly anchored positions can be lost if one stands still too long. The efforts require constant attention, often taking an immense toll on the mental, physical, and familial ties of those doing the work. CWW has been on hiatus for months now, due to these factors as our members turned their focus on ill family members, and other daily-life issues that required our devotion and attention. It is our intention to now resume our efforts to counteract the lies, misinformation and false facades used by CON-servation players who would have the internet and public worship them as heroes.

Several major players have already been successfully unmasked for the criminals they are:

Eduardo Serio remains in hiding, the few surviving animals of his Black Jaguar White Tiger empire in various zoos and facilities.

Doc Bhagavan Antle of T.I.G.E.R.S. and Myrtle Beach Safari has been convicted of four separate felonies, including wildlife trafficking and intent to traffic, and he is currently awaiting sentencing on these charges.

Jeff Lowe of the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park (which he swindled away from Joseph Maldonado the ‘Tiger King’) has been permanently forbidden from taking possession of, delivering, carrying or transporting any ESA-protected animals that have been unlawfully taken or exhibiting such animals to the public.

Joseph Maldonado the ‘Tiger King’ himself remains in jail for a myriad of crimes both against animals and humans.

It should be noted that none of the above mentioned people were covered by mainstream media to any extent before their arrest and convictions. Only after it became profitable to report on their profiting on the abuse and exploitation of animals did mainstream media bother with them.

And will the above mentioned men ever serve jail time specifically for the harm they caused to the animals in their care? It’s extremely unlikely.

Eduardo Serio has yet to ever be arrested, and even if he were, he has citizenship in the United States, but his animal abuse took place in Mexico. Those factors, coupled with his celebrity connections makes it almost a sure thing that he will never see jail time for his abuse of the animals in his care.

Although arrested and charged with felony wildlife trafficking, conspiracy to wildlife traffic, conspiracy to violate state laws protecting endangered species, Bhagavan Antle was acquitted of five counts of animal cruelty, and another four charges of the same were subsequently dropped by the judge in his case. He was only convicted on trafficking and conspiracy to traffic.

Jeff Lowe has been arrested multiple times for various things, but while his animals have been confiscated, and he’s been permanently banned from owning and exhibiting them, no jail time for his abuse against them is visible in the future.

Joseph Maldonado, the famed ‘Tiger King’ currently resides in jail for his participation in a murder-for-hire plot against Carole Baskin. Although Maldonado was also convicted of killing five tigers, selling tiger cubs and falsifying wildlife records, his sentence when broken down amounts to roughly two years for those killings, with another twelve years going to the illegal trafficking of animals, and the remainder addressing the murder for hire issue. Two years is hardly justice for the hundreds of animals who suffered and died under his care.

But our work is not about justice in the sense of jail time. It never has been and it never will be. Our version of justice is being able to pull back the veils of public persona from these abusers and show that beneath those carefully constructed images, all of them possess the same self-serving nihilistic arrogance and self-possession.

Every single one of the exploiters CWW calls out share several irrefutable facts:

1. They receive money for their public interactions with the captive wild animals in their care. Intention is both subjective, and moot. They publicly handle captive wild animals for profit.

1. They have purchased captive bred wild animals for the purpose of interacting with them for public spectacle and profit.

1. They have used the guise of supporting, or promoting conservation as the justification for their actions when in reality much of the profits, if not all, that they derive from their activities goes directly back into their own foundations and businesses.

There are no exceptions. Everyone CWW discusses share these facts in common.

And often times these exploiters have dedicated employees who sole purpose is to churn out social media content supporting them, while attempting to deflecting anyone who questions them and their actions. Anything they cannot explain away they can simply ignore for a few months, especially if those questioning them aren’t around to relentlessly continue questioning them, and keep those questions square in the public eye. CWW has no employees, or funding, so its contributors must work around their 9-5 jobs and lives, which is why we have been forced at times to pause in our social media presence. Moving forward we will be posting our articles on our new blog, and sharing them to Facebook. The blog is now live, but the current content is from several years ago, as we chose to focus on our Facebook presence rather than the blog. We will be adding older articles to the blog in order to catalog them, along with fresh content addressing current and ongoing issues. We hope you’ll join us for the journey!

Loopholes Of Gray Space

Recent headlines have been flush with praise for the charges brought against the systemic abuse of lions perpetrated by North West lion farmer, Jan Steinman of Pienika Farm. Dozens of lions at his property were found to be suffering from mange, while two cubs were seen dragging themselves, unable to walk for unknown reasons. A variety of smaller species of big cat, such as caracals were found in small enclosures, so grossly obese from the confinement that they were unable to even groom themselves. The announcement that charges were being filed against Steinman was met with widespread approval, and dozens of articles covering the subject have since hit the airways.

But while these articles applaud authorities for their investigation and the subsequent charges against Steinman, the majority fail to explore what this means, or doesn’t mean, for the captive lion breeding industry. Without the appropriate context, and itemized possible repercussions, the public is perceiving a false sense of justice and progress in the fight against the captive lion breeding, cub petting, and canned hunting industry.

It’s unlikely that Steinman will face any jail time, or that his Pienika Farm will suffer any longterm consequences in the wake of the charges being made. Rather, Steinman will be slapped with fines, and forced to treat the animals suffering at his establishment. It’s possible that Steinman will be banned (it’s unclear whether banishment would be permanent, more likely it would be temporary) from the South African Predator Association. Especially since Steinman is listed as being a council member of that association. And that will likely be the extent of the matter. You see, instead of banning the captive breeding of lions for cub petting, lion walking, canned hunting, and the lion bone trade, there is and ongoing, and immense, pressure to simply regulate the industry in order, according to proponents of the idea, to assure that lions are humanely bred and raised.

The suggestion that breeding lions in captivity is inhumane, is, according to those who support the regulation of captive lion breeding, largely a contrived falsehood put forth and promoted by animal rights extremists who don’t understand the industry, or how to properly manage wildlife and captive wildlife. While the recent articles addressing Steinman’s abuse of lions and the charges against him tout this case as yet one more galvanizing sign that the public should call for a total ban on captive lion breeding, the vast majority of that industry is viewing this media glut as a showcase of how little understanding the public has of both the CLB industry, and the management of wildlife in general.

In recent years the conservation industry has become an amalgamation of of pro-hunting and -anti-hunting entities which both exploit the ideology that nothing in conservation is “straight forward” and that conservation as a whole is comprised entirely of shades of gray. Both sides of the coin insist that anyone who argues otherwise is an extremist who doesn’t understand the complexities of wild and captive wild conservation.

We’ve seen these accusations from both hunters, and non-hunters here on CWW firsthand. Hunters occasionally show up in the comments of CWW posts insisting that trophy hunting (for our purposes trophy hunting is specifically what we’re referring to, rather than substance hunting, which is not something that’s normally a factor in situations of lion or other big cat hunting) actually helps the conservation of lions and other big cats and wild animal species. Likewise fans of entities like Eduardo Serio, Dean Schneider, Kevin Richardson, and even the Irwins, and Doc Antle, etc. all claim that what those entities do, handling captive wild animals, and in some cases allowing others to handle or interact with captive wild animals, is, in the end, beneficial to the wild conservation of them. Although these two factions vehemently disagree specifically about hunting, they both adhere to the exact same methodology, both claiming that conservation is comprised of “gray spaces” and both claiming to rightfully inhabit such “gray space” and both claiming that they’re supporting conservation 100%.

And, when someone like CWW dares to point out that participating in industries which damage conservation in the immediacy cannot bring about longterm support of it, both these factions lash out, accusing CWW of being extremist and ignorant as to the complexity of conservation matters, or of having some sort of personal agenda in “attacking” those we don’t agree with.

The basic inability of those who participate in the exploitation of wild and captive wild animals to view their own activities with an objective and impartial gaze is what triggers their conflict with anyone who raises concerns about them. They have no qualms about calling down others who engage in the same activities in which they engage, yet they are unable to admit that their own participation is also a problem. Rather, they will go to great lengths to justify their own actions, and contrive purported benefits and/or positive results gained through their activities.

In the realm of trophy hunting, those who support it, like Safari Club International, often fall back on claims that trophy hunting brings huge amounts of money into the conservation industry, and into local communities. Regardless of how many studies you cite verifying that comparatively little local monetary gains are achieved through trophy hunting, and that there is no scientific evidence to prove that allowing trophy hunting boosts populations or species in any way, and that it can cause catastrophic damage to species like elephants, supporters refuse to give up their positions.

In the case of commerce conservationists, like those we've mentioned, the primary excuse and justification for their exploitation of captive wild animals is the assertion that they’re “raising awareness” and “educating the public” about the animals they handle and exploit. Regardless of how much evidence you provide to show that the public perceives and retains a different message than the one exploiters claim to convey, they refuse to cede their position, or acknowledge that the activities they participate in are part of the problem. Groups continue to use them of saving endangered wild animals to raise money for Kevin Richardson to use in the care of his captive bred captive animals.

In both cases, it’s a matter of self preservation. If the fans who support trophy hunters, or exploiters of captive wild animals admit that what they’re supporting damages conservation efforts, then their heroes become the enemy. They become the cause of the problem. This is one reason that the supporters of those CWW discusses have such poor reactions to our unbiased reporting, and attempt to discredit or otherwise malign us. It’s the only defense mechanism they can adopt, especially when in some cases those same supporters will criticize others who do the same thing as their revered heroes.

The greatest danger in embracing the ideology of “gray spaces” is the fact that once you remove the definitive lines between conserving animals and exploiting them, where do you redraw that definition? How do you separate what is conservation from what is exploitation? If two people engage in the exact same activity, but one of them has cultivated a persuasively attractive persona, does that charisma alone make them a conservationist? Are leading conservationists really decided by something as trivial as a popularity contest?

Tragically, it seems as though that’s quickly becoming the case. Although similar “popularity contests” between cute or attractive endangered species and less appealing endangered species have been sharply criticized, the reputation alone of popular figures is being used more, and more, to justify the actions of the person in question. If the supposed “message” supplied by a person is deemed worthy, the method in which they deliver that message is being devoutly defended, even when that method involves directly putting money into the captive breeding, cub petting, canned hunting and other exploitative industries that are crippling and destroying current wildlife populations. And the damage isn’t confined to purchasing captive bred lions or other animals in order to “rescue” them.

The captive lion breeding industry has been protected, yet again, with defenders insisting that proper regulation can solve the problems within. Some conservation groups such as The True Green Alliance–which describes itself as being devoted to creating a society which is properly informed about the principles and practices of wildlife management–have released persuasive, and excellently written articles advocating for canned lion breeding, and concisely explaining why the arguments against it are being driven by extremists who don’t understand the matter in its entirety.

Japan has refused to ban ivory, instead insisting that firm regulations can adequately stem the import and sale of illegal ivory, despite studies showing that the opposite is true.

Botswana, according to this article, also by TGA, is now moving to follow South Africa in refusing to be influenced by the positions of non-African entities where conservation is concerned. According to Botswana’s Minister of Environment, Natural Resources Conservation and Tourism Onkokame Mokaila, the single factor most responsible for any failings within African wildlife conservation is directly due to the fact that “outsiders” continue to “dictate to Africa on how it should manage and use its wildlife resources.”

Private rhino owners within South Africa now control some 50% (conservatively) of all the rhinos in existence, and they have been pressing to lift all bans legalizing the trade of rhino horn for years. Their voices are only getting stronger. And with growing social media commerce conservationists like The Real Tarzann garnering millions of followers and fans by promoting these private rhino owners, the strength of those private owners is only growing. In the video that launched Tarzann to star status on Instagram, he actively lobbied viewers to support the “conservation of rhinos” by following him, and supporting those he was working with. The rhinos seen in his video happened to be owned by Buffalo Kloof Game Reserve, which breeds–and sells–rhinos, including rhinos which are then killed by high-paying trophy hunters. Yet Tarzann advertised them as being the leading rhino conservationists, and his millions of Instagram followers don’t differentiate between a hunting game reserve which breeds rhinos like cattle, and the conservation of wild rhinos, in wild spaces.

The same sort of misleading presentation has seen Kevin Richardson’s #landforlions campaign touted as a new and exciting way to protect wild lions. Fans of Kevin Richardson were urged to donate to the #landforlions campaign in order to help stave off the loss of habitat which is threatening wild lions. Eventually nearly $200,000 USD were raised through the effort, but what Lion Whisperer fans seemed to misunderstand is that this money will never be used to buy wild land, where wild lions are currently struggling to survive. Rather, the money raised through this campaign will be used–as per the information on the campaigns Thundafund page, and as cited in articles promoting the campaign–to purchase the land where Richardson’s sanctuary is located, and will be used for Richardson’s captive bred lions, and other captive bred animals. Only after all of those animals have passed away of natural causes–as much as 20-30 years from now–will the land be available as a protected area for wildlife. Richardson’s Foundation page estimates that unless something changes, wild lions will be extinct by 2050, which is also the earliest that any of the land purchased through his #landforlions campaign would become available for use by wild lions. Yet even when Richardson himself provides these contradictory points of information to his fans, those fans continue to believe that wild lions will somehow benefit from Richardson’s #landforlions campaign, even though wild lions will be extinct by the time that land is made available to them. And that’s presuming Richardson does not continue to purchase more animals for his sanctuary. After all, he now has five young captive bred lions which were purchased for the express purpose of making the feature length film Mia And The White Lion. Those five lions will live out their lives on the same land that Richardson fan’s thought they were buying for wild lions. Interestingly, there is no longer any page devoted to this campaign on the Kevin Richardson Foundation’s website, and the only place where the campaign is fully explained is on the Thundafund page devoted to it.

Screenshot from the Thundafund webpage devoted to the #landforlions campaign run by Richardson.

Another campaign that seems largely misunderstood by fans of the famed ‘Lion Whisperer’ is the #cupforacause which promotes the idea of giving up the cost of a cup of coffee each month in order to “improve the lives of lions”. Because Richardson focuses solely on discussing the decline of wild lions, human conflict with wild lions, habitat loss of wild lions, etc. fans seem to think that giving up a cup of store bought coffee, and in turn donating that price to Richardson’s Foundation every month, will somehow improve the lives of wild lions, but this isn’t the case. No where in any literature or video discussion can we find any specification that the monies donated to the KR Foundation will ever be spent to directly improve the lives of wild lions in specific ways. Rather, it will be used to improve the lives of Richardson’s captive bred lions–some of which already enjoy a trust fund explicitly for their care, courtesy of the Crowned Prince of Monaco. The use of the term wild lions is nothing more than a selling point.

Perversely, fans of Richardson seem incapable of holding him accountable for anything he does, choosing instead to excuse any and all problematic actions. The end result, they claim is worth whatever Richardson does to present the message. Buying lions, and making movies with them, hiring out his animals to be used in props for commercial advertising, interacting with his animals and promoting such interactions, all things those fans would criticize if others engaged in them, are permissible for Richardson because he’s “spreading awareness” about the plight of wild lions. How the conservation of wild lions, in wild places, can be effectively impacted by using captive bred captive lions, to pose with models in a watch advertisement is not clear. But according to Richardson’s fans, it does.

Following the trend of interacting with captive wild animals in order to discuss the conservation of wild animals, Dean Schneider has bought multiple lions and other captive wild animals, explaining that he’s done so in order to “rescue” those animals, and “spread awareness” to his fans. His claims have been readily spread by ignorant news media outlets who understand that they can make a splash with the story. Just like The Real Tarzann (you might recognize the name of the author here, it’s the same one who wrote about Schneider, then publicly lied about CWW and subsequently deleted his own article and scrubbed it from all websites) Richardson, and Eduardo Serio.

All of these commerce conservationists and their fans and followers vehemently argue that conservation is not clear cut, and is instead comprised of gray spaces. Sometimes, in order to conserve animals, you must exploit them. This is nearly the same argument verbatim that trophy hunters use to justify their own interests. In order to conserve the majority of a species, it’s necessary to allow some of them to be killed. Proponents of ivory and rhino horn trade say the same thing. In order to control such trades, and protect elephants and rhinos, you must sacrifice some elephants and rhinos and allow the sale of their body parts. Those who defend captive lion breeding agree. In order to protect wild lions, and keep lions everywhere from becoming extinct, you must allow them to be bred and traded for exploitation by the public.

So where does the gray ever end?

If Dean Schneider buying lions and playing with them is conservation, why not just encourage people to move to Africa from other countries and buy lions from breeders?

If Richardson buying lions and using them to make movies and ad campaigns is conservation, why not just open ranches where lions are bought from breeders and trained for use in entertainment media?

If controlling the ivory trade rather than banning it can save elephants, why are countries like China reducing the desire for ivory by banning it? Why not make all ivory legal everywhere, if legalizing the trade is the best way to conserve elephants?

If farming rhinos and selling their products is what will save rhinos, then why have countries spent millions, or billions of dollars to stop the trade of rhino horn?

Within the gray spaces so covetously defended by those who support them the answer to all of these questions can be answered, with ‘Yes, that’s acceptable.’ if those defenders decide that circumstances are agreeable.

The only place where one can state with a calm, unbending ethical “No, it’s not acceptable to buy and use lions for profit, it’s not acceptable to kill elephants for ivory, it’s not acceptable to farm and harvest rhinos for rhino horn.” is outside the ambiguity of undefined gray spaces.

As we careen toward the eradication of huge swaths of environments and the species living within them, and toward the destruction of our planet as we know it, the last thing the earth needs us to do is make more allowances for exploitation and destruction. If you have to justify what you’re doing, if you have to provide lengthy explanations as to why what you’re doing isn’t the same as what others are doing, if you have to lay out arguments to try and back up claims that what you’re doing saves animals, while others doing it harms animals, that in and of itself is an admission that you understand you’re position is so ambiguous that it requires definition.

Honesty and ethics stand on their own, easy for anyone to see at a glance. It’s not a complicated shell game of participation and exploitation under the guise of stopping participation and exploitation. It’s black and white, true or false. Not shapeless gray and morally ambiguous.

Media Misnomers

Photo by Bank Phrom on Unsplash

How Reporting (Or Lack Thereof) Shapes Public Opinion

In the last 24hrs there’s been quite a dramatic (and growing) public reaction to several photos which were posted on Prince Harry’s official Instagram page. This Note is neither defending or criticizing Prince Harry. Rather, this Note is intended to showcase how the media can, and does, create hyperboles that sway a public who loves to join the proverbial dog pile–be it in criticism of something or support of it–without objectively examining the subject matter beforehand.

Case in point, the “edited” photos posted by Prince Harry who, according to a rather scathing article from the Daily Mail which has now gone viral, “notably avoided explaining the circumstances in which the images were taken”. From the tone of the Daily Mail’s article, titled “Drugged and tethered... what Prince Harry didn’t tell you about those awe-inspiring wildlife photos in Malawi” it’s clear that the Daily Mail feels Prince Harry lied to his fans and supporters by not explaining that he was able to take the impressive photos while the animals shown were under sedation.

As per the Daily Mail article, Prince Harry’s photos have been edited, and “don’t quite tell the full story.”

On Facebook, and other social media platforms the outrage over a privileged Royal taking advantage of a situation and misleading the public and their fans by showing them only the animals, and not the fact that those animals were actually tranquilized and in the case of the elephant, ropes were being employed to help control the eventual collapse of the sedated animal, which was in the process of being moved to another protected location.

How dare Prince Harry intentionally misrepresent the truth to his fans!

Another article from Yahoo News contends that a “simple crop masking” the “cruel reality” behind what led up to the photos, shows that the truth was intentionally hidden from followers of the Royal’s Instagram account. This article actually portrays the situation as though the animals were tranquilized and, in the case of the elephant, bound for no reason other than to allow Prince Harry to get close to them and take the photos which “left many royal watchers enthralled at the prince’s brave proximity to the imposing animal.”

THE REALITY:

The photos taken by Prince Harry, and posted to the Sussex Royal Instagram account which show an elephant and rhino, were snapped during the tranquilization and relocation of those animals. This was a necessary procedure, overseen by trained veterinarians, and experts. An animal going down under sedation can be terrifying, and horrifying to someone who’s never seen it. We all love to laugh at those “coming out of sedation” videos showing people trying, and failing, to get into cars, or sit in chairs after minor surgical procedures. But imagine if those people were animals weighing several tons, who didn’t speak your language and didn’t understand what was happening to them. There is a “twilight” period between full wakefulness and full sedation, in which motor functions are breaking down, or just returning, but cognizance hasn’t entirely faded, or entirely returned. During this period animals might stagger, and begin to fall, then try to catch themselves. Veterinarians monitor the sedated animals closely, and whenever possible, they do whatever they can in order to assure that the animals lay down as gently as possible, without causing undue trauma to themselves, or if they’re waking, that they stay on the ground until they’re fully awake and capable of moving again.

In the formerly famous, now-becoming-infamous uncropped photo of the “tethered” elephant, viewers can clearly discern that the elephant’s weight is shifted back onto its haunches, and the rope which has been given such evil connotations (but which in reality would create little, if any barrier to an un-sedated adult elephant) is helping prevent the elephant from moving forward.

Photo Credit, Prince Harry

The scrub wearing individual shown is applying pressure to the elephant in order to encourage it to continue leaning to the rear. In a situation like this, a sedated elephant falling onto its face could cause immense damage to its tusks, breaking them, or splintering them at the root, or even impaling itself on them. If the elephant goes down hind-end first, it is a much safer situation, and it is much more likely to avoid causing itself harm.

Photo credit Sussex Royal Instagram

Likewise, in the rhino photo, it’s clear that the animal’s legs are beginning to buckle, that its weight is being supported by the tree trunk. It might even have been steered toward this tree in order to achieve this result. With the tree under its head, the rhino’s haunches will go down first, assuring that it doesn’t smash face-first into the ground. And once its in a “sitting” position, it will flop over gently onto its side.

The public tends to react just as its currently reacting. With instantaneous outrage even though it doesn’t entirely understand what it’s being outraged over.

You rarely see uncut videos of wild animals coming out of sedation being posted for public viewing. Sometimes animals vocalize in disturbing ways, thrash, behave in highly unusual manners, etc. as they come out of tranquilization. This is completely normal, but it’s horrifying if you don’t understand what’s going on. For example, horses commonly have trouble “remembering how to breath” after being intubated and positioned on their back for surgery, and if this happens, vets will pounce on their prone sides with both knees in what seems a violent manner. In reality, the stimulation of forcing air from the horse’s lungs will cause it’s muscles to then contract and it will inhale, and regain a normal respiration rate. Other species have other pitfalls when it comes to sedation and transport. Images or videos showing such don’t sit well with the public so they aren’t something wild life experts toss out without considerable forethought. It’s also why many programs showing such procedures warn viewers that some of the images they see might be disturbing.

The animals in Prince Harry’s photos were not sedated so that Prince Harry could take photos of them. They were not detained solely for him to use as publicity shots. They were being tranquilized and relocated whether or not Prince Harry was present. He just had the opportunity to photograph them during the process.

What’s more–which is not mentioned in the articles criticizing Prince Harry’s photos (although the Yahoo article shows an image of it)–the images being derided were accompanied by a caption which addressed each one in turn, and which offered followers a brief explanation about what they were seeing. Although the blurb pertaining to the rhino shown does not specify that there’s any relocation process going on, the one pertaining to the elephant does specify that the elephant was part of a massive 500 elephant relocation event carried out by the African Parks Network, which by context alone informs viewers that there is human/elephant interaction occurring as part of a relocation process which would involve sedation, as these are wild animals.

Photo credit Sussex Royal Instagram

Photo credit Sussex Royal Instagram

But why let reality get in the way of your critical article lambasting a non-expert Prince for not telling the entire story about his photos to his Instagram followers?

Both articles plump up the sensational idea that Prince Harry intentionally cropped his photos to “hide the reality” of them from his fans and to create the idea that he’d intentionally gotten close to wild animals (which the Daily Mail article perversely suggests would be “thrilling”)

Both articles, whose authors presumably have a working grasp of how Instagram works, failed to acknowledge the fact that Instagram does require a square format, meaning that a rectangular photo will have to be cropped in some way, and instead, stressed the fact that Prince Harry’s representatives “refused to discuss the allegations” and instead “claimed” that the cropping had to do with Instagrams formatting. Their presentation intentionally portrays spokespersons as trying to shunt the blame onto a social media platform, without admitting that Instagram does require a rectangular image to be cropped. Whether or not the image could have been posted with the inclusion of the rope we don’t know, but we do know that part of the image did have to be cropped in order for it to be uploaded to Instagram. This isn’t a “claim” by Harry’s representatives, it’s just a fact.

Both articles fail to provide readers with a full and thorough explanation of what was going on–despite that the main premise for their publication is to call out Prince Harry for failing to explain the truth behind them. And both articles linked to here in our Note specifically showcase only two or three out of eight posted photos, even though the other photos don’t contain detailed background information either. We as viewers don’t know whether the photo of the Okavango was taken from shore, in a boat, while wading in the water etc. but it’s not being splashed across various news sites with headliners like “Drugged and tethered” or “Cruel reality”. We as viewers don’t know whether fire scorched trees shown were burned in a fire started by humans, but the image isn’t being called out for lacking a background or “reality” provided to the public. Was the photo of the Guyana forest taken from a plane? A cliff? A hang glider? Did Harry climb up into the canopy? We don’t know, and yet the lack of that information doesn’t seem to bother any of the news outlets which are calling Harry a liar for not explaining similar information about other photos included in the post.

And here’s the real shocker (read that sarcasm)

Both these articles also conveniently fail to own up to the hypocrisy of their host publishers when it comes to their self-righteous outrage at “staged” photographs the purveyors of which dared to not forthrightly explain the full background to viewers.

The Daily Mail has happily piled accolades atop photographer David Yarrow for his “breathtaking and powerful” photographs of “iconic creatures in their natural habitats” lavishing praise on Yarrow because he “spent time studying the beast’s behaviour to get the perfect shot.”

This is, at least in the case of some of the photos shown in the admiring Daily Mail articles, a complete lie. Yarrow had not spent time studying the behavior of the lions featured in the Dinokeng area. Those lions belong to Kevin Richardson. They were bred in captivity, hand raised by Richardson, and trained to respond to his instructions, be that walking down a certain trail toward Yarrow’s positioned camera, or leaping a creek in order to provide Yarrow with the perfect shot “that reveals the wonder of the animal kingdom as the king of beasts jumps over a stream.”

Photo credit David Yarrow. One of Richardson's trained lions performing for the camera.

In fact, the lioness gracing the cover of Yarrow’s book Wild Encounters, which is touted in another Daily Mail article isn’t a wild animal at all, but one of Kevin Richardson’s hand raised captive lions, whom the famed “Lion Whisperer” hires out to film movies, ads, and tv shows. It’s an animal trained to perform for positive reward from Richardson.

Cover of Yarrow's book, photo credit David Yarrow

Let’s not even get started on the fact that at least one image by Yarrow in the above shown book is of a captive, trained wolf strolling along a public bar top while actual patron’s fill the room.

Funny. In their articles lavishing praise on David Yarrow for his images of “wildlife”–which often portray captive, trained animals in staged scenarios, openly marketing those staged images as “wildlife in their natural habitat”–the Daily Mail didn’t think it was important to explain the “reality” behind those photographs to its readers. Yet it’s criticizing Prince Harry for not doing the same now.

Yahoo News, the host site for the second above-linked article, doesn’t seem to think it’s important to “tell the whole story” to viewers either. In this video spotlight about Yarrow, Yahoo News touts his photos as “striking images of wildlife on Chicago streets” without explaining to viewers that the “wildlife” is captive bred, hand raised animals trained to perform. Some of those same photos are included in Yarrow’s “Wild Encounters” book, highly acclaimed for portraying “wild animals in wild habitats” even though the animals shown aren’t wild at all.

In another photo article Yahoo News gushes over Clara Delevingne “posing topless next to a wild lion” when the lion in question is, in fact, a captive bred, hand raised, and trained lion belonging to Kevin Richardson, who hires out his lions for use in ad campaigns. The fact that the lion being used is captive bred, hand raised, and trained isn’t even mentioned when Cara refers to it as a “wild” animal. Considering that Yahoo News has now gravely taken it upon themselves to inform the public of “The cruel reality behind Prince Harry's wildlife photography” you’d think they’d explain to their readers that the “wild lion” described in their own article wasn’t actually wild. Just saying.

In a longer text article from 2015, Yahoo News praised Richardson for his special bond with his own lions while not bothering to explain to readers that those lions were bred for interaction and cub petting with the paying tourists who visited Lion Park, or that Richardson happily participated in these processes. Since Yahoo News claims that Prince Harry was obligated to inform his followers of the details behind his photos, isn’t Yahoo News obligated to inform readers of the details behind Richardson when their article is focused on him?

But then, the article Yahoo News put out pertaining to Richardson was capitalizing off Richardson’s interactions with his lions, and how special it was. To inform readers that he was participating in the cup petting industry would thwart his presence in the article as a special expert, someone who was somehow better than the tourists who wanted to experience the same interactions. Likewise, the Daily Mail’s articles regaling readers with the beauty of Yarrow’s (staged) photos wouldn’t have near the impact if they were open about the fact that the photos contained hand raised, trained animals, rather than wild animals in wild places.

Honesty, it seems, only matters to news sites like the Daily Mail and Yahoo News, when criticizing a Royal for a perceived lack of it will help create a viral story. But when being honest about something doesn’t serve their purpose, then honestly isn’t important at all. It’s unfortunate, then, that so much of the public will eagerly take these often-times intentionally misleading articles, designed to create a stir, rather than provide full and impartial information, at face value, and will allow such articles to shape their opinion of the subject matter involved. Prince Harry isn’t perfect, but he’s not an expert on wildlife, he’s just a privileged guy posting photos to an Instagram account.

If the new agencies, and the public public think that someone who isn’t directly involved with large scale conservation, and someone who isn’t an expert on big cats, elephants or rhinos should be obligated to provide detailed, and complete information about every wildlife photo he posts in the name of encouraging conservation and the protection of wildlife, then those same news agencies and public should be demanding the same detailed and complete information of such well known figures as Kevin Richardson and David Yarrow and the images they use and promote in the name of encouraging conservation and the protection of wildlife.

Powerful Women Do Powerful Things

Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash

GreatHERgood Claims to Support Powerful Women, So Why Are They Running PR for Black Jaguar White Tiger?

In our last Note we discussed, at length, the ability that propaganda and public manipulation has to mislead the masses into believing things that are entirely fabricated, and how Black Jaguar White Tiger’s new website and image is doing just that. Today we’re going to look at the company behind BJWT’s new, tidier and more palpably “politically correct” website and social media posts.

The cover photo of Greathergood’s Facebook page declares that “Powerful Women Do Powerful Things”

Setting aside the fact that founder Jackie Berlowski is posing with a captive wild Serval cat (which obviously goes against everything CWW stands for in a conservational sense) the statement itself is inspiring only on the face. Very powerful women might do very powerful, and terrible, things. Being “powerful” doesn’t make you a good person. For example, if you’re in a very powerful position, but you use that position to support and promote someone who is a tyrant that abuses others at will, then you’re nothing but a stooge to that tyrant.

When Greathergood and BJWT announced that they would be working together, it was, unsurprisingly, accompanied by photos and videos of Berlowski at BJWT playing with cubs and monkeys inside the house dubbed “Stage 1” by Serio. Same exhausted, overdone, inspiring story that every other celebrity touts after visiting BJWT. Go play with the captive wild animals, then tell everyone how amazing the foundation that lets you play with the captive wild animals is.

Greathergoods post discussing their work on "one of our clients"

The use of "MAJOR win" is beyond coincidental since Serio uses the exact same words.

BJWT announcement of BIG (read MAJOR win) renovations to their website shortly after Greathergood's post about working on "one of our clients".

Those who understand the reality of BJWT immediately trekked over to Greathergood’s Facebook page to share their concerns and try to explain that handling captive wild animal is not conservation, and that BJWT is not a sanctuary, but rather a petting zoo for the wealthy and well connected. Predictably, the majority of commenters criticizing BJWT and Berlowski’s choice to support Serio and BJWT were blocked and their comments deleted. Berlowski, it seemed, had already drunk the BJWT koolaid. Or, perhaps, it’s simply a matter of her already being connected to BJWT.

After all, the vast majority of celebrities who support BJWT either grew up with Serio in Beverly Hills, or met him through social events of the same ilk. You won’t find non-celebrities in the field of conservation or ethical conservationists associating with BJWT, or Eduardo Serio. Former animal traffickers, and commerce conservationists selling ideas rather than ethical conservation, like David Yarrow, and model Cara Delevingne, sure. But earnest conservationists devoted to the welfare of the animals, not the prestige of interacting with them? Nope.

Good PR can’t buy you ethical support, just lots and lots of manipulated fans.

For example, one of the new “PC” posts presumably put up by Greathergoods looks like this:

Post from the BJWT Instagram dated April 14 2019 *we have no way of knowing that a Greathergood employee posted this, but it was posted after Greathergood took over PR for BJWT.

It’s very poignant, the image of receiving a battered animal with no understanding of the situation, and you’re left to make choices you don’t have enough information to make, a valiant effort by a hero in unknown territory making their way toward victory.

It’s a complete lie, of course.

But in reality, THIS was what Serio formally announced to fans the day he received Achilles.

Either Serio knew all these things then, and the new post is lying, or he didn't know any of these facts when he received Achilles and he was lying to fans by stating this. Either way, lies are being told to fans.

Serio even explained that the tiger had fallen off a balcony at his home, and that’s how his legs had been broken. But hey, a good PR campaign creates its own facts, right?

More surprising than Berlowski’s ignorant support of BJWT as a pseudo-sanctuary (she’s a PR and media professional, not a conservationist) or even the misleading spin her company is putting on established facts, and the rewriting of other information (hey, PR creates “reality” to sell a product) is her choice to enter into business with Eduardo Serio, someone who has repeatedly, consistently, and very, very publicly, specifically attacked women, lesbians, gays, as well as using racial slurs, and offering outrageous suggestions regarding anyone with mental or physical deficiencies.

Berlowski’s Greathergood tags Ellen DeGeneres, gushing about her. Too bad that according to Greathergood’s new client, Eduardo Serio lesbians, are inherently unhappy because they’re unnatural, and don’t have “real sex” which leads them to being mean and stupid. Serio has stated as much multiple times, often ranting in live videos in particular about any woman who criticizes BJWT, suggesting that all of them are just frustrated lesbians who need a man to release their sexual frustrations (or whores who sleep around, one extreme or the other) Maybe Greathergood’s Berlowski can pass this advise on to Ellen?

Greathergood also recently tagged Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington. No stranger to change-ups and conflict, Huffington nevertheless is currently a devout supporter of the LBGTQIA movement (her former husband is bisexual) and has publicly called for more such folks to take positions of power and influence. Meanwhile, Serio has on many occasions in live feeds, blamed LGBTQIA peoples (he did not use politically accurate references to them) for the failings of America and #planetstupid insisting that women are now raising boys too gay and that lesbians are unstable, and need sex instead of being in charge of anything. Maybe Berlowski would like to ask Huffington for her opinion on supporting someone who says things like that about the LGBTQIA community?

Then there’s Serio’s ongoing attacks on women in general. Erika Ortigoza has dared to speak out against BJWT on multiple occasions, and in response, Serio has repeatedly posted her photo to his 6+ million Instagram followers, helpfully informing them that she’s a whore who sleeps with men in exchange for things, and has plastic surgery to look fake. CWW wonders what Greathergood thinks of those post? Oh, wait, as noted in our prior Note, those posts have now had all their captions removed to make them neatly PR safe….

Well, then there’s Serio’s ongoing (just pathetic, at this point) attack on the young woman who entrusted him with the temporary care of her Savannah cats. After she had second thoughts about leaving them with Serio (note that they’re hybridized cats, yet Serio instructed their owner to withhold that information upon import, and call them “house cats” on the customs documentation) and asked to be allowed to take them back earlier than expected (she was planning to move cross country, as we understand it, and instead of boarding the animals somewhere, she wanted Serio’s “expertise” to care for them) even though she hadn’t moved yet. Serio took offense and went from calling her a “lovely girl who trusted us with her kids” to “that crazy Savannah woman”.

After deriding her thoroughly on all his social media platforms, Serio then publicly posted, in writing, that he didn’t even want the cats, and would return the cats to her if she reimbursed him for $1600 USD. Again, let us reiterate that Serio posted these terms in writing, on a public platform where they were seen by millions of BJWT fans, and anyone else viewing BJWT’s social media pages. The young woman promptly PayPaled Serio the $1600, pleading for her cats to be returned to her. Serio, in all his megalomaniacal magnanimity, posted screenshots of his PayPal account, showing the transfer of money to him, from the owner of the Savannah cats, and captioned that photo (paraphrasing here) “Thanks for the donation to my 501(c)3, I’m keeping the money and the cats. You lose.”

It was, perversely, BJWT’s own fans, who stepped in at that point, commenting en masse to the effect that Serio had posted terms, the young woman had met those terms, and yet he was now going back on his word. Many fans suggested just giving the cats back, since he’d said he would if she paid him the $1600, which she had. Others pointed out that $1600 might meet the burden for larceny, since it amounted to a payment in exchange for the cats, and now he was withholding both.

Instead of taking the advice of his fans, Serio simply contrived an excuse, claiming that the young woman “still owes me $66” and that because she shorted him (even though he’s the one who cited precisely $1600, in multiple places WhatsApp messages, texts, on social media) that “the deal was off” and then he posted images of his PayPal account refunding the money. Of course “the deal” wasn’t for $1666 USD, it was for $1600 USD. But then Serio would have had to “admit defeat” and give the young woman’s cats back. Instead, he lied, and continued attacking her.

For years.

The duration of Serio’s pursuance of the young woman who entrusted him with her Savannahs is, perhaps, the singular best example of his obsessive need to dominate and control everything in his perceived sphere of existence. What began as a mistake on the part of a fan (former, now) of BJWT, and what was a bad fit for Serio as far as animals go (the cats did not like him, were not malleable and adoring in the videos he showed, but rather shunned him and avoided him or hissed) has now been drawn out into a multi-year sordid attack, with an extremely wealthy, and well connected older man pursuing, harassing and doggedly deriding a young, financially insecure woman. Serio even publicly stated (posted via screenshots of his messages with the young woman) that he didn’t want the cats. And yet he refused to give them back, even after their devastated owner paid him the money he demanded. It reads like a child custody horror story with ransoms paid, but children still withheld. Some three years or more into the situation, the young woman continues to struggle in paying basic bills (if she’s holding a job at all, what with Serio dragging her into court repeatedly, which we know he does because he posts #winning with veiled connotations about suing people whenever something happens) whilst Serio is jetting all over the world, to Miami, Milan, enjoying various fundraisers for BJWT, and side trips, as well as now having hired a female-owned PR company to help hide his public abuse toward other women, including the young woman who trusted him with her Savannahs. Oh, the bittersweet irony there.

We wonder what Greathergood thinks about all of those posts? Oh, wait, nearly all of the “crazy Savannah woman” posts have now carefully been scrubbed from BJWT’s social media posts….

Of course, when it comes to making money, Serio loves to play mix-and-match with financials. BJWT’s 990 from 2017 posted on their new website claims no employees while BJWT’s costs for 2018 posted in the same section of the new website lists numerous employees. Serio regularly advertises for donations through his nonprofit, even discussing in interviews (give time count for video) how BJWT relies on donations to help cover the cost of workers and security employees. Serio tells fans that he’s spends large amounts on employees, directing those fans to donate in order to support that spending, but then when he files taxes he tells the US government those employees don’t exist.

Photo, BJWT

Legally, the US nonprofit entity Serio is constantly promoting does not possess even one single solitary employee.

The workers and security Serio has are employed by the Mexican entity, Gran Santuario Mexicano Jaguar Negro Tigre Blanco, not the US nonprofit Black Jaguar White Tiger Foundation. But Serio never specifies this to fans. Instead, he posts the 990 forms for his US branch BJWTFoundation–which again, holds ZERO employees as per its nonprofit tax filings–and then follows it with a pie chart claiming that BJWT’s budget in 2018 paid for a minimum of $423,169.26 USD for “workers” and “security” forces.

Photo, BJWT

But those employees are paid not by the US nonprofit BJWTFoundation Serio is always referring to, they’re paid by Gran Santuario Mexicano Jauguar Negro Tigre Blanco.

To further confuse things, the BJWT website lists all costs in USD, but since BJWT is in Mexico, most of the monies spent will be in Mexican Pesos, not USD. In Mexican Pesos, the cost Serio claims for employees is a staggering 8,009,176.47 Mexican Pesos. We have no way of knowing what Serio pays his workers per hour, but with an exchange rate of $1 = 18.93 Mexican Pesos, he likely doesn’t pay them more and $5 USD per hour, equating to 88-100 Mexican Pesos per hour, which is currently the roughly exchanged minimum wage in Mexico City. After all, this is the same man who refers to those workers as “wetbacks”.

The kicker in all this is, Serio’s not lying to the IRS, he’s lying to his fans who are don’t seem to realize that there are TWO Black Jaguar White Tiger entities, the Mexican-registered one which employes workers, and the US one which claims zero employees, assuring that it’s the least taxed. Serio then takes the money from his US entity, and gives it to the Mexican entity via grants as listed on the US 990 form.

It’s no wonder that with all the donations from fans being pumped into a US company in US dollars (you can also donate in other monetary systems, but if you donate to the MX entity, Serio is not required to divulge those monies publicly. So in theory someone could hand him a huge sum of money in Mexican Pesos, and we’d never know it happened) that Serio’s got enough leftover to waste in his vindictive revenge campaign against the young owner of the Savannah cats, all while Greathergood helps him keep his image tidy.

Then there’s the posts wherein Serio labeled all the conservationists who wrote letters to the Colombian government, petitioning them to send circus lions to a real sanctuary instead of BJWT “Cowards”. After all, the majority of those conservationists were women, including Erika Ortigoza the whoring plastic surgeon junkie, and two were the “frustrated lesbians” Serio enjoys referring to as “Project Idiots”…

Now removed from BJWT

Now removed from BJWT

Now removed from BJWT

Now removed from BJWT

Now removed from BJWT

Now removed from BJWT

What would Greathergood think about those posts? About the faked, photoshopped photos that were part of them? Oh, wait, all of those images and captions have now been removed from BJWT’s social media platforms…

Or what about the young woman whose name, address, employment location, etc. Serio publicly posted (which we will not be posting here) stating that Colombia had issued a warrant for her arrest because she “interfered” with his attempts to get possession of the former circus lions? That young woman had to close her social media accounts afterward due to the attacks from BJWT fans, and faced weeks of harassment from them whenever she attempted to start new accounts because, hey, Serio had given them all her personal information and told them to attack her. And his statement that Colombia had issued arrest warrants for her? 100% lie.

Videos wherein Serio refers to his own workers as “wetbacks”, wherein Serio derides Pepe for wearing “gay boots” and posing with a dog for photos, which “looks gay” when posing with a tiger is what a real man would do, videos wherein Serio declares that parents should be forced to undergo testing before having children in order to avoid having kids born with mental or physical disabilities, all now removed from BJWT platforms.

Funny how all of the imagery, and contexts that would be damaging to someone’s PR, and which represent the precise opposite of what Greathergood claims to promote and support have now been removed from BJWT and Eduardo Serio’s social media platforms. But then, that’s what companies like Greathergood does. They’re hired to move in, and clean things up. We have no way of knowing precisely which images and videos Greathergood specifically removed, but we can know that it’s not possible for them to be involved in the social media accounts of BJWT without seeing these posts firsthand, because many of them were available until just the last couple of months. It’s not a coincidence that BJWT partnered with a PR company for the first time since it was founded and suddenly the more egregiously bigoted and hate-mongering posts began disappearing from their pages.

Bravo, Greathergood. Maybe you should reach out to Harvey Weinstein and offer to represent him while you’re at it. He could probably use the help revamping his image, and considering your efforts with Serio, you could probably do wonders for Weinstein.

Black Jaguar White Tiger - “Fact” or "Fiction?"

Black Jaguar White Tiger’s “Facts” More Influenced by Edward Bernays’ “Order out of Chaos” Theory Than By The Truth

The title really does make sense. And, as this post will be a long one, we can afford to offer readers some background as to what inspired it.

Billed by himself as “America’s No1 Publicist” Edward Bernays is widely regarded as a pioneer in the fields of public relations and propaganda, and his influence continues on in today’s ever-growing digital world where good propaganda, and a chic public relations manager can create an entirely false public identity for a person or group. Often, such efforts of “rebranding” an already known entity take place directly in front of the public eye, but dazzled by slick graphics, and “feel-good” stories, that the public will either not recognize the fact that they’re being lied to, or they’ll choose to embrace an idealistic promise over the reality they already hold in their hand. Even if they understand the falsehoods for what they are, fear of ostracism will cause them to abjure from taking a stand about it.

Such are the psychological and sociological natures of humanity on which Bernays constructed his immensely successful public relations career. Bernays believed vehemently (and correctly) that the “masses” of humanity were easily swayed, and could be manipulated into believing anything if the idea was presented to them in the correct way. You can listen to Bernays himself explain how he successfully altered the fashion of an era in order to sell Lucky Strike cigarettes to women here.

Bernays just as correctly observed that:

“Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power…”

However, in a darker, disturbing manner, Bernays also believed that because humanity in general was so easily manipulated, and that those who carried out that manipulation held ruling power, it was the duty of those capable of manipulating the public to do so for the greater good.

Bernays stated in his books, and publications that:

“Intelligent men must realize that propaganda is the modern instrument by which they can fight for productive ends and help to bring order out of chaos.”

Bernays argued that the “masses” would inevitably succumb to manipulation anyway, and that “good” propagandists could therefore compete with “evil” propagandists without incurring any moral cost for it. He thoroughly believed that lying to the public for the right reasons in order to counter those lying to the public for what he perceived to be the wrong reasons negated the fact that you were lying to the public at all. His designs for public manipulation were so well thought out and successful that Minister of Propaganda for the Third Reich, Joseph Goebbels used them as the blueprint for his campaigns.

This ideology, although hugely problematic on a moral level, is one that is currently being embraced by the vast majority of media constructs, and in every facet of society.

Conservation is no exception. All of the organizations and people addressed by CWW have embraced the activity of lying to the public, their fans, and supporters, in order to further what they perceive to be the “greater good” of their own endeavors.

Kevin Richardson supports the captive lion breeding, cub petting, and canned hunting industries monetarily through the purchase of lions from within it, rationalizing this activity by insisting that the lions he bought will have good lives, and that the movie he made using them will “spread awareness”. Richardson supports the use of captive wild animals in for-hire activities, such as TV productions, movies, ad campaigns, staged photography of “wildlife” and other commercial venues, rationalizing that these for-profit ventures “raise awareness” about conservation. He also actively tries to minimize his participation in these industries by suggesting those who criticize him are quibbling over his methods, and dividing the conservation arena.

Dean Schneider supports the captive lion breeding, cub petting, and canned hunting industries by funding through the purchase of lions from within it, rationalizing this activity by insisting that the lions he bought have been “rescued” from terrible lives. He is currently, avidly manipulating the public, and his ever-growing fan base, to believe that holding lions in large enclosures which also contain prey species, allows those captive lions to “live wild” and is no different from the existence of wild lions, despite that they’re actually in captivity.

And then there’s Black Jaguar White Tiger, who provides an entirely different, but synonymous sort of lies to the public.

Anyone who has followed CWW will recall the repeated claims by Black Jaguar White Tiger founder Eduardo Serio that it’s his responsibility to “save #planetstupid” from its own mechanizations via BJWT’s social media presence. Again, and again on the BJWT Instagram, Serio has ranted about how he, and his foundation, are responsible for wresting the control of #planetstupid away from the “dark side of humanity” who don’t understand anything. Serio’s superiority over the rest of humanity, and his assertion that he intends to bring the world into alignment with his own beliefs, which he regularly posits are the only beliefs that can save #planetstupid serve to provide the objective viewer with clear evidence as to his utter, and complete, narcissism.

The very wellspring of Black Jaguar White Tiger was a personal social media account documenting the daily life of a pet black jaguar, as she was raised in the well-appointed, second-residence, Acapulco mansion of Hollywood socialite, Eduardo Serio. In 2013, a black jaguar cub was introduced to followers of Serio’s personal Instagram page–many of whom were well-connected actors, actresses, models, fashion designers, and entrepreneurs, as his “daughter” Cielo. The black jaguar was followed in short order with a tiger cub, Tierris, and, after voicing the fact that his family would be complete with a female lion, the magical appearance of a female lion cub, Karma, all of them “adopted” by their “Papa Bear”.

It was from this private Instagram page, that BJWT was born. Eventually, Serio announced the development of the Black Jaguar White Tiger Foundation, hosting his friends to play with the various big cat cubs he magically came into possession of on a constant basis. Four years later, BJWT is arguably the “best known” animal-related Instagram account in existence, and still regularly hosts celebrities playing with cubs. The BJWT Instagram feed is filled with guests handling cubs, volunteers handling cubs, and Eduardo Serio and his personal friends handling cubs and larger cats.

Originally visiting BJWT for two days, once a year was listed as a sponsorship reward for anyone willing to shell out $1,000 USD a month in monthly donations. Only after groups like CWW began pointing out that this was simply a fancy pay-to-play scheme was that reward removed from the BJWT website. To this day, BJWT fans claim the screenshots like those shown below have been faked by “haters” to make Serio look bad, and they claim that Serio never “sold” visits to BJWT in exchange for money.

The animals at BJWT have come from various sources, cubs (in many cases early on) were purchased within Mexico’s rampant big cat breeding industries. In other cases, Serio has obtained former pets (sometimes by forcing owners who had licenses and did not want to give them up, to hand them over anyway, according to a few sources) or, according to yet other sources, Serio arranged with various zoos to receive cubs from them. This isn’t something Serio made any attempt to hide. He’s posted photos of Maztu’s father, still living in a zoo-like facility where tourists pay to take photos with him (Serio defends this breeding and petting facility claiming that they take great care of the cats they use) and Maztu’s cousin (whose father is the brother of Matzu’s father) was “rescued” by BJWT after being bred at the same facility where Maztu’s father lives (which begs the question of why he needed to be “rescued, since Serio says that facility is great, despite the breeding and letting the public handle animals). Serio’s friendships within the government to assure that any animals confiscated are funneled to BJWT, or, at least according to our government contacts, that he gets “first dibs” on them, at which point he might pick and choose who to rescue. He has also used these government connections, again, according to CWW’s Mexican contacts, who are widespread within the Mexican conservation industry, to force the closure of facilities, or stop the construction of new facilities which he feels would threaten BJWT’s position as the best known facility in Mexico.

Serio doesn’t try to hide any of these facts. Instead, he simply rebrands, and redefines them, and their accompanying implications in ways that ascribe a sense of righteous beneficence to the actions, with himself and BJWT as the heroes of the story.

Celebrated, and world renown big cat organizations, are to be eschewed, according to Serio. He publicly scorns any established standard of care and ethical creed, like the GFAS, which is admired by others, informing his followers that such establishments are what have destroyed the planet to start with. But behind the scenes, Serio changed BJWT’s name on its Mexican registration to Gran Santuario Mexicano Jaguar Negro Tigre Blanco simply so that he could insist that BJWT is a “registered sanctuary”.

Celebrated, and world renown big cat organizations, are to be eschewed, according to Serio. He publicly scorns any established standard of care and ethical creed, like the GFAS, which is admired by others, informing his followers that such establishments are what have destroyed the planet to start with. But behind the scenes, Serio changed BJWT’s name on its Mexican registration to Gran Santuario Mexicano Jaguar Negro Tigre Blanco simply so that he could insist that BJWT is a “registered sanctuary”.

One of the few things overtly indicating the cheap, abusive underpinnings of BJWT and its founder, Eduardo Serio, has always been Serio’s flare for hyper-dramatized posts, on both the BJWT social media accounts. His habit of grandstanding and his gleeful hate-filled rhetoric that spans the gamut of themes.

From publicly accusing women who thwart him in some way of being whores simply because they thwarted him in some way

Translation of Serio's caption:O remember our lion Hope? As it turns out, this cheap woman Erika Ortigoza ran a superficial mediocre and small zoo, so mediocre that it was forced to close and become a veterinary clinic only because all the people complained. When we started, Erica had relations with Jorge Maksabedian, in charge of permits and give money scholarships to zoos on behalf of the government. Well, that idiot, following the instructions from his lover, Erika, he withheld our permission already authorized and had to transfer Hope to that clinic, but Erika is so mediocre that I just lost Hope and returned her to the owners of the restaurant where it had been confiscated from a cement cage and bars instead of be in a pack with us. I cried and cried and the years passed and I waited to say the whereabouts of Hope. She was saying that we didn’t have permission, what she did not say, is that we already had it authorized but had been held by his Lover whom literally, he had relationships for in exchange of scholarships. The new administration arrived and they ran Jorge Maksabedian and sometime later, to Erika. They cleaned the house.

To suggesting that certain groups of people should either be executed, or forced to kill themselves, Serio’s history of sectarian and intolerant public rants on the BJWT social media pages have, indeed, been the stuff of legend.

Until now.

In recent months, material has been quietly disappearing from the BJWT social media sites. Beginning with the brutal, and abusive posts concerning the young woman who entrusted him with her Savannah cats (whom he has been attacking in court repeatedly for years now, like the egomaniacal cretin he is) and continuing to posts that publicly attacked the ethical conservationists involved in trying to avoid BJWT obtaining custody of six Colombian circus lions (which BJWT had already promised to take, and then abandoned after Serio was not able to gain the permits required to import them) Serio’s more outrageous attacks have now been deleted from BJWT’s pages.

In many cases (such as those involving the Colombian lions) the posts contained photoshopped images of confidential letters sent to the Columbian government, which had been passed on (illegally) to Serio, lying about what the people Serio was attacking had done.

The letter which Serio photoshopped and falsified, then attributed to I.C.A.R.U.S. Inc.

The actual letter that was sent to the Colombian government by I.C.A.R.U.S. Inc.

In other cases Serio’s captions were simply disgusting rants declaring his superiority (for his connections to a corrupt Colombian government, no less) in a fashion more suited to a drunk frat boy than a professional entity.

Never mind that the "2 years" cited by Serio involved BJWT abandoning the lions. Only after he started a second fundraiser (no one knows where the funds from his first fundraiser ended up) did it become clear that BJWT had already raised money for these lions and then abandoned them.

If posts of this nature remain, the captions have now been deleted, leaving only the photos behind, without explanation.

The posts remain on BJWT's Instagram account, but now have no captions.

From stating that Erika Ortigoza slept around to get what she wanted, to an unexplained photo of her.

Then BJWT’s newest website overhaul was recently announced, giving some context to the disappearance of Serio’s more childish, and lying photoshopped posts. In just the short time since Serio announced that BJWT would be working with Greathergood, a company that specializes in Public Relations, Greathergood has, apparently done its best to “clean up” BJWT’s immature, and distasteful edges in hopes of making the foundation look more legitimate.

The new BJWT website contains donate buttons on every page, sometimes in more than one place, and newsletter buttons everywhere else. Photo credit BJWT

The announcement of a revamped BJWT website was not a surprise to CWW or others who have spoken out about the pseudo-sanctuary. It was obvious that Serio was no longer the only person making social media posts. BJWT’s Instagram description had changed from announcing that they were making #planetstupid fall in love animals one post at a time to a description nobly claiming that BJWT is “Changing the world by rescuing Animals, educating humans, and reforming laws.”

Photo credit BJWT. The message of intent on the BJWT has also been rewritten in a more appealing and less condescending manner.

Captions on social media posts began containing proper grammar, and though still lacking in information, and a knowledge about conservation, blurbs were longer, with a noted focus on bettering the Foundation, bettering enclosures. Posts had begun appearing which actually discussed–for the first time in four years–the widespread abuse of captive wild animals, with accompanying dialogue encouraging fans to help BJWT stop it–by supporting BJWT, of course. Directly counter to Serio’s longstanding criticism of “political correctness” BJWT had become just that, precisely caring enough to look caring, but superficial enough not to offer any hard information, or facts.

The demarcation between the “Serio is in solely charge of BJWT’s public image” and “A Public Relations Rep is in charge of BJWT’s public image” had already been sharply drawn. A new website with new content was just the next logical step in the process.

Only, this is Black Jaguar White Tiger, built from the ground up on lies, misinformation and misrepresentation, and controlled entirely by Eduardo Serio. So of course, the new website does not actually provide fans with any “new” information, nor does it provide them with anymore clarity about BJWT’s actions, or goals. It simply conveys the misnomers and talk-arounds in a less-grating and more professional manner. For BJWT fans, and those of the public not educated to know any better, the new BJWT website is flashy, and well-written.

To the eye of a professional conservationist, however, the lack of big cat, conservation, ecological, medical, and scientific understanding is painfully obvious. For those of us with all of the above, the new BJWT looks like what it is: a shiny illusion created by lay-folk.

The various areas of the new website contain snazzy tabs leading to pages which, at best, contain either inanely superficial, but “clean and pleasant” versions of what on the old BJWT website contained, or likewise inanely superficial blurbs about subjects that have never been addressed in BJWT’s four year history. Each new page provides bright red donate buttons.

Clicking "Stop the cruelty" takes you to the donation page. Photo credit BJWT

Clicking "Support BJWT" takes you to the donation page. Photo credit BJWT

The upper corner always contains a bright orange Donate button. Photo credit BJWT

Some pages contain multiple vectors which take viewers directly to the donation page. Here you can see the standard Donate button in the upper right corner, but the "Support BJWT" also takes you directly to the donation page. Photo credit BJWT

But at worst, these pages of the new BJWT website contain blatantly displayed contradictions, incorrect information, unfounded claims, or entirely pointless facts that serve no purpose but to look important. The much ado about “legal reform” for example. Simply knowing people involved in making laws doesn’t mean you’re actually involved with influencing or working toward reform. Our Mexican contacts keep us abreast of issues, and while there are several laws in process that would potentially benefit captive big cats, they remain in process and Serio has not participated in any part of their creation or furtherance.

Clicking "Pledge BJWT" takes you directly to the donation page, as does the Donate button. Photo credit, BJWT

Clicking on the BJWT Legal Reform takes you to the page shown in the image above this one, where the only "option" is to click "Pledge BJWT" which takes you directly to the donation page, rather than discussing any laws currently being lobbied. Photo credit, BJWT

Then there’s Serio’s repeated lie about being a registered sanctuary. Notice that while the question “Are we a licensed sanctuary” is listed as “Absolutely” the continuance specifies that BJWT is licensed as a PIMVS. Under SEMARNAT’s definition, a PIMVS facility is described as: “PIMVS are considered to be intensive breeding sites, nurseries, botanical gardens or similar that manage wildlife in a confined manner for purposes of controlled reproduction of species or populations for commercial use (LGVS Regulation, Art. 2) You can read SEMARNAT’s breakdown here.

Photo credit BJWT. The new BJWT website continues to mislead viewers and fans into thinking they possess a sanctuary license, something that doesn't exist.

The actual registration BJWT holds as a PIMVS.

Serio has repeatedly posted his PIMVS registration to “prove” BJWt is a registered sanctuary, but the truth is that BJWT is registered as a PIMVS (not a sanctuary) under the name Gran Santuario Mexicano Jaguar Negro Tigre Blanco.

And in combination with that continued lie, is the perpetuated misinformation that the Mexican Foundation, “Gran Santuario Mexicano Jaguar Negro Tigre Blanco” which fans see all over social media is registered in the US as a nonprofit.

The facilities viewers see in Eduardo Serio’s social media posts is not registered in the US as a nonprofit.

Photo credit BJWT. Note the date specified here. BJWT threatened legal action against the author of an article published before January 11 2016 which stated that BJWT was not a 501c3. Serio attempted to smear the name of the author, calling them a liar, and stating he would sue, when in fact the information in the article was 100% correct. At the time of publication, BJWT was not a 501c3.

Serio proudly proclaims that BJWT holds a nonprofit status in the US, but notice the name on in the BJWT answer, and the name on the 990 listed below. The name listed on the US 501c3 documentation is not Gran Santuario Mexicano Jaguar Negro Tigre Blanco, the name on the Mexican PIMVS registration. Serio’s “licensed sanctuary” Gran Santuario Mexicano Jaguar Negro Tigre Blanco is not recognized as a nonprofit in the US. The US nonprofit is an entirely separate entity, registered under the name Black Jaguar White Tiger Foundation, located in Woodland Hills CA. Serio intentionally lies to his fans, telling them that the BJWT they watch on his social media posts, which has “rescued” so many animals is a registered US nonprofit.

Another issue where the new BJWT just provides the same lies Serio has been telling since BJWT is founded, is in regard to habitats and space. For example, this screenshot from the new BJWT website describes the customized habitats (for new viewers, the image shown here is not the area the blurb is actually describing. The area shown below is at Stage 1, where Serio does most of his interaction filming) Still, it looks beautiful and sounds great. Only it’s not true.

Stage 1, rather than Stage 2 which is being described. Photo credit BJWT

Below is a photos Serio himself posted on the BJWT Instagram page intending to prove that PETA was lying about BJWT in their article criticizing the pseudo-sanctuary. Although he likely felt better for making the post, Serio inadvertently proved his own billing on the new BJWT website was a lie. In the below photo, around 70 enclosures are visible. However, there are only two swimming pools. There have only ever been two pools located at Stage 2, and both contain tigers, the “Blue Pride” being one of them. We’ve circled the two pools (one slightly large than the other, the second partial hidden by shadow but still visible) This arial image–which Serio considered valid and correct, and used himself to “prove” how wonderful BJWT is–allows any viewer to look for the 70 custom pools he’s supposedly put in every habitat. Serio has even pointed out lions within it, offering perspective on size. Clearly there is not a “custom swimming pool” inside each habitat.

Again, recent Instagram posts made by Serio discussing overhauls of habitats clearly show the two pools which can be seen above, both containing tigers.

When the BJWT website attempts to impress readers with the amount of land in BJWT’s possession, again, they fall woefully short, and instead put their ignorance and lack of comprehension on full display.

Photo credit BJWT

On one area of the new BJWT website it states BJWT has 130 acres, but in another area, it lists 120 acres leaving 10 acres that’s either unaccounted for, or falsely claimed. While mistakes can happen, an entity that bills itself as the “best Sanctuary on Planet Earth” should be able to accurately state how many acres they own.

Photo credit BJWT

More troubling than the discrepancy of 10 acres, however, is the statistics provided by these points of information.

As per the new BJWT website, they have 700 animals living onsite.

Photo Credit BJWT

And as per Serio’s most recent boast about big cat numbers, 400 of those animals are big cats.

Out of the total acreage listed as belonging to BJWT–we’ll be generous and call it 130 acres–only 30 acres have been built on. Those 30 acres contain 70 habitats which house, let’s be generous, and say 350 animals, leaving 50 cats at Stage 1. For simplicity, let’s divide the acreage evenly by the number of habitats.

30 ÷ 70 = 0.42.

So, if all the habitats were the same size, each one would only contain 0.42 acres of space. But let’s be even more generous, and round that up to 0.5, a full half acre. 0.5 of an acre is 21,780 square feet of space.

Again, let’s be generous, and round up to 22,000 square feet of space. Trust us, BJWT needs the generosity because to give readers some perspective, a standard American Football field is 57,600 square feet.

So even with our generous, repeated rounding up of the numbers, and the removal of 50 big cats from Serio’s claim that he’s rescued 400, once you break down the numbers BJWT houses an average of 5 adult big cats on less than half a football field of space.

Now, it’s clear from Serio’s own arial view of BJWT’s habitats that some are larger than others, so that means some of them are larger than 0.5 acres. But that also means that a great many of them are smaller than 0.5 acres, too. And as can be seen in the image provided by Serio, some of those habitats are considerably smaller than the rest. Half or more, in fact, of the visible enclosures are very small.

By comparison, The Wild Animal Sanctuary located in Colorado (which Serio disdains) houses a similar number of big cats and other carnivores in habitats varying in size from 5 full acres to 25 acres. Serio boasts of having 120-130 acres of land, assuring fans that BJWT has only built on 30 so far to house their 350-400 big cats, while TWAS (which Serio derides as not caring about big cats) encompasses 789 acres at their Keensburg educational facility which houses around 400 carnivore and is open to the public.

The TWAS Refuge facility which is not open to the public, contains an additional 9,684 acres, of habitats ranging from 100 to 1,000 acres in size where rescued animals live in as natural conditions as possible.

The TWAS educational facility houses state of the art medical and surgical buildings, specialized housing, and opportunities for teaching and observation by the public (all without any human/animal interaction) and has set the highest standard for big cat care in the USA.

Readers might recall some of Serio’s rants against TWAS and its founder Pat Craig from December of 2017 when he publicly attacked the conservationists who petitioned the Colombian government on behalf of former circus lions which had been living in cages for almost 6 years, hoping to have the lions sent to TWAS (which offered to fully fund rescue and transport of the cats to their new home) The Colombian government chose to send the lions to BJWT in Mexico instead because, they stated after the fact, they already had some paperwork partially filled out for BJWT to receive the lions from more than a year prior when Serio tired to take possession of them, but failed to do so.

After the Colombian government chose to give the beleaguered lions to Serio (one of which magically arrived pregnant through unknown causes) they also passed on to Serio all the private information and documents of those who petitioned them in regard to moving the lions to TWAS. It’s still unclear why the Colombian government would pass on information to a private Mexican citizen, but, you know, corruption, and all that.

The life those who petitioned the Colombian government wanted the former Colombian circus lions to have at TWAS:

Photo credit The Wild Animal Sanctuary

Photo credit The Wild Animal Sanctuary

Photo credit The Wild Animal Sanctuary

Photo credit The Wild Animal Sanctuary

And the life the former Colombian circus lions got at BJWT:

Note the reference to fighting.

The lioness above clearly feels defensive and threatened, her cubs surrounded by strange lions which are not family members and which if they could gain access to her and her offspring would immediately kill the cubs. Serio openly admits that the lioness has been fighting the opposing pride of lions housed just feet away from her and her cubs with no visual barrier. Imagine living in constant fear that a challenging pride was going to kill your cubs.

And here are others of the Colombian lions, again, fighting the other lions around them “all day long” through the border fences of their habitat. Rather than understanding the extreme social and emotional stress caused by theses conditions, Serio happily informs his fans that these lions have simply that “Their Lion Spirit got back into their bodies after arriving to our Sacred Grounds.”

Again, fighting is referenced.

There are other, numerous issues with the new BJWT website, not the least of which is the continuation of using interactions to sell volunteer slots and donation slots. Serio’s original, highly dramatic “Sacred Ground” rhetoric is still present, though quietly shelved in a less visible area of the website. In its place are Volunteer guidelines, carefully worded so as to put emphasis on the safety of the animals and volunteers.

Photo credit BJWT

And yet, even these revamp “rules of engagement” are accompanied by blatantly contradicting media. Despite that the “rules” for volunteering state that “All volunteers are required to wear the BJWT Volunteer uniform while at the Foundation” that “Accessories will are not worn at any time.” and that “Colored nail polish is prohibited.” The accompanying photos clearly show volunteers wearing all manner of clothing, none of it a uniform of any sort, handling cubs while wearing jewelry, and wearing colored nail polish.

Photo Credit BJWT

Photo credit BJWT

Photo credit BJWT

Cell phones are supposedly prohibited on the “Sacred Grounds” of BJWT, yet volunteers happily pose with them against enclosure fences.

Photo credit BJWT

“YOU CAN NOT TOUCH THE ANIMALS THROUGH THE FENCE.” is stated in all caps definitively, and yet... Serio turns around and posts photos of volunteers petting Bradshaw (renown amongst BJWT fans for being “huge” no less)

Photo credit BJWT

The recent injury sustained by a woman who got close enough for a jaguar (less than half the size of Bradshaw) to snag her arm through a fence similar to the one seen above with just one claw showcases how quickly a captive big cat can act, and how devastating even glancing contact can be for the human involved.

Photo credit Adam Wilkerson

The list of issues with BJWT goes on. But as long as the public continues to submit to Serio’s propaganda and manipulation of them, nothing will change. After four years of lies and manipulation, it’s long overdue for the public to start waking up and asking questions, rather than blindly swallowing whatever false information, and self-serving lies Serio spoon feeds them in order to further his own ends.

CWW is often accused by those we discuss as having some sort of personal agenda, and/or we’re challenged by them, or their fans, as to what we’re doing that’s “better” than whatever the person in question is doing. These statements about us are designed to create the impression that CWW has set out to vilify the entities we discuss, thus creating some sort of conflict in an “us versus them” context.

This is categorically incorrect.

What CWW wants to encourage the public to do is to look beyond the propaganda, and PR lingo and objectively view the actuality of the person they’re supporting. Humanity’s general inability to set aside personal preference for objective assessment has played a huge role in creating the debacle that our world is currently facing. It’s more comfortable to look at someone playing with lions, or bottle feeding (even incorrectly) adorable cubs and believe that what you’re seeing is special, that it represents hope, and affection. It’s far less comfortable to look at such things and admit that the lions were raised with daily interaction to behave in a certain way, and that the video clip you’re viewing is one created specifically to show you exactly what’s visible, or to admit that the cubs being bottle fed are simply the most recent in a line of cubs being bottle fed that stretches back years, just the most recent cubs in a list of cubs being bottle fed.

We also understand that CWW itself is–and should be–subject to being viewed with the same detached objectivity with which we want readers to view the exploiters we discuss on a daily basis. This is why we strive to provide our readers with citations and media to verify everything we write, and all the information we disseminate. Why, many times, we provide multiple citations to entirely separate sources which all confirm the same facts we’ve utilized in an article.

We don’t want readers to simply embrace our word as fact. Doing so erroneously relegates the information we publish as nothing more than our own “propaganda” by presuming that what we’ve said is simply our own opinion, rather than an issuance of categorized, cited and documented facts intended to encourage readers to go and do their own research on a person or organization.

To create in readers the desire to know more, to develop their own breadth of education, grasp and understanding of captive wildlife, wild wildlife, and the conservation of both, is the underlying desire of CWW.

Don’t stop at our pages and articles, don’t receive them as a result or conclusion.

Use the information found through CWW as a starting point, as the catalyst for change in your own awareness. Use the tools for research, for analytical reasoning and impartial assessment that we have offered in regard to the various exploiters we discuss, to go out and commit to your own investigations of those parties.

*Headline photo credit to Black Jaguar White Tiger *Other photo credits as noted.

Is Commerce-Conservation Beneficial To Change?

Why The Commerce-Conservation Of Kevin Richardson And Those Like Him Is Not Beneficial To Achieving Actual Change

Recently in March 2019, the world found out that the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) rejected the Portfolio Committee’s Resolution (PCEA) to end Captive Lion Breeding (CLB). This defies the resolutions made during the Parliamentary Colloquium on CLB held back in August 2018 wherein the PCEA called for an end to CLB in order to end the practices of hunting and lion bone trades as supported by the continued captive breeding of lions. A ban on CLB would, of course, also end the practice of cub petting, and lion walking, as well as ending future lion interactions in tourism and elsewhere, as there would be no captive bred cubs to hand raise and work with. This is something, for unknown reasons, not discussed in regard to the PCEA, or their resolution to ban CLB, and is not mentioned in the public posts we’ve seen lamenting the DEA’s rejection of the resolution.

CWW was not surprised (although we were disheartened) to hear about the rejection of a ban on CLB by the DEA because, as we’ve discussed many times, the idea of conservation is a million dollar market, while conservation itself, is much less so. Lion parks like Ukutula Lion Park and Lodge make millions of dollars each year hosting thousands of tourists who pay for the chance to play with lion cubs and walk with older lions in the belief that they’re supporting lion conservation. Likewise, entities such as Lion ALERT host thousands of tourists who interact with their captive bred lions under the erroneous, but carefully cultivated belief, that they’re helping to save and conserve wild lions.

As long as it’s profitable to breed lions in captivity on a large scale, the DEA is going to protect that monetary income. The exposure, and arguable “awareness to lion conservation” provided by interactions with, and endeavors involving captive bred lions, provides that steady profit to breeding lions in captivity.

But it’s extremely easy to convince the public (in a general sense, at least) that places like Ukutula Lion Park, Lion ALERT, lion farms, and other safari parks which provide cub petting and lion walking are “bad guys” exploiting captive bred lions for profit. Ukutula Lion Park was even caught red-handed by Blood Lions selling their older captive bred lions into the canned hunting industry, and subsequently featured in the 2016 Blood Lions movie. There are numerous (and still growing) accounts of former volunteers of such parks and breeding facilities detailing the fact that the captive bred lions therein are exploited under the guise of “conservation” while providing a steady commerce for the parks and facilities. This makes it easy for the public to understand that these places harm lions and support terrible, abusive and exploitive industries.

It’s much more difficult to get the public to understand that beloved entities like Kevin Richardson, David Yarrow, and Dean Schneider, are just as much to blame for the failure of the DEA’s ban on captive lion breeding as the “money grubbing” officials who actually chose to reject it.

If readers are offended and upset by this statement, please read on to better understand why CWW is making it, and why we’re able to comprehensively defend it.

As stated above, in order for the DEA to uphold a ban on CLB, we have to make CLB unprofitable. If there’s no money coming in from CLB, there’s no incentive for the DEA to continue allowing it. The CLB is poorly, inadequately regulated, with little to no functional oversight. It adds nothing to the actual conservation of wild lions, and subsists on only the false claims of supporting the protection of wild lions through, in part “raising awareness” about lion conservation and “allowing the public to fall in love with lions”. Money, as noted in formal announcements of this rejection on various websites and pages, is the primary incentive for the DEA to allow the CLB machine to continue rolling along. Tourists misinformed to think they’re helping lions bring in millions of dollars a year. But there are more ways that CLB can bring in money than just the highly publicized cub petting and canned hunting arenas, and if the public wants to stop supporting the CLB industry, as well as the cub petting, lion walking and canned hunting industries, then they have to stop supporting all of the CLB industry.

Supporting any part of the CBL industry even while decrying the rest of it will not result in an end to CLB. It will only result in a shift as to what CLBs are used for.

One of the prompts behind this article, was the recent state of the Facebook page feed of famed Kevin Richardson ‘Lion Whisperer’.

On March 19, Richardson’s page posted a video with the caption “That moment when Charlie realized his roar was loud enough to talk back to the big boys!”

The video quickly garnered hundreds of comments, thousands of responses, over hundreds shares, and tens of thousands of views. Amongst the comments conveying adoration and beauty for the white lion shown roaring in the video, there were multiple commenters who appeared confused, unsure of which white lion Charlie was, or where he had come from, as this was the first post on Richardson’s Facebook to showcase and name Charlie.

A few commenters recognized Charlie immediately, however, explaining that he is one of the white lions purchased by Richardson from Ukutula Lion Farm as a cub in order to make the feature length film Mia And The White Lion (currently in theaters and due to be released in the US in early April)

On March 20, Richardson’s page posted about the DEA’s rejection of the ban on CLB, stating “Once again South Africa fails.” The post caption goes on to condemn the DEA for its failure to embrace a ban on CLB which fuels canned hunting, the lion bone trade and “a number of commercial purposes” in South Africa.

The post garnered thousands of responses, over hundreds of comments, and hundreds of shares. As expected all the comments expressed dismay, anger, and frustration, decrying the DEA for being focused on money and profit, but many also praised Richardson.

Many comments commended Richardson, and supported him as one of the only voices trying to shut down the CLB industry.

On March 21, Richardson’s page posted a link to the 2019 Environmental Film Festival In the Nation’s Capital with the caption “Exciting times as Mia and the White Lion (Mia et le Lion Blanc) is received with great accolades at the Environmental Film Festival In the Nation’s Capital this past Tuesday evening.” promoting Mia And The White Lion, which was made using cubs bought from Ukutula specifically for the purpose of making the movie.

This post received hundreds responses, and relatively few comments, and shares. But the comments made were all entirely supportive, and congratulatory.

Then, on March 22, Richardson’s page posted a video of lioness being treated for a minor wound and advertising the Lion Whisperer Youtube “members-only channel”. This is a channel accessible only by paying a monthly fee to Richardson. Richardson’s pages have repeatedly stated in posts regarding this “members-only” channel and monthly cost that all the proceeds gained from those paying for the privilege is spent on the film crew making those exclusive videos. This has been stated multiple times by Richardson’s pages, in response to commenters asking where the money they pay to become a “member” will go.

In the March 22 post, however, the caption contradicted those prior statements that the fee for the “members-only” channel are spent only on making more videos, by stating that it was through the fees gained from the “members-only channel” that Richardson was “able to take care of Ginny’s spay so quickly, using the most advanced laparoscopic technique.”

The contradiction of the post was overlooked by fans who, in the relatively few comments had only compliments and gratitude to offer.

Richardson’s facebook page feed is a textbook example of the intentional confusion and misdirection created by those engaging in commerce-conservation. Richardson’s page showcased how entities like Richardson are able to enjoy profiting off the industries they tell their fans they don’t support, while also enjoying the full support and adoration of their fans. This comes in very handily when other entities, like CWW call such entities out for their hypocrisy.

The first post discussed in this article shows Charlie, a white lion selected by Richardson specifically for coloration and personality, and then purchased by Richardson from Ukutula–which was featured in the film Blood Lions as a facility selling lions to the canned hunting industry–in order to make the commercial feature length film, Mia And The White Lion. Charlie was bred in captivity, forcibly removed from his mother, bought by Richardson when he was just weeks old, and hand raised alongside child actresses and actors, under Richardson’s training, and forced to perform to a script. At least four other lions were also purchased by Richardson from Ukutula.

Yet fans of the ‘Lion Whisperer’ readily embrace Charlie, even if they’re confused because Richardson–who doesn’t breed lions onsite–suddenly has new lions he’s never talked about.

The second post discussed in this article, shows Richardson expressing dismay over the DEA’s decision to reject a ban on captive lion breeding–even though the post directly prior shows a captive bred lion that Richardson bought for use in a movie, and through that purchase, Richardson supported the CLB industry by putting money into it.

And yet fans of the ‘Lion Whisperer’ readily embrace the disappointment shown by Richardson, condemning the government for being money hungry, while praising Richardson–who literally created some of that profit margin the DEA is protecting by not banning CLB–for his “efforts” to counter the DEA’s failings.

The third post discussed in this article segues from how DEA officials have failed lions, directly into promoting the fact that Richardson’s movie, Mia And The White Lion was “received with great accolades” at a film festival dedicated to environmental causes and conservation. All of the media hype surrounding Mia And The White Lion is carefully framed under “spreading awareness” and “teaching viewers” but neglects to “teach” viewers or make them “aware” of the fact that the lions they’re watching were gained by supporting the canned hunting, cub petting, and captive lion breeding industry. It’s like making a movie about the history of slavery using actual slaves, and then marketing it as an anti-slavery movie.

Of course, fans of the ‘Lion Whisperer’ received the movie plug with much cheering and congratulations for Richardson.

And in the fourth post discussed in this article, Richardson neatly brings it all back home with a little video teaser of one of his better known lionesses, advertising the opportunity for viewers to pay him for the privilege of being allowed to see even more of his contrived lion interactions with captive bred lions bought from the CBL industry.

And, even though Richardson muddles just what the money paid by “members-only” channel viewers is spent on (Is it spent on making more content, like Richardson has repeatedly said? Or is it spent on medical treatments, as Richardson is saying in this post? Or is it just spent on whatever it’s convenient for Richardson to say it’s spent on?) Fans of the ‘Lion Whisperer’ readily embrace the “information” offered to them by Richardson.

Do you see a pattern here?

No matter what Richardson says, or how contradictory his statements and actions are, his fans believe everything he says, and defend everything he does.

While in the process of writing this Note, CWW got a reminder of just how fanatically devoted ‘Lion Whisperer’ fans are, and how willing they are to intentionally ignore reality in order to protect their idealist image of Richardson, when one commented on a share of our Note addressing Richardson and David Yarrow, and how their commerce-conservation damages lions.

Under the share, this comment was made:

We replied with humorous sarcasm:

The fan replied with impassioned, but deadpan serious fervor, trying to minimize the fact that Richardson forces his lions to perform for a script, defending his actions, and claiming that Richardson–who shopped for cubs to fit the criteria of a predesigned film project–shouldn’t be criticized for handing money to those he claims he doesn’t support. Then they explained to CWW that the lions can’t ever be released into the wild (as if this wasn’t something CWW has inexhaustibly explained to readers in order to counter claims like those made by Dean Schneider that such is possible)

We responded, countering every claim made by Richardson’s fan with valid facts (see bottom of above screenshot, and continued in the ones below)

The ‘Lion Whisperer’ fan then attempted to end the interaction (seen in above screenshot) by reducing verified facts (some of which were verified by Richardson himself) to “angles” “takes” “points of view” and they again minimized Richardson’s purchase of CBL cubs for use in a movie by expounding on the belief that Richardson “took them away” from the vile industry, so that makes it alright to have bought them like the commodity they are within the CBL industry.

We responded more harshly, reiterating all of the facts in bullet point form, explaining in detail how Richardson’s actions–counter to his verbal claims–directly support not only the CLB industry, but also, through his patronage of Ukutula, cub petting and canned hunting.

Richardson’s fan then backtracked, insisting that they’d never said the facts we stated weren’t true (even though all of their prior comments did just that, implying that we weren’t stating facts, but rather points of views or opinions) The commenter goes on to ask if a country paying a ransom to terrorists in order to save people is that country supporting or encouraging terrorism (Yes, actually, that’s why most countries will not pay ransoms, even if they attempt to rescue hostages, there are actual textbooks written about this phenomenon and how it play into terrorism) and then states that they don’t think paying terrorists to release hostages after the terrorists demand to be paid to release hostages supports or encourages other terrorists to take people hostage and demand to be paid for their release. (Again, side note there are papers, and textbooks written about this very subject and how it creates a demand and supply.)

The commenter then says they feel the same about Richardson, and accuses our points of being an amalgamation, that they do not believe in. To clarify their awkwardly put statement here, what the commenter is saying is that our “connect the dots” between Richardson buying lions from Ukutula, Ukutula breeding and selling lions to the canned hunting industry, ergo Richardson is supporting a facility which breeds lions in captivity, uses them for profit, and sells them to canned hunting, is not something they believe.

An even more simplified version is that according to this fan, Richardson handing money to Ukutula doesn’t mean he handed money to Ukutula.

They go on to say they agree that the CLB industry should be shut down, but continue to insist that Richardson isn’t a participant in it (even though he bought lions from it) because he doesn’t breed onsite. The commenter wraps up by defending Mia And The White Lion–a movie made by directly supporting the CLB/cub petting/canned hunting industry–insisting that it will “raise awareness” about the “awful industry” (that it directly supported) and that the lions are still better off with Richardson.

We responded accordingly (and for the last time, as clearly there is no point in continuing to reiterate the same facts again and again only to have them refuted)

This is the staggering lethality of what skilled commerce-conservation can render.

Richardson has so indoctrinated his fans to the belief that anything he does, even if it’s exactly what he’s telling them is terrible, can be excused because it’s for the greater good and being done in order to “raise awareness”.

Only when the pubic stops supporting the captive lion breeding industry, and all its facets in their entirety, will those industries be rendered fully impotent. Only once those industries stop bringing in money–from any outlet–will government entities like the DEA stop protecting them.

But as long as commerce-conservation continues selling ideas instead of actions, and as long as the public keeps buying those hollow, but pretty ideas, instead of engaging in actual change by refusing to support exploitation in any format, the CLB industry and all its counterparts is going to thrive.

Cover image screenshot from Mia And The White Lion trailer.

Dean Schneider's "Inspirational Stories"

Photo by ShareGrid on Unsplash

Dean Schneider Hires People To Create His “Inspirational Stories”

Because there’s been a great deal of discussion the past week over media sites publishing false, misleading, or unverified information promoting Dean Schneider, and his Hakuna Mipaka, CWW wanted to address why it’s happening. While it’s commonsense to research the proposed content of an article you intend to publish on a media website, the current state of the Internet, and social media in general, favors the quick and the eye-catching. So when there’s a buzz word or subject flying around, and you’re presented with beautiful graphics, and photos, accompanied by the ideal “Cinderella Story” most content writers for media sites pounce on the opportunity.

If the images and/or videos are enough to tell the story with minimal text, that’s even better, because it provides the content writers of media sites with virtually their entire post, which allows for a faster turnaround. In some cases, writers are hired cut-rate. This means that they’re producing posts designed to bring in traffic, not contain verified information, and even worse that quantity-over-quality glut forces even ethical media sites to rush in producing their own stories, lest they be plowed under on the freeway of social media’s momentary attention span.

This is one reason that brands hire content teams dedicated to strategizing, creating, and promoting content that advertises that brand. Enter Dean Schneider and his “inspirational” fairytale of selling everything he owned to head off “McCandless style” into Africa to “rescue mutilated animals” or “Save Wild Animals From Poachers” depending on the headline. Of course, just as with McCandless, the reality is far, far less glamorous than the romanticized fictional account. True outdoors(wo)men and Alaskans loathe the hyper-idealized idolization of Chris McCandless (if you don’t know who he is, you can read about him here) which causes continuous problems every year, and has ended in multiple deaths. In the same vein, true conservationists loathe the hyper-idealized “peaceable kingdom” mythos contrived and promoted by entities like Dean Schneider and Eduardo Serio.

When The Epoch Times published a longer, more flushed-out article titled nearly the same as Bored Panda’s fake one, and less than a week after the entire Bored Panda debacle, CWW was promptly notified of the new ET’s article. (We reached out to ET and they removed the article, though they refrained from telling us how they obtained the information within their article, or whether they’d been contacted by Schneider or his staff about it) When we posted about the article, however, commenting that it almost seemed as though Dean was just issuing statements to media sites and those sites were just posting his content without researching him or verifying anything, at least one comment appeared immediately on our post declaring pointedly that:

“He had nothing to do with this. Apparently there’s a few articles being done about him but most haven’t even approached him for an interview.”

The comment was then deleted before CWW had the chance to reply and ask if the commenter had spoken directly with Schneider or his PR crew, since they were so emphatic that no one had “even approached him for an interview”. which is intimate information, indeed.

What this commenter, and all of Schneider’s fans, and defenders don’t seem to realize, or understand, is that Schneider literally advertises jobs for content creators to work with him. Although the details are listed under a tab labels “Jobs” on the Hakuna Mipaka website, salary is not included. This is, apparently, one of those “I’ll pay you in exposure” deals. Because, you know, artists don’t need or deserve money, they should just be grateful for the chance to get some exposure. The date on the current ad is for December 2018, but the stipulations indicate that whoever was “hired” could stay for three months, meaning that if Schneider hires a new person for the job, a new ad will be forthcoming sometime in March or April.

The fact that Schneider is using a photo of his pet monkey sitting on a camera to advertise a job for someone to take photos of Schneider and his captive wild pets tells you everything you need to know about his exploitation of captive wild animals.

Even more brow-raising than the lack of salary for this “job” is the lack of expertise required. Expertise in big cats, ungulates, captive wild animals, animal husbandry in general, or anything pertaining to running a sanctuary supposedly devoted to the care of captive wild animals, that is. On the animal husbandry/biology/science spectrum, the only “expertise” you need for Schneider’s “job” is appreciation of nature, and respect/openheartedness toward animals. That’s it. Easy peasy.

Not so easy peasy when you continue to all the important photo and video editing and creation skills you need, like advanced knowledge in Adobe Premier Pro, Lightroom and Photoshop, basic knowledge in Adobe Indesign, Illustrator, experience in videography, and a background in video and photography projects, along with the ability to work on all of the above on your own, and in a timely fashion, at the whim of your “employer”. None of which matters, of course, in caring for captive wild animals, but all of which are essential for creating a vivid, marketable brand to sell to the public on social media platforms, and other media outlets.

The chance to play with captive wild animals, take great photos you can use later, and be near Dean himself stand-in for monetary payment in this "job".

Branding 101: create great content, and promote it.

If it weren’t for photos and videos on social media, Schneider literally wouldn’t exist to the outside world. It’s the only thing he has making him “relevant” to the millennial crowd. Well, that, and the gullibility of the younger generation hooked to their computers and living vicariously through the exploits of their social media heroes. But to be a commerce conservationist who relies on social media stardom, and revenue created through partnerships, paying volunteers and video views, that’s all Schneider needs to maintain his “relevancy”. Great content, telling a great story (real or fabricated) which is distributed widely, and directs people to come love him and his pages.

Articles praising Dean Schneider and containing very similar content, with very similar titles, are cropping up because that’s the entire point of promoting a brand. Presenting a unified front of your company or venture. Schneider’s intention is to sway viewers to support him through the creation of content intentionally designed to promote him and what he does. And in Schneider’s own words:

Image from Schneider's job ad.

*** Headliner and foot banner images, Dean Schneider

The Rising Stars of Commerce-Conservation

Lead Image Source : Puma

The Rising Star of Commerce-Conservation: David Yarrow & Kevin Richardson Exploit Captive Lions to Conserve Wild Ones

As a follow up to yesterday’s critical discussion of the ethics, or lack thereof, possessed by David Yarrow, we wanted to provide readers with a little more depth into why Yarrow’s ethics and lack of transparency about which of his “wildlife” photos actually contain wildlife matters. Also, we wanted to address the subject of responsibility in such matters as pertaining to both Yarrow, and his many-times-partner, Kevin Richardson.

Citing the now ubiquitous quote from Uncle Ben of Spiderman “With great power comes great responsibility.” If you are reaching millions of people with information which you intend to be educational in regard to the subject matter involved, you have a moral obligation to assure that the information you are providing to those millions of people is as accurate and truthful as possible.

If you are reaching millions of people with information which you intend to be educational in regard to the subject matter involved and that information is knowingly misrepresented in order to misinform the public to your monetary advantage, then you are simply committing market abuse.

With David Yarrow’s background in finance, the term “market abuse” will be well understood. For those who aren’t familiar with the term in this context, “market abuse” is defined by the Financial Conduct Authority as “insider dealing, unlawful disclosure of insider information, and market manipulation”. Regulations against, and punishment for such activities are, in no small part, what led to the death of “the good old days” of market trading, which Yarrow so abhorred that he left the financial arena. Of course, there is no photography industry version of the FCA, there are no legally-binding regulations within the world of wildlife photography that prevent a photographer from engaging in insider trading, unlawful disclosure of insider information, and market manipulation.

But that doesn’t mean those terms can’t, or don’t, apply to the world of photography.

Because David Yarrow markets his photographs (many of them containing Richardson’s captive lions) as being for the benefit of conservation and wildlife and for the purpose of raising awareness about both, he has a fiduciary responsibility to both the public to whom he’s issuing those photographs, and the realm of conservation which he’s professing to represent. Per his own statements, one of the only two ways photography can help conservation is by raising awareness with the public. Therefore Yarrow has a fiduciary responsibility to both the conservation industry, and the public, to act in an accountable, ethical manner. So does Kevin Richardson, whose animals are often featured in Yarrow’s “wildlife” photography. Though supporters of Kevin Richardson have–since CWW began criticizing him–repeatedly insisted that Richardson does not actually claim to be a conservationist, Richardson own website now prominently declares that Richardson is “a world-renown wildlife conservationist” under its Meet Kevin Richardson tab. Similar to Yarrow marketing his photographs as being “wildlife photography” if Richardson is marketing himself as a “wildlife conservationist” then he has a fiduciary responsibility to the public he’s intentionally influencing.

Yarrow is, as one of the best known “wildlife” photographers, obligated by this fiduciary responsibility to abstain from market manipulation in respect to his photography when that photography is being used to support and represent conservation and/or wildlife in the form of wildlife photography. As Yarrow himself has boasted, that art has no borders, what matters is whether or not a photograph is framed as “wildlife photography” or “art”. Yarrow markets his own work widely as “wildlife photography” which puts him squarely in the responsibility chair when it comes to market manipulation, and insider trading.

Since we’ve established that Yarrow–because he promotes himself, and his work, as being done for conservation and wildlife, and representative for and of conservation and wildlife–holds a fiduciary responsibility to both conservation as a whole, and the public to whom he’s presenting himself, we can unequivocally state that Yarrow’s photography empire exists (the same way Richardson’s does) largely, even primarily, through the processes of insider trading and market manipulation.

Yarrow knows that he’s presenting staged photos of trained captive animals to the public as “wildlife” photographs, and he knows that that public is ignorant of these facts, while he also understands that this public will purchase his staged photographs under the pretense of purchasing photos which contain images of wildlife, for the benefit of conservation. He’s even now entered a lucrative partnership with the Mantis Group under the guise of “aiding the global plight for conservation” with his photography skills.

And suddenly, it’s all too clear why Yarrow views the relatively new regulations placed on the financial trading industry as so repugnant as to bring about the end of “the good old days” when investors could, with impunity, grossly profit by misleading those who trusted them.

Yarrow has gone so far as to reference the conservation of wild lions when discussing his famous TAG Heuer campaign photo of Cara Delevingne and a trained captive lion. Whenever he discusses the photo shoot (and we should note that Yarrow considers his photograph, “Cara” to be one of the most powerful photos he’s ever taken) Yarrow takes the time to reiterate how much Kevin Richardson, whose captive lion was used to create the photo, does for “raising awareness” about the plight of wild lions. He never fails to direct attention to Richardson for raising awareness “to the plight of the lions in Africa” even when thanking him for a commercial campaign made with captive trained lions or a photograph that appears to show a wild lion, but actually shows a captive one.

TAG Heuer has done likewise, describing the photo of Delevingne and Vayetse a lion hand-raised and trained by Kevin Richardson as an “homage to the supreme beauty of living creatures. The images carry a message of respect, support and admiration towards animals through an intense, fearless and contemporary campaign,”

By carefully asserting that a commercial photoshoot bought and paid for by a company in order to promote and market their product line using trained, captive lions somehow helps support the conservation of wild lions, Yarrow and TAG Heuer alike are excusing the fact that they exploited captive wild animals for profit.

In case there’s confusion here, renting out lions to take photos is not conservation.

Period.

This has long been one of the primary issues CWW has with Kevin Richardson’s rebirth as a supposed conservationist. Regardless of his promotional material claiming that Richardson acts in the name of conservation, his own websites still advertises his lions as being for hire to anyone interested in using them for ads, commercials, other marketing campaigns or even films and videos (the headline photo used in this section actually shows Richardson working with Yarrow, amusingly enough). While Richardson carefully avoids publicly discussing these activities, he continues to engage in them, just as Yarrow happily waxes poetic about working with Richardson but fails to address the fact that he’s paying for the service of trained lions.

Just two spaces over from "conservation" is a tab advertising Richardson's lions for hire.

The fact that consumers see Richardson’s rent-a-lion business as somehow less exploitive simply because it takes place in South Africa, instead of at an American film studio is mind boggling. And the fact that the media surrounding such ad campaigns as TAG Heuer’s market them as involving “wildlife” and “wild animals” only exemplifies the inauthentic nature of the commerce. Delevingne even stated in this interview, that the one thing she wanted people to take away from her work with Richardson and Yarrow for TAG Heuer, was for them “To respect animals and their habitat.” apparently failing to recognize that nothing in her ad campaign respected lions in their natural state or habitat.

That TAG Heuer’s ad campaign was shot “in real conditions” (in fine print under the watch) is even specified as a selling point in TAG Heuer’s ads imagery.

Photo taken from Grazia.com.au

Just what constitutes the definition of “real conditions” isn’t explained. Real lion behavior? No. Real presentation of a wild lion in a wild habitat? No. Real danger, and very real exploitation? Yes.

The utter repugnance of whoring out trained lions for profit aside, there’s the ongoing–and tragically self-fulfilled–problem of intentionally habituating captive lions to humans, even rewarding them for approaching humans.

In these images taken from various sources, including media which shows the making of TAG Heuer’s most famous ad campaign, provide evidence just what sort of manipulation went on in order to nab that one striking photo.

Richardson starts out well behind Delevingne, using meat to bring the lion closer and closer.

Using chunks of meat thrown on the ground, Richardson encourages Vayetse to come within just feet of Delevingne.

The meat rewards offered by Richardson are clearly visible in this shot.

Despite Richardson's continued insistence that his lions aren't "trained" they nevertheless seem very astute at performing specific tricks on command, such as lifting feet, swiping, silent roaring, and snarling.

Despite several articles about the photoshoot stating that Delevingne had been "assured" that Vayetse would not harm her in Richardson's presence, the lion is too close to Delevingne for Richardson to stop him if he'd attacked.

And there were, apparently, a few instances wherein Delevingne had to scramble for her "safety cage". Image from en.vogue.me

Rather than oooh and ahhh over the danger of Delevingne being in such close proximity to a full grown male lion without any protection, CWW is gobsmacked with horror over the hard documentation of intentionally encouraging a lion to approach a strange human. We’ve known, of course, that Kevin Richardson promotes direct interaction between captive lions and humans.

It’s the only thing that’s made him who he is. If you remove Richardson’s interactions with his lions, you have no commercially viable product. Which is why Richardson does what he does. For the profit of it, and for the gratification of being admired for doing it. It’s why he’s done it since he started at Lion Park in 1997.

But to see a widely released video showing Richardson encouraging one of his lions to approach a young woman, to see Richardson literally dangling meat rewards above that young woman’s head in order to obtain a commercial photograph, well it’s shocking. Even more shocking is the statement, seen in several accounts of the photo shoot, that Delevingne had been assured that Richardson’s lion would not harm her in his presence.

The claim that Richardson maintains such finite control over his lions–and a given situation–as to be able to promise that those lions will not attack another person exposed to them and/or that if something goes wrong he’ll be able to protect that exposed person, is so inconceivably megalomaniacal as to be beyond words.

This screenshot from TAG Heuer's behind the scenes video shows only a few yards between Delevingne and Vayetse with Richardson out of the shot entirely. As African lions can easily jump 10-15 in single pounce, three or four yards would vaporize in fractions of a second, should Vayetse have chosen to attack Delevingne.

Unless Richardson has a hired professional marksman, in position, with the lion maintained in constant target, under orders to shoot the animal without hesitation the moment it even appears to pose a danger to someone other than Richardson, it’s simply not possible to even begin to assure clients that they will not be harmed by the lion, with, or without, Richardson’s presence.

Never mind that Yarrow, who took the photo has said repeatedly in various interviews, as well as in the behind the scenes video, that the logistics of a photoshoot with a world famous model in direct proximity to a lion were extreme because, “You’re dealing with lions that won’t attack Kevin but they will attack everyone else,”

So which is it?

Was Delevingne safe from the lion because he would not attack her in Richardson’s presence? Or was she in constant danger because the lion would attack everyone except Richardson?

Wait, we know this answer. It involves a girl named Megan van der Zwan.

Just days before TAG Heuer was set to release their now-famous photos of Delevingne sitting a few feet in front of a captive lion owned by Kevin Richardson, another of Richardson’s captive trained lions attacked and killed a not-famous young woman on Richardson’s sanctuary.

But, according to Richardson’s one public statement addressing the fatal mauling of van der Zwan by his train captive lioness, it’s van ser Zwan who was at fault for “being outside the car”.

Screenshot of the only public statement (specifically the text in quotations) made by Kevin Richardson on the death of Megan van der Zwan. After this post was made, the press statement was reposted numerous times, resulting in multiple thousands of comments applauding the fact that van der Zwan was dead, cheering the lion on for killing her and declaring that she got was she deserved. Such responses were entirely intended by the careful, legally-minded wording of Richardson's statement which gave the impression that van der Zwan was "outside the car" on a Big Five reserve. In reality, van der Zwan was in a luxury tent camp used by tourists on Richardson's sanctuary grounds.

Never mind that just months after van der Zwan’s death, Richardson advertised two night stays at the very camp where she was fatally mauled as a reward for anyone who donated $14,000 USD or more to his fundraiser. This contradictory behavior showcases the fact that Richardson’s statement on Megan’s avoidable death at the teeth of his trained lion was made solely to direct blame on her, and avoid damaging ongoing projects he was involved with. Not the least of which was filming the completion of Mia And The White Lion, which also took place on his sanctuary, and also involved a young woman directly interacting with captive lions.

We now know that two young women were intentionally directly interacting with captive lions on Richardson’s Sanctuary, under Richardson’s guidance during the same period of time that a third young woman who was not exposing herself to any danger at all, was ambushed and fatally mauled by one of Richardson’s captive lions which was loose on the Sanctuary grounds.

Interesting that when Richardson lures his captive lions toward a young woman for David Yarrow to photograph, literally dangling meat over that young woman’s head, it’s acceptable to the public. Admirable, even, for them to see photos of Delevingne calmly sitting with her back exposed to a captive lion while Richardson rewards that lion with meat for approaching Delevingne. Someone admired it so much they spent $120,000 to own the photo. Hundreds of others have bought less expensive versions of the photograph. And when Daniah DeVilliers interacts with Richardson’s captive lions, living with them for three full years, calling them to her, and rewarding them with meat, it’s also acceptable, and admirable. Millions have flocked to watch Mia And The White Lion, which was filmed onsite at Richardson’s sanctuary during the same time that Megan van der Zwan was killed there.

But then when a captive lion owned by Richardson, trained by Richardson, and rewarded with meat by Richardson for approaching strangers, and/or performing for cameras, subsequently acts outside of Richardson’s control, and approaches a strange young woman and kills her , it’s entirely the fault of the dead young woman for being “outside the car” even though she was in a supposedly safe camp, nowhere near where Richardson and his lions were supposedly located.

In the aftermath of the fatal mauling of Megan van der Zwan, TAG Heuer announced that it was cancelling the campaign and opening gala stating that “Due to the deeply sad and shocking death at a reserve, which was used as a backdrop to the campaign… We have decided to cancel out of respect for the family of the deceased. The relatives of the woman, rather than business, are our primary concern.”

It sounded sincere, but with many millions future dollars at stake and, already out a scrapped multi-million dollar opening launch, the reality turned out to be much less so. TAG Heuer simply rescheduled their campaign gala (where an exclusive print of Delevingne and Richardson’s lion sold for $120,000 USD) and waited a couple of months to launch the ad campaign. Seven months later, the Maddox Gallery reinstated it’s show of Yarrows photos of the campaign, to much acclaim. Side note, both the Maddox Gallery, and Cara Delevingne fully support Eduardo Serio of Black Jaguar White Tiger, and Maddox has sold Yarrow’s photos of Richardson’s captive lions in order to raise proceeds for BJWT. Yarrow even attended a Maddox event held in his honor wherein one of his photos was auctioned off to raise money for BJWT, and

When asked about her experience working with Kevin Richardson’s captive lions (in an interview after filming for TAG Heuer, but before the fatal mauling of Megan van der Zwan) Cara Delevingne quipped:

“You know, at the end of the day, if a lion had a little nibble on my leg, I think it would be a pretty cool story…”

The members of Captive Wildlife Watchdog, and of Megan van der Zwan’s devastated family would beg to strongly differ, with you on that opinion, Ms. Delevingne.

But thanks to the continued efforts of entities like David Yarrow and Kevin Richardson to mislead the public in such matters, it remains en vogue to fabricate photographs using captive wild animals and then market them as wildlife photography, the sales of which will support the conservation of wild animals. And invariably, entities like Eduardo Serio, Dean Schneider, The Real Tarzann, will continue to follow suite, selling their own brands of fake conservation on the open market.

Only once we start supporting the preservation of wild animals, in wild habitats outside of the capitalism of using captive animals to pose as wild ones, will we be able to hamstring the growing monster of commerce-conservation.

David Yarrow And Captive Trained Animals

David Yarrow, Taking Photos of Wildlife Using Captive Trained Animals

The Kevin Richardson Foundation recently posted an interview with David Yarrow the now-world famous photographer on their website. If you can stomach the sheer pretentiousness of the article it’s worth a read from the standpoint that it provides an excellent example of the carefully misrepresented, misleading, and intentionally partial truths used by entities like Yarrow and their supporters to promote themselves.

The article opens with what is, for anyone who doesn’t know Yarrow’s background, an inspiring recap of how Yarrow managed to Segway his “day job” career into the photography career he’s now so well known for. If one understands Yarrow’s actual pedigree and biography, his own account comes across as an artistically fabricated “living my dream like average folks” byline designed to make Yarrow accessible to “normal folks”. That’s because Yarrow had the fortune (literally) to be born into the Yarrow baronetcy and grew up with all the luxuries, and advantages that being directly connected to the Royals can provide.

The struggling to change careers storyline rings solid with thousands of readers who are struggling to leave jobs they have to hold down for careers they want to participate in, but the reality is that when “the good old days of finance” ended in 2008, David Yarrow was already a multi-millionaire with an estate and could have left his financial position anytime he chose to.

There’s nothing wrong with being born well off, but intentionally presenting yourself as having struggled to embrace a chosen career like people of average income, when you’re a millionaire connected to the Royal family, is in poor taste, at best, outright dishonest more likely

Yarrow seems to have no compunction against providing answers which serve a purpose, rather than being an honest response. When asked in the KRF interview what his most terrifying experience in shooting has been, Yarrow replies:

“‘Terrifying’ is probably an extreme word because as a father to two children, I don’t really ever put myself in a position where I am in jeopardy, as that would be irresponsible and selfish.”

Yet in the published description of Yarrow’s portrait“One Foot On The Ground” Yarrow declares:

“Yes, I am proud that the image is technically perfect when I am quite obviously in harms way, but the image is made by him (the lion) not me.”

One has little choice but to wonder where Yarrow is crafting the lie here. Is it in his recent interview? Born of a desire to look like a responsible, ethical, supporter of conservation? Or was he lying when he drafted the description of “One Foot On The Ground”? Indeed, the image of Yarrow standing steadfast while a magnificent wild lion charges toward him makes the image even more dramatic. And the descriptions of his own photos isn’t the only place Yarrow has stated he intentionally put himself in harms way, contrary to what he states in his interview on the KRF page.

This article from August 2017, says “While Yarrow admits to having put himself in harms way to get close to some animals, including polar bears…” it goes on to discuss Yarrow’s occasional use of remote control cameras. So, again, was Yarrow’s admittance of putting himself in danger untrue? Or is Yarrow’s current interview wherein he insists that he’d never actually put himself in danger because it would be irresponsible the falsehood? All we can know for sure is that one or the other is a lie.

But is the lion captured in such stunning black and white, which Yarrow is so proud of, even though taking it supposedly put him in harms way, actually a wild lion? It’s impossible for the viewer to know. Yarrow has made no bones about his willingness to use captive wild animals trained to perform for the camera, and intentionally manipulate a photo to match his own preconceived design of what the photo should contain.

Whereas artists in the field of photography have long prided themselves on capturing reality within instants of frozen beauty, Yarrow dismisses such endeavors as passé. He’s also described photographs captured using long distance lenses which avoid invading the space of wild animals as being “hackneyed pulp”.

“Ninety-nine per cent of photographs are taken. People take photographs. Whereas I think I make photographs.” Yarrow boasts in this article from January 2019. “I have a preconception in my head already of what I’m going to get, rather than turning up and seeing what’s going to happen.”

Yarrow’s cavalier disregard for capturing photos of wildlife in a wild environments and his preference for instead staging photos that utilize trained, captive wild animals placed in naturalistic settings is something he’s defended without hesitation, such as in this article from May of 2018. Other wildlife photographers, like David Slater (who nearly went bankrupt defending himself in the infamous “monkey selfie” lawsuit) exhibit resignation when it comes to faking their work. According to Slater, “all professional photographers are guilty in some degree” of altering or manipulating photographs or situations. Slater goes on to say “If you try for the genuine shot, you are less likely to be published. That’s why most photographers will push their own ethical boundaries.”

Yarrow, however, doesn’t seem to have ethical boundaries when it comes to creating the pre-designed photographs that have brought him such worldwide acclaim–and so many lucrative price tags. He sees nothing wrong with using trained wolves, cheetahs, lions or other captive wild animal, and argues that how we perceive these manipulations depends on whether or not a picture is framed as wildlife photography or art. “I am an artist. I make pictures rather than take them,” he says. “Nothing crosses the line in the art world. You can superimpose Krakatoa erupting in the background and Darth Vader coming over the hill.”

But if Yarrow insists that anything goes in matters of art, and that photographers are only at fault if they frame manipulated photographs as “wildlife photography” the position appears to be little more than an afterthought, and certainly not one Yarrow himself bothers to attend. In 2016, Yarrow published the book “Wild Encounters, Iconic Photographs Of The World’s Vanishing Animals And Cultures” with proceeds going to Tusk.

Image from Thriftbooks.com

From Yarrow’s own website:

A collection of unparalleled nature photography— spanning seven continents—by one of the world’s foremost photographers. Capturing the splendor and very soul of what remains wild and free in our world through incredibly intimate—close enough to touch—portraits, Wild Encounters chronicles legendary photographer David Yarrow’s photographic exploits in the field. Driven by a passion for sharing and preserving the Earth’s last great wild cultures and species, Yarrow is as much a conservationist as a photographer and artist.

From publicity blurbs for the book:

“From big cats to elephants and indigenous communities, Wild Encounters is a must-have for nature lovers, conservationists, and anyone who is inspired by all that remains wild. Featuring 160 of his most breathtaking photographs, Wild Encounters offers a truly intimate view of some of the world's most compelling—and threatened—species and captures the splendor and very soul of what remains wild and free in our world through portraits that feel close enough to touch.”

From critical reviews of Yarrow’s “Wild Encounters”:

"David Yarrow is one of the virtuosos of black and white wildlife photography….Arranged by the latitude of locale, his dramatic monochromatic photographs of wild and endangered animals appear to leap from the page. –– 2017 National Outdoor Book Award Winner

"Certainly, Wild Encounters is more than up-close wildlife photography, even though that is what stands out. . . . No matter the subject, however, Yarrow has captured what is wild and free and pulled us in for an unforgettable view.” —North American Nature Photography Association

"David Yarrow’s Wild Encounters is a triumph of conservation photography. The result is a triumph of both artistic mastery and emotional affect—a portfolio of compelling, visually arresting pictures that afford us the opportunity to fully grasp both the magnificence of animals in the wild, and the threats they face in a modern world.” — Sierra Magazine

"The haunting image of a female lion staring out from the cover of Wild Encounters: Iconic Photographs of the World’s Vanishing Animals and Cultures (Rizzoli, $75) conveys the immediacy of this volume of 160 photographs of the most vulnerable species and cultures around the world. Renowned wildlife photographer David Yarrow offers stunning and intimate images of elephants, lions, tigers, and bears in their native habitats across six continents, pulled from his two decades of experience in the field. This book clearly is driven by the author’s passion for conservation and highlights the real risks to the continued survival of these animals and their place on the planet. Beautiful and inspirational, this is a great gift book and a reminder of the wonder that can still be found in the world." —Big Sky Journal

These are great reviews of a wildlife photography book, until you realize they’re all describing a book that has an image of a captive bred, hand-raised, and trained to perform lion on the cover of it.

Yep, that’s Kevin Richardson’s Meg strolling along on cue, not a wild lion.

Cover photo from "Wild Encounters" as posted on the Ask Meg Facebook page.

When you understand that the iconic cover image of Yarrow’s self-described book of “nature photography” containing “the very soul of what remains wild” was made using a captive, trained lion, it rather destroys the mythos. When you consider that this image is, as pointed out proudly in Yarrow’s comments on his website, flashes up every our in Time Square, presented as the embodiment of wild lions, the knowledge that it was actually staged with a captive lion that Richardson raised and trained for use in photography, the falsehood takes on an oil-slicked sensation of abused trust. Then you start wondering how many other photos in Yarrow’s book were fabricated using captive animals in pseudo-environments, and how much of the “wildlife” shown isn’t wild at all.

Some photos containing captive animals might be pretty obvious, like the trained wolf striding down the bar top in Montana...

The Wolf of Main Street by David Yarrow. Photograph: David Yarrow Taken from Theguardian.com

Or the model posing with a trained cheetah described in the same article containing the above image. But the true origin of other photographs are impossible for readers to know without honest commentary by Yarrow. The black rhino is attributed only to Mkomazi Game Reserve, and that brings to mind wide expanses of African territory. But we know that the rhinos living on Mkomazi are actually confined to a small, tightly controlled, fenced and protected area due to poaching, and because of this, they’re habituated to human presence. Furthermore, the rhino sanctuary area at Mkomazi isn’t even open to the public, meaning that Yarrow was taken “behind the scenes” to photograph these carefully guarded and confined animals.

Th polar bears in Yarrow’s book were photographed on Barter Island, Alaska, an area where the locals make their own living taking tourists out for polar bear encounters, and where the polar bears are so habituated to human presence that they view them as part of the environment.

Other questions are raised when Yarrow describes a photo on his website differently than in other publications. Many of the commentary attached to lion photos discuss Richardson and his lions at great length but stop short of actually saying the photo is of a captive lion and was staged. Other photos of lions have little write up, but some are listed as having been taken at Dinokeng where Richardson’s sanctuary is located. In “Wild Encounters” multiple lion photos actually contain Richardson’s captive, trained lions. Black leopard are also a featured animal, and one which we know lives on Richardson’s sanctuary, but whether or not the animal photographed is Richardson’s is not clear.

None of these facts make the photos less beautiful, but the do make them all subtly told lies to the people who pick up a book titled “Wild Encounters” which has been advertised as “nature photography” containing “the very soul of what remains wild” and mistakenly believe they’re looking at wild animals in wild spaces.

Taking photos of captive animals who are either trained to interact with humans, or habituated to human presence and mixing them in with photos of actual wild animals, in the wild, and calling it a book on wildlife photography is a marketing lie contrived to sell a romanticized vision. Yarrow, who insisted in a 2018 interview that a photographer was only at fault if they presented a posed photo as wildlife photography instead of art photography, chose to intentionally advertise staged photos made using trained animals as ‘wildlife photography’ with the express purpose of misleading those he was marketing the book to. Yarrow’s website also contains dozens of staged photos alongside photos of actual wild animals all of them under the category “Wildlife”.

As we already noted, proceeds of “Wild Encounters” went to the Tusk, not Yarrow, this isn’t about making money.

It’s about ethics and integrity.

How can you lie to the public in order to teach them about an issue? If you’re willing to lie, and intentionally mislead the public about what you are showing them, how can they believe your word on what you’re saying?

The public at large is already being pulled in multiple directions with the bombardment of “special bonds” and highly clickable photos and videos of supposed animal champions interacting with captive wild animals, Kevin Richardson among them. Yarrow’s lavish, and galvanizing photography seems to offer the public the precise opposite of this click-bait human/animal interactions, showing, instead, the rugged beauty of “the very soul of what remains wild”. Yet tragically, this is just another carefully constructed lie, since many of Yarrow’s photos don’t show wild animals at all, but captive bred and trained to perform animals.

But then, for Yarrow, photography is just another business, and conservation is just another commodity to be bought and sold on the trade floor of public consumption.

BORED PANDA'S DUMPING OF DEAN SCHNEIDER

Bored Panda Promotes Dean Schneider, Then Grows Bored Of The Controversary

CWW logged in this morning with a big cup of coffee, and bright-eyed determination to write a more in-depth post about Bored Panda’s inaccurate, misleading, and irresponsible “spotlight” showcasing Dean Schneider the former (?) investment banker who “sold everything to go rescue mutilated animals in Africa” (or something like that).

After being tagged in the Facebook share of Bored Panda’s “spotlight” on Schneider, CWW debunked most of the photos used in it, pointing out that they either portrayed Dean interacting with animals in places that weren’t Hakuna Mapika, or that the animals shown were dead due to Schneider’s failure to care for them properly. While there were (for the situation) quite a lot of comments questioning the post, and/or linking to CWW and our articles about Dean, the vast majority of the thousands of comments were positive, praising of the interactions shown, and after CWW commented as well, and then made our own post in response to Bored Panda’s promotion of Schneider, we got some extremely amusing hate-comments from one fan in particular, which (in between curse words) suggested that we needed to get a lawyer and that they’d sue us for libel and slander. Goodness, the drama. The author of the Bored Panda post also commented, claiming that Dean Schneider had gone to CWW’s page to defend himself (more on that, later).

Needless to say, we were prepared to buckle down and hash out a thorough addressment of Schneider, and Bored Panda’s misrepresentation of him. However, we quickly discovered that Bored Panda has quietly removed the entire post, from both its website, and its Facebook Page.

Without public comment, or explanation, Bored Panda removed an article that had nearly 3,000 comments on its Facebook Page, and had been shared thousands, and thousands of times (we don’t have a screenshot, but it approached, if not surpassed tens of thousands of shares) and is now quietly going about its business as if that “spotlight” had never been published.

Without admitting that the “spotlight” they’d intentionally promoted was incorrect, and contained untrue elements, and had not been vetted, Bored Panda removed the entire thing like it never happened.

Without acknowledging that their publication–which was disseminated to millions of online readers who liked, commented, shared, and promoted the post–was completely full of lies, and self-serving promotional material which served to advertise someone who exploits animals for profit and is actively building his instagram followers, Bored Panda then retracted that publication.

And today, in place of the publication which was chocked full of photos showcasing Dean Schneider coddling lions and other big cats and captive wild animals, Bored Panda has neatly offered a publication addressing the fact that a woman was mauled by a jaguar after getting too close to it at a zoo. Because, you know, two days ago, it was in to promote a guy handling big cats, but today it’s in to point out that big cats are dangerous.

Unfortunately for both Bored Panda, and groups like CWW, the Internet never forgets. While Bored Panda has cut its losses (without actually acknowledging that they published false information, and misrepresented the content therein) and moved on to the next “big thing” Dean Schneider has–just in the last two days, after Bored Panda posted about him–racked up another 31,000 Instagram followers and counting, pushing him from 576,000 to 597,000. In addition, Bored Panda’s fake, unvetted post has been re-posted in multiple languages. Now, of course, Bored Panda has bolted for the proverbial door of responsibility, and removed their content (without admitting any wrong-doing) But the re-posts of their original article–along with the text and photos it used–live on, continuing to promote Dean and his interactions.

CWW has already spoken with the founder of Malkia Park, who expressed dismay over the fact that photos taken at Malkia in its early days, before it adopted a strict hands-off policy, were being used to erroneously promote Schneider and his continued interactions with captive big cats. Malkia Park’s founder is right to be frustrated, and not just because of the fact that out-of-context photos of her facility are being used to promote someone who actually parted ways with her after being told he would not be allowed to continue interacting with her animals. Now that Malkia Park is strictly hands-off in all aspects, its founder includes education about why it is never acceptable to handle captive wild animals, even using herself as an example, explaining that when she first founded Malkia Park, she thought she could handle animals, and still teach the public that handling them wasn’t good. But it quickly became obvious to her that by handling her animals, she was only setting the example that handling them was acceptable. Now Malkia Park’s founder strives to teach the public that the only way to respect captive wild animals is to refrain from touching them.

But in despite her efforts, she says, “I don’t know if they listen when they see all these Dean, Eduardo, Kevin…”

And why would the public listen to hardworking conservationists who are telling them that handling captive wild animals damages conservation when entities like Bored Panda are putting out “spotlights” that praise exploiters for handling captive wild animals? Bored Panda’s “spotlight” actually made a point of Schneider’s social media presence, saying “We can even call him a social media star since he has 567k followers on Instagram to like or positively comment on his adventures in South Africa.” Of course, Bored Panda *didn’t* mention the fact that not all the comments on Dean’s posts are positive, nor did they mention the fact that having so many followers who all seem positive and supportive is more a matter of weeding out “haters” and blocking them than of being without fault. And now, thanks in no small part to Bored Panda’s own false publications about Dean, his Instagram followers are up another 31,000.

And here’s the thing that we’ve pointed out again, and again, and will continue to point out until the public starts to really absorb it:

BEING A STAR ON SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS DOES NOT MAKE YOU A CONSERVATIONIST, OR AN EXPERT ON CAPTIVE WILD ANIMALS.

Yes, Dean Schneider is climbing toward a million followers. That doesn’t make him a conservationist. His entire Hakuna Mipaka “dream” was founded on visiting a lion farm and interacting with them, something he said he’d dreamed of doing his entire life.

Screenshot from one of Dean's Facebook videos.

Not of saving wild lions. Not of protecting them. Not of shutting down an industry based off exploiting them by letting humans interact with them. But Dean’s dream–as per his own words–were to go to Africa and interact with big cats. And that’s what he’s doing. He claims to have “given up everything” and articles like the one Bored Panda published suggest that Dean “sold all his things” to start Hakuna Mipaka.

Yet on Dean’s Facebook post announcing his departure for Africa, he tells people to swing by the Icon Club for his “goodbye event” which is being held there.

The Icon Club is considered a premier club by connoisseurs and just a table on the dance floor will run you the requirement of of $80 bottle-only alcohol consumption per person. “Party Packages” for smaller groups of people range from $1,000-$2,000 to reserve. And Schneider posted an open-door walk-in advertisement to his Facebook followers to just “join us to say good bye” before he left for South Africa. So maybe Dean sold all his things after he paid for his goodbye party? No? Maybe he never sold them at all?

Or, maybe, just like Serio who supposedly sold his house in Beverly Hills to move to Mexico, or Kevin Richardson who lives in an exclusive mansion, but makes no money off his animals, or The Real Tarzann, who lets celebrities play with captive animals, and travels from country to country, but does not make money off his antics, it just sounds better to tell a story where the “hero” gave up the good life to go do whatever he’s doing. And after all, the author of the Bored Panda “spotlight” says “I love telling stories”

“Hidreley” as the author’s name is listed even went so far as to post a screenshot from last year where Dean Schneirder (under the name Muhamed Johan Stroganov) made one comment under a post on CWW, cropping out the “36wks ago” from under the comment and saying “Dean goes to the page “Captive Wildlife Watchdog” and defends himself of so many accusations.” Hidreley was, of course, intentionally misleading commenters into thinking that Dean “goes” in the present tense (as in, is happening right now) to defend himself against CWW.

This is completely untrue.

CWW has had minimal interactions with Schneider, all of them a year or more in the past, and to call them “interactions” at all would be a stretch. On Instagram, and Facebook this same message was sent to us:

Contrary to this comment (which as we said, is from last year) Hakuna Mipaka does allow anyone to visit if they pay as a "volunteer". This includes people on their honeymoon who were allowed to interact with Dexter the lion, among other things. In addition, this comment "defends" against things like breeding which we've never suggested Dean does.

No questions we asked were answered, no real information was exchanged. Rather, Dean made this statement, and then blocked us. So, no, Dean did not “goes” to our page to “defends himself of so many accusations.”

After Bored Panda’s fake promotional post about Dean was made, and CWW countered with our own post on the matter, detailing the inaccuracies and misrepresentations. And, of course, that one super-fan (not just a fan! According to their own comments) accused us repeatedly of failing to provide “proof” of what we were saying.

If you happen to notice it "edited" under her comment, it's because she rewrote most of her comments repeatedly. They would invariably involve just explicatives but then she'd edit to add "facts".

What fans seem incapable of grasping is that we aren’t even putting that much effort into debunking the lies of people like Dean Schneider.

Dean’s Dad, Rolf Schneider is Chairman of the Board of Dr. Blumer & Partner which describes itself as a “Pioneer of quantitative investing”. Dean Schneider is currently listed on the company website as a financial planner. Edita Schneider (who, along with Dean, and several of his friends, is listed on the Hakuna Mipaka AG board) is listed on the company website as office manager/accounting. Also listed on the website of Dr. Blumer & Partner, are several companies which belong to the B&P Group. One of those companies is Life Gate AG, which specializes in, among other things, financial marketing and business start-ups and foundations.

Dean still lists Life Gate AG as where he works:

and one of his earliest videos from South Africa showing him and friends interacting with lions as a “Life Gate Incentive trip”.

We also know Dean was not just an “employee” at Life Gate AG, but rather he was an Authorized Signatory, meaning he had the authority to represent the entire company. And we know this article (which Life Gate AG has refuted, of course) that Life Gate AG, as a new company, brought in younger employees, offering them huge incentives–about $10,000 a month starting, to $20,000, or more–and remember Dean wasn’t just an employee, but also a signatory. The linked article likens Life Gate AG to a “chain letter” because new agents received the aforementioned huge bonuses, but then had to quickly bring in new customers for money, and new employees to bring in more new customers. New employees, of course, also received huge monetary compensation, while the first generation of employees were then made team leaders. While Dean appears now under the “former” employee category at Life Gate AG, he still lists Life Gate AG as his employer, and Dr. Blumer & Partner sill lists Dean as one of their financial advisors. It should also be noted that Rolf Schneider, Dean’s father is listed as both former and current under Life Gate AG, as movement within the company seems to constitute a listing under former for positions no long held, even though he’s still on the Board of Directors (and also an Authorized Signature, we might add).

Now, if we look at Hakuna Mipaka, we find that the Hakuna Mipaka Foundation was registered as a Non-Profit Making Organization 10/14/2016 which is around the same time that Dean began posting videos with the name, and precisely one day after Dean’s Facebook announcement that he’d bought property in South Africa and was moving there.

HMF listed the purpose of the company as:

The Foundation initiates, supports and operates projects worldwide for the protection of animals, especially wildlife. These include :, a. Projects aiming at the protection, care and / or release of, in particular, non-species-based livestock, wild or illegal animal trade or animals. B. Projects aimed at sensitizing people to the importance of nature and animals and the responsible use of nature and animals., C. the development and implementation of training programs and events that raise awareness of the importance of responsible use of animals and nature, the importance of animals for healthy ecosystems and, in particular, demonstrate that "coexistence" and a respectful handling of animals is quite possible., d. the support and establishment of facilities for the welfare of animals derived from non-species livestock, illegal livestock or illegal trafficking, in principle (if possible) with a view to subsequent (re) release; e. the support of institutions or aspirations that have the same or similar goals.

HMF listed branch offices as “Charitable Institutions”

But less than a year after it was registered, the Hakuna Mipaka Foundation was put into liquidation, and in its place, on May 7 2017 Hakuna Mipaka AG was registered as a Joint Stock Company.

But HMAG lists its current purposes as:

The purpose of the company is the trading and distribution of products of all kinds and the provision of various services such as: - Marketing of advertising media (people, animals, etc.) -Human Resources Consulting -Project Management -Organization Development -Business Development -The The Company may also engage in any other activity that is directly or indirectly related to the purpose of the Company. The Company may establish branches and subsidiaries both domestically and abroad, and participate in other domestic and foreign companies, as well as any business that is directly or indirectly related to its purpose. The Company may acquire, encumber, dispose of and administer real estate domestically and abroad.

HMAG lists branch offices as “non-specifed wholesale trade”

Dean Schneider is listed as the main signatory/director for both versions of Hakuna Mipaka, but the difference between the companies is profound.

This is a text-book bait and switch company start-up. Dean set up Hakuna Mipaka Foundation as a non-profit dedicated to animals, gained huge amounts of followers within just a few months and then started the liquidation process of the non-profit and re-registered his company as Hakuna Mipaka AG, a Joint Stock Company. The evidence of this is right here on the internet for anyone to find. He’s not trying to hide this. And CWW isn’t making it up out of “jealousy” or any other reason as we’re so often accused of. All we’re doing is pointing out the truth. And it’s not about money, or making money. We don’t care that Dean is rich, we care that he’s lying about being rich, and about making money off his Joint Stock Company by interacting with animals. Dean is not in this to save animals by making people love them, he’s in it to make money off making people love him, and his interactions with animals.

As has been said numerous times in recent discussions CWW has had with people:

“Animals don’t need your money or your fan-hood. They need habitat to be protected, they need to be left alone, they need for people to stop using them as a platform to get famous and they need the public to stop supporting people who used animals as props and platforms to get famous.”

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

When Animal Exploiters Try To Silence Their Opposition

This post is going to be very long, dry (okay, maybe more like filled with dry wit) and full of legal information. We apologize in advance for that. But through this note, CWW hopes to give our readers a better insight into the constant fight we wage in reporting on exploiters like Doc Antle, Eduardo Serio, Dean Schneider, Kevin Richardson, etc. and the lengths to which exploiters like them will go to try and stop us from providing the public with facts that counter their claims and lies.

Last weekend CWW posted a Note on Facebook about Doc Antle’s Rare Species Fund, which had been promoted on the Faulkner Instagram page. Specifically Faulkner had claimed that the Rare Species Fund saved animals and returned them to their natural habitat. (It doesn’t) Within a few days of making the post, we received notice that a DMCA complaint had been filed against us, and our Note had been removed because Facebook complies with the notice and takedown procedures defined in section 512(c) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

If you don’t understand the DMCA, copyright laws, or the fair use doctrine, this seems like a straightforward case of CWW using something we didn’t have a right to use, and us getting called on it.

But it’s not.

To begin, let’s explore the primary terms involved here.

Copyright.

Copyright law grants authors and artists the exclusive right to make and sell copies of their works, the right to create derivative works, and the right to perform or display their works publicly. These exclusive rights are subject to a time limit, and generally expire 70 years after the author's death.

Fair Use Doctrine

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. This includes screen captures and screenshots.

Digital Millennium Copyright Act

The DMCA heightens the penalties for copyright infringement on the Internet (In a very simplified nutshell)

Digital Millennium Copyright Act Section 512(c) Also referred to as the “Safe Harbor” provision.

Section 512 of the DMCA established a system for copyright owners and online entities to address online infringement, including limitations on liability for compliant service providers to help foster the growth of internet-based services. Congress intended for copyright owners and internet service providers to cooperate to detect and address copyright infringements. To qualify for protection from infringement liability, a service provider must fulfill certain requirements, generally consisting of implementing measures to expeditiously address online copyright infringement.

So, in the simplest of terms, if you make something, you own the copyrights to that something, unless someone uses it via the Fair Use Doctrine for the purposes defined by that Doctrine. If you use copyrighted things outside of the Fair Use Doctrine (like republishing someone’s book, or posting their artwork and calling it your own) the actual copyright holder can lodge a DMCA complaint against you, because copyrights.

Under the DMCA section 512(c) sharing sites like Facebook are exempt from all liability associated with copyright infringement if they immediately remove content that has a complaint lodged against it.

It’s very important to understand that within the entire ecosystem we’ve just described the only part that Facebook plays is as a sharing site which participates within “Safe Harbor” provision of the DMCA, and that as a participant of the “Safe Harbor” provision, the only thing Facebook needs to do, is remove content and inform the person who posted it that it was removed. That’s it.

It’s also vital to understand that Facebook’s compliance with the “Safe Harbor” provision, and the removal of content in no way verifies that the removed content was actually infringing on anyone’s copyright. The “Safe Harbor” provision doesn’t require participants to remove only content that constitutes copyright infringement, it requires participants to remove any content which has had a complaint lodged against it regardless of whether that complaint is valid or false.

One of the most contended issues with the “Safe Harbor” provision, which has been debated, and researched by numerous groups, is the fact that complying with it in order to be exempt from liability it constitutes “prior restraint” something that is prohibited by the First Amendment.

Prior restraint is what happens when speech is punished before there has been any adjudication to prove that it deserves to be punished.

The reason the First Amendment prohibits prior restraint is that it does no good to punish speech, such as by removing it, if the First Amendment would otherwise protect it – once it has been removed the damage will have already been done. In the case of the “Safe Harbor” provision, Facebook (or other sharing sites) remove content which has a DMCA complaint lodged against it before anyone, including the complainant ever proves it actually needs to be removed. They’re not required by law to ever vet a DMCA complaint at all.

This means that an entity like CWW–who uses various forms of media to critique, report on, educate about, and provide commentary on groups which exploit, abuse, and damage captive wild animals under the Fair Use Doctrine–can be illegally censured by the very abusers and exploiters they’re making a stand against.

And because of how the DMCA complaint system works, accusers are permitted to simply lodge complaints without validating them. It’s up to innocent victims of those complaints, like CWW, or those who are the victim of false or incorrectly made complaints, to send a counter-notice which includes consent to the jurisdiction of a federal court just to try and establish that they are, in fact, innocent of any copyright infringement.

To make matters worse, much of the time, completely legal content (which CWW’s Note was) is automatically removed because sharing sites like Facebook utilize automated takedown systems, which do nothing but receive complaints, and automatically remove the linked content. This has created an ongoing issue with poorly reported complaints, or false complaints being honored, while legally posted content is removed.

So what happened with CWW’s Rare Species Fund Note?

On Monday night, we received this notice from Facebook:

Followed by this warning:

The key points in this complaint (shown in the middle photo) are that the “Rights Owner” is listed as Nicholas Balestracci and that the “Copyrighted Work” is listed as “A photo”.

As you can see in the above screenshot, we were directed to contact Nicholas Balestracci, the complaining party, directly in order to resolve the issue. Considering that a minimum of 45 photos had been used in our Note about the Rare Species Fund, and no one had contacted CWW through any vector about the erroneous use of their material, we suspected that the complaint had been lodged with the purpose of having the entire article removed, rather than just “a photo”.

Nevertheless, we directly emailed Nicholas Balestracci as we’d been directed by Facebook to do.

We received a quick reply, which gloriously showcases how animal exploiters like Doc Antle, and those who work for him, abuse the laws meant to protect others in order to stop entities like CWW from reporting on, and educating the public about, their lies and damaging behavior.

This is the reply we received from Nicholas Balestracci (copied and pasted verbatim below, rather than shown in a screenshot, because, well, Mr. Balestracci’s accusations over screenshots is why this post is being made)

To whom it may concern,

I am the official photographer for the Myrtle Beach Safari. All of the photos taken AT the Myrtle Beach Safari are produced by me or my team. I do not have your “post” in a screenshot so I can not point out specifically. However almost every screenshot your post contained of our (Myrtle Beach Safari, Doc Antle, etc.) social media posts and other photos you obtained through the internet are taken by me or produced by my team. I am either tagged in those photos/posts or have posted the photo myself in some format.

If you continue to post ANY of my photographs, videos, etc. then I will continue to report.

I do not want my photos used for the reason you are using them.

Please DO NOT respond or contact me again for any reason.

Thank you,

Mr. Balestracci

Anyone with even minimal legal knowledge will already be laughing at the content of this reply, but let’s go ahead and unpack this response in detail.

“I am the official photographer for the Myrtle Beach Safari. All of the photos taken AT the Myrtle Beach Safari are produced by me or my team.”

Whoooo-boy. Okay.

Firstly, Nicholas Balestracci, as per the “About” section of his own Facebook page, has been the “official photographer for the Myrtle Beach Safari” since early April 2018. Yep, the guy who filed a DMCA complaint for “a photo” from among 45 photos, and who claimed that “All” photos “taken AT the Myrtle Beach Safari” are copyrighted by him personally, has only been taking photos at MBS for 10 months, according to his own timeline.

Secondly, the only visual indication of where any of the photos we utilized might have been taken is the “Location” shown on the various posts, something that can be added and edited multiple times, and does not have any legal obligation to be the actual location depicted in the post. In addition, there were a minimum of 45 photos used in our post, many of which were not labeled as MBS, and some of which were taken at a different facility located on an entirely separate continent.

Third, no, not all the photos taken “AT” MBS are produced by Mr. Balestracci, or his team. As just mentioned, Mr. Balestracci has been employed at MBS for 10 months (per his own biography)–not even one calendar year–so again, no, not every photo taken “AT” MBS was produced by Mr. Balestracci or his team. Prior to April 2018 Mr. Balestracci was not even employed at MBS to be taking photos there.

Fourth, just for readers’ reference the Instagram pages listed below, are just the ones we know about, which are directly associated with MBS, and for which Mr. Balestracci is essentially claiming to own copyrights for all visible content within.

@Rarespeciesfund

@Docantle

@Kodyantle

@tawny.thetiger

@Myrtlebeachsafari

@Tiger411

@china.york

@TheRealTarzann

@gibbonmom

@mokshabybee_tigers

@zooinfo411

@tigershakti

Furthermore, the two sites listed below have shared videos taken at MBS, without referencing or crediting Balestracci, yet Balestracci seems to have no issue with these “copyright infringements”.

@whathapndng

@worldstar

He even promoted one of them on his own Facebook page, on January 26th, linking to it, and cheerfully announcing that the video he took (but for which he is not credited) made World Star! The video, which shows The Real Tarzann playing with a baboon, has garnered over half a million views.

Guess that indignant copyright rage he had going on is situational.

“I do not have your “post” in a screenshot so I can not point out specifically.”

Wait, what?

We’ve by now established that DMCA complaints heavily favor the complainant. But even so, lodging a DMCA complaint is not *quite* as simple as writing a sentence or two to the host website.

In order to lodge a DMCA complaint, you have to (or you’re *supposed to*) provide detailed information about where the work appears with your permission, include original copies, where it’s being infringed upon, contact details, etc.

Facebook uses an online form for DMCA complaints–though they encourage users to contact the person they feel is infringing on their copyright before filing a DMCA complaint, in order to exhaust all venues of settlement before engaging in a DMCA complaint. Mr. Balestracci opted to skip that step and go straight to filing against CWW. The requirements for filing a DMCA complaint with Facebook’s online form has been directly copied and pasted here:

• Your complete contact information (full name, mailing address and phone number).*

• A description of the copyrighted work that you claim has been infringed.

• A description of the content on our site that you claim infringes your copyright.

• Information reasonably sufficient to permit us to locate the material on our site. The easiest way to do this is by providing web addresses (URLs) leading directly to the allegedly infringing content.

• A declaration that:

• You have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted content described above, in the manner you have complained of, is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.

• The information in your notice is accurate.

• Under penalty of perjury, you are the owner or authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive copyright that is allegedly infringed.

• Your electronic signature or physical signature.

• *Please note that we regularly provide your name, contact information and the contents of your report to the person who posted the content you are reporting. If you are an authorized representative submitting a report, we provide the name of the organization or client that owns the right in question. You may wish to provide a professional or business email address for this reason.

So Mr. Balestracci took the time to provide all of that information and lodge a DMCA complaint, but in his email reply to CWW he claimed that because he didn’t have a screenshot directly in front of him, he couldn’t tell us which photo in our post was copyrighted by him.

But it gets even better.

“However almost every screenshot your post contained of our (Myrtle Beach Safari, Doc Antle, etc.) social media posts and other photos you obtained through the internet are taken by me or produced by my team. I am either tagged in those photos/posts or have posted the photo myself in some format.”

Firstly, “almost every screenshot” was not cited on the DMCA complaint which Mr. Balestracci filed against CWW. “A photo” was listed.

Secondly, “almost” isn’t even a legally binding term, and “almost” is not the same as “a”.

Thirdly, as we’ve established, no, all photos taken “of” MBS are not, in fact, taken by you, or produced by your team. As per the biography listed on your own photography website, you are currently twenty-two years old. So, for example, this photo of Kody Antle as a three or four year old was not taken by you, nor your team, as you weren’t even born in the mid-80s when that photo was taken. And if Kody Antle put up a photograph taken when he was a child, on his own Instagram page, you don’t get to claim the copyright to it.

Fourth, nope, sorry honey, you aren’t tagged in most of the photos used, and as we just mentioned regarding time frame, you did not post them in “some format” from all the various pages either attributed to MBS or Instagram profiles which belong to the thousands of guests who have visited MBS. Nor are you tagged or credited in all of the 11,000+ Instagram search results under #rarespeciesfund.

POP QUIZ FOR READERS!

Mr. Balestracci stated in his letter that he was the “official photographer” for Myrtle Beach Safari and that our “post contained of our (Myrtle Beach Safari, Doc Antle, etc.) social media posts” so does that mean the DMCA complaint was made on behalf of Myrtle Beach Safaris, and that MBS’s copyrights were being infringed upon by our use?

How closely have you been reading?

Answer:

NOPE!

This DMCA complaint was NOT lodged on behalf of MBS, and therefore the copyrights in question are NOT copyrights held by MBS, or Doc Antle, even though Mr. Balestracci’s email reply clearly implies that all photos taken at MBS or posted on accounts run by MBS (including Doc Antle’s) are copyrighted by Mr. Balestracci himself.

Confused?

Details matter.

On the formal DMCA complaint Facebook sent us, the Rights Owner was listed as Nicholas Balestracci. Contact for Mr. Balestracci (which we aren’t going to publish) was the email address associated with Balestracci’s personal photography business website, Nick B Photos.

Facebook’s online form for DMCA complaints specifies “If you are an authorized representative submitting a report, we provide the name of the organization or client that owns the right in question.” But within the DMCA complaint lodged against CWW, the only entity listed is Nicholas Balestracci. And the only email provided was directly to Nicholas Balestracci’s photography company, Nick B Photos.

Myrtle Beach Safaris was not named.

Doc Antle was not named.

No email for Myrtle Beach Safari was provided.

No email for Doc Antle was provided.

Therefore the Mr. Balestracci lodged a DMCA complaint on behalf of himself, and his personal photography company, not Myrtle Beach Safari or Doc Antle, and any copyrights owned by MBS are completely irrelevant to this entire situation.

Basically, everything Mr. Balestracci is insinuating and claiming in his email response to CWW, all of his assertions that any photo taken from MBS social media profiles, and any photo taken “AT” MBS, are owned by him and his “team”, are completely invalid.

Only a photo taken by Mr. Balestracci himself, and to which Mr. Balestracci owns the exclusive copyrights, is even eligible to be the “A photo” he named in his DMCA complaint. And none of the photos utilized in CWW’s Note were taken from Mr. Balestracci’s photography website.

Having permission to create and disseminate media on the behalf of an employer does not equate to owning the exclusive copyrights to that media. Mr. Balestracci, by his own wording, produces content (photos, videos, etc.) as an employee of T.I.G.E.R.S. Myrtle Beach Safaris (full name of the institute) which was founded by, and is directed by, and owned by Mahamayavi Bhagavan “Doc” Antle. Therefore Doc Antle would actually retain sole proprietorship to the content created for all of his companies. Mr. Balestracci might well have rights to utilize certain photos he took or content he created, for his own purposes, but his rights would be second to those of his employer, Doc Antle and T.I.G.E.R.S. Myrtle Beach Safari.

If that were case it would actually eliminate every photo in our post from the purview of the DMCA complaint that Mr. Balestracci filed against CWW.

Now, here’s the part that will cause anyone who supports what CWW is doing, and what we stand for, to spit coffee and curse.

None of what we just explained matters as far as DMCA complaints against us go.

Facebook’d automated system for fielding DMCA complaints doesn’t vet the complaints. It doesn’t research them. It doesn’t question them.

It receives a complaint, and it removes the content listed therein. Period.

Facebook automatically removes content named in DMCA complaints even if the complaint is false, and the complainant is intentionally lodging the complaint in order to have an article they don’t agree with removed.

Yes, CWW could send a counter-notice, to the DMCA complaint lodged against us, but doing so means we would have to, for lack of a better description, invite Mr. Balestracci to sue us, if he chooses to continue claiming we infringed on his copyrights (which we did not) as well as provide him with court jurisdiction information so that he can readily file a suit against us if he chooses to. Aside from the repugnance of asking a victim to help their accuser further attack them, it’s simply not worth our effort pursue a counter-notice. Even if Mr. Balestracci folded (doubtful, considering the arrogance and self-importance involved with him attempting to claim copyright ownership of over 11,000 photos pertaining to MBS, by whom he’s been employed for only 10 months) and he gave consent for our Note to be reposted, it would take an average of 14 business days for Facebook to repost our content. It’s easier just to repost it ourselves, and then take the opportunity to give our readers a window into what happened.

And filing a counter-notice would probably be pointless anyway, from the standpoint that Mr. Balestracci made it quite clear in his email response to us that he would continue to file DMCA complaints for ANY photo, video or other media that we use which shows Myrtle Beach Safaris, which he continued to refer to with the term “my”.

“If you continue to post ANY of my photographs, videos, etc. then I will continue to report.”

Since Facebook’s automated DMCA complaint system does not verify the complaints lodged, it will simply continue to remove our content every time Mr. Balestracci files a DMCA complaint, even though he doesn’t actually own the copyrights he’s claiming we’re infringing upon. Yes, this is illegal of him, but because of the manner in which DMCA complaints are handled, the only way someone like Mr. Balestracci will be held legally accountable for his behavior is if someone like CWW expends the money and effort to pursue legal action against him. And the fact is, he just isn’t worth the bother. In the grand scheme of things, he’s just another spoiled, self-important young man who thinks he can rearrange the universe to suite himself.

Mr. Balestracci explained his own actions in filing the DMCA complaint against CWW in his email response to us, and his reasoning unsurprisingly has nothing to do with copyrights, or our legal right to use media of Myrtle Beach Safari through the Fair Use Doctrine.

“I do not want my photos used for the reason you are using them.”

This entire chain of events started with a young man posting incorrect facts, misleading information, and ignorant content on his Instagram post because he refused “to listen to leadership he didn’t respect” and it’s arrived at its current state because another young man doesn’t “want my photos used for the reason you are using them.”

This is what CWW is fighting against. A public who not only doesn’t want to know the truth, but also doesn’t want their own facts handed back to them in support of the truth they’re trying to deny. Mr. Balestracci doesn’t have to “want” us to use media from MBS’s social media accounts to show that Doc Antle’s Rare Species Fund involves cub petting and pay-to-play schemes, but he legally can’t stop us from utilizing media associated with MBS through Fair Use Doctrine, when we’re reporting the truth about MBS. Never mind the fact that he’s asserting that every photo on any site that portrays Doc Antle’s Myrtle Beach Safari is exclusively his property.

Unfortunately, since it was created in 1998, the DMCA has only become more, and more of a quagmire, especially with the introduction of, and poorly overseen, systems of automated complaint and take-down used by the majority of sharing websites like Facebook. Add to that the fact that even those who file counter-notices, and bring lawsuits agains those who have falsely accused them of infringement get little or no justice, even with new laws which are supposed to curb false DMCA complaints, and it’s a shitshow, at best. Some even argue that the DMCA is unconstitutional on its face because it interferes with free speech. The damage to the First Amendment, and the destruction of Fair Use Doctrine caused by the DMCA has been studied by Law entities, and covered by multiple scholarly sites. The abuse of the DMCA enjoyed by entities who lodge DMCA complaints simply to get content they don’t like removed, has been widely and repeatedly discussed.

The truth will out in the end, though. It always does.

CWW is not going to stop posting about Myrtle Beach Safari, or Doc Antle, or the lies, abuse, and misleading fake information they sell to the ignorant public, simply because a kid with a camera gets his nose out of joint and throws a temper tantrum. At the end of the day, Mr. Nicholas Balestracci is the one who comes out looking like an ignorant ass, attempting to claim copyright ownership of any content posted on more than a dozen social media accounts, of any age, at any time, along with more than 11,000 Instagram search results.

CWW is going to keep doing what we do, while exploiters like Mr. Balestracci are going to keep doing everything they can, legal or not, to try and stop us. Let them try. We’re not the ones breaking the law here.

Headline Image attributed to Pat_S on TammyBruce.com

Research Into The Rare Species Fund

Research Into The Rare Species Fund Might Make Them Go Extinct (Despite Their Attempt To Thwart CWW’s Freedom Of Speech)

One of the greatest challenges facing our endangered wildlife is simply the failure of the public to properly research the numerous exploitive ploys being hocked on every street corner within the conservation industry. The explosion of social media in the last decade–and along with it, the “feel good and do what you want, and don’t respect anyone who knows more than you do, but is a “Debbie-downer” mindset–has given rise tot he most widely embraced and damaging exploitive, pseudo-conservation organizations ever seen. At no other time in the history of humanity has there ever been organizations celebrated by hundreds of thousands or millions of people for doing nothing but use and abuse animals, such as we now face. Some of the abusive and exploitive social media pseudo-conservationists are new, like Black Jaguar White Tiger, established specifically to take advantage of the surge in the social media world. Others, like Do Antle, and his family, of T.I.G.E.R.S. have been in existence for decades but are now enjoying a massive growth in their popularity, building false reputations as conservationists which have been eagerly embraced by a public too lazy, or ignorant, to complete even the most basic research about the exploiters they’re so willing to tout as helpful to the animals which are actually being abused by them.

Here is a chronological list of the USDA violations, complaints, fines, and issues of abuse attached to Bhagavan Antle (Doc Antle)

Our case in point regarding failure to research? A post from last week made on Instagram by Faulkner. With 121,000 followers on Instagram, Faulkner is, relatively speaking, a lightweight in the social media game. But with friends like @therealtarzann (whose follower count climbed to 4.8 million after he visited a private rhino farm (the owners of whom are actually pro-rhino horn trade) and called it conservation) @docantle and @Kodyantle, Faulkner understands that the fastest way to gain followers is to fake some conservation. Enter Faulkner’s Instagram post, which contained a photo of a tiger cub being coddled, and a video of the same, with text stating that Faulkner had already donated $5,000 to Doc Antle’s Rare Species Fund. Faulkner went on in their post to state that they’ll match other donations to the RSF up to $10,000 USD.

Text accompanying the post by Faulkner.

It’s unclear how many comments might have been made questioning the actions of Faulkner, as the majority of negative comments have been carefully deleted, including multiple responses to the handful of critical comments which do remain. Apparently Faulkner doesn’t “respect” those who know more than they do, and who is trying to educate them, either.

The circled replies have all been removed.

In addition to weeding out any negative comments, Faulkner was quick to defend their post, insisting that the cub shown was “rescued” and was being held “before it went to its natural habitat” challenging one commenter by asking “How much have you donated to conservation of animals?” And claiming that the Rare Species Fund is “making a huge difference in conservation”.

Comments questioning Faulkner's post.

If only Faulkner had bothered to do basic research (or if they cared more about the truth than getting followers) they’d know that they haven’t donated any money to conservation at all, they’ve just help support a decades-old empire of animal abuse and exploitation, which for the Antles, is a family affair. Doc Antle and his son Kody have even joked about their exploitation spanning decades, taking matching photos of themselves 30 years apart sauntering along with captive bred tigers on chain leashes.

From the 1980s, to the 1990s, to the 2000s and moving into the 2020s, Doc Antle and T.I.G.E.R.S. have bred batch, after batch, after batch of big cat cubs which are used for cub petting, before being sold off to parts unknown, or used as breeding stock for more cubs.

In almost 40 years not one single animals produced by the Antles, or involved with the Rare Species Fund has ever set foot in the wild.

Furthermore, the Antles persist in marketing genetically manipulated animals like Ligers as “natural” variants of big cats which are actually healthier and longer lived than non-hybrids, even though the issues associated with captive inbreeding of white tigers and hybrids have been scientifically proven and documented again, and again.

Since Faulkner insisted that the Rare Species Fund was “saving species” and “restoring them to a natural habitat” we performed a basic hashtag search of #rarespeciesfund on Instagram. Here are links to a *small* selection of what we found under the “recent” tab. They are now listed in links, rather than photos. Some posts contain multiple photos.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BstEGutgsGq/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=rvfzoxnhiwym

https://www.instagram.com/p/BmwcFJ1BvUO/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=p4eepu7x1tqj

https://www.instagram.com/p/Btq_pF0Akgu/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=r8pk7cpdactt

Paying to play with cubs, paying to swim with cubs, breeding more cubs for more people to pay to play with. All in the name of the Rare Species Fund.

Yeah, what is CWW thinking? The Rare Species Fund clearly has the corner on conserving big cats, and getting them back into their natural habitat!

Pay to play is the name of the game at the Samutprakarn Wildlife Park aka the Samut Prakan Crocodile Farm and Zoo.

Of course, only the RSF refers to it as the Samutprakarn Wildlife Park in their promotional media pertaining to “hand delivery” of “the first uniquely colored tigers anywhere in Asia.” The rest of Thailand calls it the Samut Prakan Crocodile Farm and Zoo, and it might sound familiar to readers because in December of 2018, it made International headlines when photos of its animal hit the airwaves, showcasing a long history of abuse and neglect.

Photo by Somchai Poomlard) Please credit and share this article with others using this link:https://www.bangkokpost.com/news/general/1594182/rest-ordered-for-skinny-elephants-at-samut-prakan-zoo. View our policies at http://goo.gl/9HgTd and http://goo.gl/ou6Ip. © Bangkok Post Public Company Limited. All rights reserved.

The zoo was subsequently ordered by Thailand’s Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation to rest the elephants and put them on a proper diet.

Tiger at Samut Prakan Crocodile Farm and Zoo photo taken by visiter.

And we aren’t the only ones pointing out the Rare Species Fund’s participating in importing tigers to abusive pits of misery like Samut Prakan Crocodile Farm and Zoo.

Yes, just a little research into the Rare Species Fund might well push it from rarity to extinction. And would that be just awful?

Please, please, kids, just do your own research. We’re not asking you to “listen to leadership you don’t respect” we’re just trying to get you to think for yourselves before you publicly devote yourselves to groups who don’t care about you, or the animals you’re trying to save. We’re sorry that real conservation is “boring” and doesn’t involve handling cubs, playing with big cats, and interacting with captive bred wild animals, but anyone who tries to tell you that holding cubs bred in captivity will save wild animals is lying to you.

Anyone who breeds wild animals in captivity, handles captive wild animals, and interacts with big cats, or other captive wild animals and claims that they’re doing so for the purpose of raising awareness about conservation and supporting conservation is lying.

Period.

No exceptions.

Dean Schneider And Lion ALERT

Dean Schneider Helps Showcase The Exploitation of Lion ALERT

Dean Schneider has proof that captive bred lions can be released back into the wild!

Just kidding, that’s a lie.

It was a lie when we typed it just now, and it was a lie when Dean Schneider said it on his video.

Dean hasn’t seen any proof that captive bred lions have been successfully released into the wild.

No one has.

What Dean’s actually done, is take a note from The Real Tarzann, and visited an exploitive breeding facility which presents itself as being part of conservation. Readers might remember Tarzann “saving” rhinos from poaching a couple of months ago. It caused his follower count to fly up to the millions. The rhinos involved weren’t wild, though. They were owned by private rhino ranchers. The same ranchers who are lobbying to reinstate the trade of rhino horn because they have warehouses of horn harvested from their cattle rhinos, and they need to be able to sell it somewhere. Yeah, nothing is ever as good as it seems with shysters like Tarzann and Schneider.

In Schneider’s case, he paid a visit (probably literally) to Lion ALERT/Antelope Park in Zimbabwe. For those inside lion conservation, Lion ALERT has been a millstone of exploitation for over a decade now, slickly presented, with just enough scientific lingo that anyone without a solid grasp of ecology, biology, and conservation, buys into their bullshit hook line and sinker. It could be suggested that Eduardo Serio might have studied Lion ALERT before founding Black Jaguar White Tiger. After all, Lion ALERT has 4 Stages for it’s captive raised lions to be reintroduced into the wild. Just like BJWT, however, Lion ALERT has never actually used all of its much-discussed “stages”. Just like Serio’s pets always stall out at “Stage 2”, none of Lion ALERT’s cats have ever made it beyond Stage 2. Not in over ten years.

If you go looking for the history of Lion ALERT, don’t be surprised if you can’t find a concise timeline. That’s because they’ve shuffled themselves around like a huge live version of the shell game. Be aware that Lion ALERT and Antelope Park attempt to keep distance between themselves but are indelibly linked and partnered. Lion Alert was founded in 2005 by Andrew Connolly. Connolly had already been working in the African tourism industry, arranging animal encounters for tourists since 1998, and in 1999 he developed the “African Lion Rehabilitation & Release into the Wild Program.” That last sounds pretty awesome, but when you look at the actuality, it just represents multiple “walk with lions” and “cub petting” ventures which all claim that the cubs being held by tourists will later be released into the wild. Because we’ve never heard that one before….

Since it was founded in 2005, Lion ALERT has bred a whole bunch of lions, hosted thousands of tourists to handle, play with and walk with those lions, and has released precisely zero lions into the wild. Yes, the lions seen in Dean’s video seem to be out in open areas, but Dean himself states that the lions are in a 200 hectare enclosure.

To give readers some perspective on this, 200 hectares is about 494 acres. Central Park, in New York City is 840 square acres. So look at this photo:

Now, cut the Park in half, and you have the area of land Dean is referring to where, according to Dean, captive bred lions have been successfully released into the “wild” and are living and hunting and breeding in the “wild.”

Yes, it’s all about spinning reality to sound like a good lie. Lion ALERT places breeding pairs into larger enclosures and allows them to breed. So does Ukutula, Lion Park, and every other predator encounter in South Africa. It doesn’t mean that the captive bred lions are living in the wild, and it doesn’t mean they’ve been successfully released into the wild. For every snazzy publicity stunt like this where Lion ALERT is touted as leading the way in lions conservation, there are dozens of issues spanning from shortly after they were founded, to the present.

There have been situations of selling surplus lions as covered in this 2008 post (prepare to read a little, there are multiple responses from the involved parties)

Please note that the statement issued in reply to an article criticizing ALERT, made by the PR Manager of Antelope Park (where ALERT is situated) states that:

“No lion from Antelope Park has ever been, and never will be, intentionally sold for canned hunting.”

This is basic PR maneuvering. There is no actual promise that lions who have been sold won’t end up in the canned hunting industry, there’s just the promise that the part won’t intentionally sell them into canned hunting. The PR manager goes on to make a point of how the export documents has a pre-condition declaring that the lions could not be used for canned hunting, and that they were “monitored by the relevant wildlife authorities” to assure the provisions of this sale were upheld.

What the PR doesn’t clarify is what happened to the lions after ALERT’s Antelope Park sold them. The only stipulations involved that first sale, and there was no clause forbidding the receiver from turning around and immediately selling the lions to various canned hunting outfits. This is what’s known as the middleman highway. So long as ALERT can declare that they, personally, have never sold lions into canned hunting, they can state that they don’t support the industry. But the truth is, dozens of their homebred lions could well be hanging on the walls of trophy hunters. Once lions are sold to a middleman, they stop being ALERT’s problem.

There are numerous other articles informed by lion conservation experts which repeatedly point out the fact that Lion ALERT literally breeds lions to use in tourist petting schemes, then places the lions in “Stages” which it claims will end in wild release. According to Lion ALERT, it utilizes 4 Stages:

Stage 1: Around 3 months and upwards until 18 months old: the cubs are taken on walks in the bush to help them become familiar with their natural surroundings. At 18 months to 2½ years human contact is removed and they are given the opportunity to hone their hunting skills by taking part in Night and Day Encounters in a safe and secure environment (fenced off, no humans).

Stage 2: The lions are released in a pride into a large enclosure where they can start to live as a wild pride, hunting and fending for themselves. They are closely monitored for research purposes; there is no human contact or intervention.

Stage 3: The pride is relocated to a larger area, where they will spend the rest of their lives. This area is big enough to have many different species in it, including competitive ones. In this stage, the pride breeds cubs which will experience no human intervention.

Stage 4: Cubs born in Stage 3 will be raised by the pride in a totally natural environment, and when old enough, can be relocated into those areas of Africa that need them.

The problems here are numerous. For one, these stages sound good, but “Stage 1” starts with cubs that are 3 months old, without explaining where those cubs come from. They’re bred onsite, but that detail is strategically left out because admitting to breeding lions in captivity is bad for business. Then there’s the fact that in ten years, Lion ALERT has never gotten any lions beyond “Stage 2” where Dean filmed them. As we’ve already established, “Stage 2 is half the size of Central Park in New York City. And Dean calls the cubs there “wild born” but according to Lion ALERT’s own website, only the cubs born in Stage 3 will be “raised by the pride in a totally natural environment” and will eventually be released into the wild. But if the cubs in Dean’s video are in “Stage 4” (which is where Lion ALERT says cubs destined for the wild will be raised) that would mean that “Stage 4” the “totally natural environment” is only half the size of Central Park. The other option, of course, is that the cubs Dean is calling “wild born” are just cubs that were born onsite, and which will later be used to breed more animals, and/or sold off to middlemen and end up who knows where. Neither option has anything to do with functional lion conservation.

And experts agree with that fact.

This screenshot showcases just a handful of the problems experts have with Lion ALERT. Yes, we underlined a few pointed sentences which specify that no captive raised lions have ever successfully been released into the wild. Because, you know, it’s nice when experts back up the facts we’ve presented that people just don’t want to acknowledge.

You can read the very long, but very informative thread from whence the above screenshot was taken here.

There is only one “scientific” paper associated with Lion ALERT and it was written by one of their own staff back in 2013. Furthermore, the article only discusses the proposal of a framework for the release of captive bred lions, it doesn’t document any actual release.

There’s even evidence that Lion ALERT has intentionally thwarted screenings of Blood Lions because BL shows that breeding lions for tourism is not functional conservation.

The rest of these articles all raise the same concerns and issues over and over again, all pointing out that Lion ALERT is just another breeding facility with better PR to create facade of lion conservation. Spend some time researching Lion ALERT for yourself. Pay close attention to dates and details, however, as multiple articles put out by Lion ALERT itself, or supported by them, which praise ALERT discuss the fact that “next year” lions are due to be released into the wild. The problem is, these articles range in date from around 2013-2018, and all of them state that Lion ALERT is planning on releasing captive bred lions into the wild “next year”. Which, of course, never happens.

Nice going, Dean. You helped showcase fellow exploiters very nicely there. Well done.

The Will To Truth

“The Truth Is Like A Lion; You Don’t Have To Defend It. Let It Loose; It will Defend Itself” - St. Augustine of Hippo

The title of this post refers to a philosophical term defined as an overriding commitment, unlimited in scope, to believing in accordance with evidence and argument. Simply put those who will to truth hold the objectively gained evidence and argument above all else.

Why the philosophy reference? Because it seems that there’s some confusion over what drives Captive Wildlife Watchdog and our activity. According to those whose exploitive practices and hypocrisy we’ve publicly called out, we’re driven by jealousy, hatred, ignorance, and any number of other derogatory deficits. Heck, we’ve even been told that sexual frustration is what makes us so determined to “take others down.”

Yes, that accusation has actually been made.

The truth is that CWW is driven by, well, the truth. The members of CWW are dedicated to exposing and presenting the truth, be it warm and fuzzy, or disappointing and heartrending.

Without the truth, and without the moral fortitude to uphold the truth, how can anything you say or do matter?

As Mia And The White Lion makes its way across the globe collecting accolades from ignorant viewers along with five star viewer ratings (considerably less stars from critical reviewers) we’ve been documenting conflicting facts, misinformation, and incorrect information contained in the public reviewers. Before anyone points out that these reviewers aren’t animal or lion experts, we want to remind readers that the number one purpose of Mia And The White Lion–as per Kevin Richardson, and director Gilles de Maistre–is to “spread awareness” and “education” to those viewing the movie, specifically about the canned hunting and captive lion breeding industries. Therefore if these viewers are now citing incorrect information gained from the movie, the fault for it lies squarely on the movie designed to provide them with that information.

We won’t go into detail about all of the inconsistencies we’ve seen in the reviews of the movie, in this post. We’re just going to address some of the most glaring. For example the most prevalent “lion facts” cited by reviewers involve the decline of the wild lion population, and the current numbers of the wild lion population. For a movie revolving solely around captive bred lions, and the canned hunting industry supplied by those captive bred lions, which is entirely separate from the issues facing wild lion populations, you’d expect for the epilogue to provide information about the 8,000+ lions held in captivity at lion farms, and predator breeding facilities. But instead, it lists statistics about wild lions, their decline, and the projected extinction of wild lions. All of which are galvanizing facts, but which don’t have anything to do with captive bred lions or the canned hunting industry.

In addition to statistics featuring wild lions, rather than captive lions, multiple movie reviews not only cited these wild facts, but also encouraged readers to “help save lions” by donating to/supporting the Kevin Richardson Foundation, or the Kevin Richardson Sanctuary, and included links to both. But as CWW has repeatedly pointed out, neither Kevin Richardson, nor his sanctuary, have effected any direct change in regard to the challenges facing wild lions. Aside from talking about them, Richardson has done nothing to abate actual on-the-ground change where wild lions are concerned. Ever. In sharp contrast, every facet of Richardson’s career has revolved solely around captive bred lions, which he hand-raised himself, and trained, and interacts with.

So how can donating to Richardson save wild lions?

It can’t.

Then there’s the constant references to how this movie is based on a “real story”. We cannot stress enough that literally no part of Mia And The White Lion is based on any event that occurred in real life. Period. StudioCanal has widely advertised this movie as being based on a “true story” but this is a complete lie. Likewise, Gilles de Maistre has repeatedly made a point of how the fact that actress Daniah and Thor the white lion actually have a working relationship means that the “story of this friendship is real” within the movie. That’s sort of true, if you discount the fact that working with an animal and training it through positive reinforcement is a “friendship”. Not that there isn’t a bond there, but it’s not the perfectly innocent and romanticized friendship described by de Maistre. Of course, de Maistre is a devout believer in Richardson’s “whispering” skills, subscribing to Richardson’s own claims that his lions are never “trained”. Perversely, Richardson admits that he rewards his lions if they do what he asks them to do, but he insists that does not constitute “training” them. Rewarding a wanted behavior, however, is the very definition of positive reinforcement training, and it’s something anyone working with big cats engages in, including zoos.. In behind the scenes clips, the actress playing Mia can clearly be seen waving raw meat at Thor, then tossing the meat where she wants the lion to go, and the lion moves as asked, then devours the reward.

Notice the chunk of meat in the actress's hand.

Once she has Thor's attention, she tosses the meat onto the roof of the car, and the lion goes where he's supposed to, receiving the meat as his reward. This is called positive reinforcement.

As for the movie being “based on a real story”, you can read de Maistre’s own statement here. (The website was deleted after CWW began reporting on the movie, but you can still view it as an archive) Spoiler alert: he never knew any child who hand raised a lion and then ran away with it in order to save it from being sold into the canned hunting industry.

The wildest inconsistencies we’ve seen in reviews of Mia And The White Lion, however, have been regarding the lions used to make it. de Maistre’s (now deleted) website which was set up for, and devoted to, the making of the movie (then called Charlie The White Lion) stated clearly that lions would be “acquired” for the purpose of making the movie, along with the fact that buying the lions and caring for them was discussed at length before it was ever done. Once CWW began questioning the movie, though, and that website was deleted, no public statement regarding the lions, or where they came from, or where they would live out the rest of their lives has never been made. In the void created by the absence of honest, concise information, reviewers and fans of Richardson’s have simply filled in the blanks with assumptions and cobbled-together misinformation.

The original write up detailing the fact that the future of the lions at Richardson's sanctuary was fully funded and secured before lions were ever purchased to be used in the movie.

Some reviewers remark on how the lions used in filming now live free in Timbavati “just like Charlie in the movie”. This is extremely troubling on multiple fronts because it not only isn’t true, but it showcases the fact that the film promotes the idea that a captive bred, hand raised, human habituated lion can simply be turned loose into a protected reserve and live like a wild lion. This is not true. To date, there has never been a captive bred, hand raised, human imprinted lion ever successfully released into the wild.

And it’s not just dazzled lay-folk envisioning a hearts and rainbows ending. Paula Kahumbu, former Chief Executive Officer at Wildlife Direct attended the premier of Mia And The White Lion, where she spoke directly to both Richardson and de Maistre. After she posted about the event on Facebook, several commenters asked Ms. Kahumbu if she was aware that the lions used in the film had been bought from Ukutula, and were now living at Richardson’s sanctuary. Ms. Kahumbu replied, stating within her comment that “I was not told that the lions were purchased, but that the lions are in a sanctuary in Timbavati were they will never be hunted.” Here we have a wildlife professional speaking directly to Kevin Richardson, and movie director Gilles de Maistre, and she was told that the lions used in the movie were living on a reserve in Timbavati at the same time that Richardson’s social media profiles were telling fans that the lions were at Richardson’s sanctuary where they would live out their lives.

Ms. Kahumbu spoke directly with Richardson and de Maistre, and was told something entirely different from what Richardson was telling fans on his own Facebook page.

Despite answering questions at press conferences in a different way, Richardson told fans in no uncertain terms that all the lions used in the movie would live out their lives at his sanctuary.

How is it possible for the two people entirely responsible for purchasing, raising, and filming the lions used in this movie to fail provide concise answers to the question of where the lions came from and where they are now? Richardson’s Sanctuary and the Timbavati reserve are some 500-600km apart. One is a privately run personal business, one is a public park. There’s not much room for confusion here, so why was Ms. Kahumbu told by Richardson and de Maistre that the lions used were in Timbavati when they were actually at Kevin’s own Sanctuary?

Other reviewers stated that the lions belonged to Kevin Richardson and had originally come from his sanctuary. Some of them claimed that the Thor, who played Charlie, was Kevin’s lion, the well known Thor. But the original Thor died in 2013, an this Thor was apparently named in honor of the original. Not confusing at all, since both are male white lions which stared in a film about a male white lion. Then there are the comments under Richardson’s social media posts about Mia And The White Lion where former volunteers at Ukutula comment, recognizing cubs they’d met at Ukutula, which they’d been told were going to be used in a movie. In one case, former Ukutula volunteers even refer to the cub by name (Neige) and one of them commented stating that Kevin himself came and picked the cub up. A white lioness named Neige, can be seen in videos and social media posts made by volunteers at Richardson’s sanctuary.

Former Ukutula volunteers excitedly discussing how lion cubs from Ukutula were later picked up by Richardson.

The same lion (now an adult) discussed by name by former Ukutula volunteers pictured, and named, living at Richardson's sanctuary.

But while neither Richardson, nor Gille de Maistre have publicly come out and announced where they purchased the lions they used to make Mia And The White Lion, CWW has repeatedly discussed the fact that Richardson and de Maistre patronized Ukutula Lion Park, a notorious lion breeding, cub petting, and lion walking facility which has been verified by Blood Lions as a supporter of the canned hunting industry. They used the facility both for casting the child actors, and for selecting and purchasing the white lion cubs later used to make the movie.

From the now deleted website detailing how children were auditioned at Ukutula, a known supporter of the canned hunting industry.

Eventually even diehard Richardson fans started asking where the lions used in the movie had come from. Admittedly, most of them did so with the intention of proving the “haters spreading lies that they’d been bought from Ukutula” wrong, but their plans backfired when, eventually, Richardson’s social media pages responded to the queries by admitting that the lion cubs had been bought from a facility which sold lions to the canned hunting industry.

In a flippant response to one comment thread where fans had already been arguing over whether or not the lion cubs had, in fact, been purchased from a well known breeder that supplied lions to canned hunters, Richardson’s Facebook page stated:

“It’s no secret the lions were purchased from a cub petting facility, and rather than being in canned hunts or bred for years in (sic) end for cub petting, they will live out their lives at our sanctuary. Terrible of us, hey?”

Despite that Richardson has just verified that he intentionally bought lions from a farm that breeds them for canned hunting, thus putting money directly into the canned hunting industry, the first reply to Richardson’s comment immediately minimizes this fact, saying:

“they get a chance to live and with love, other places they are just profits…”

As if buying captive bred lion cubs which had been forcefully removed from their mothers, and training them to perform for the purpose of making a feature-length entertainment movie somehow isn’t using them for “just profits”.

Fans of Richardson have been all too eager to excuse the reality that Richardson bought cubs from within the canned hunting industry, claiming that it doesn’t matter because now the cubs are “safe” with Richardson. Within every comment feed discussing the origin of the cubs, fans insist that it’s more important to embrace the fact that the lions are now safe, willfully disregarding the fact that Richards participated in handing money to the very industry of captive breeding, cub petting and canned hunting he professes to loathe.

After the original acknowledgment that the cubs were bought from a facility which both allows cub petting, and sells to canned hunting, Richardson’s social media pages have been extremely careful in responses to specify that the lions came only from a cub petting facility.

Any questions which could be construed as critical are generally ignored.

The nuanced clarification is important because it attempts to separate cub petting from canned hunting, at least for the purposes of where Richardson obtained the lions for his movie. It attempts to put distance between Richardson’s name, and the term canned hunting in regard to Richardson’s patronage. By specifying that Richardson helped buy cubs from a cub petting facility it minimizes his participation in the horrific industry of canned hunting. Saying that you “rescued cubs from a cub petting facility” makes you out to be a hero. Admitting that you rubbed elbows with canned hunting outfits and bought matching white lions like someone picking out fruit at the grocery store is much, much less flattering.

It remains evident, however, that Richardson’s original intention was never to take a hardline on the backstory of the lions used in the movie Mia And The White Lion. Although director de Maistre had a flush website up devoted to the movie just one year into filming which detailed huge points of conflict such as buying lions to use, and patronizing cub petting facilities in order to cast children for the movie based on their interactions with lions which had been #bredforthebullet (no safe haven for those lions, they’re full grown by now, and either pumping out more cubs, or hanging on someone’s walls, because, you know, art takes sacrifice, and their only use was for auditioning children) Richardson himself said nothing about being involved with a movie showcasing children and kids.

Auditions for child actors, and purchase of cubs occurred at Ukutula in 2014, which was, perversely, the exact same time in which Blood Lions was carrying out an undercover investigation at Ukutula to expose their well know connection to the canned hunting industry

Thus when CWW first began documenting Mia And The White Lion (then titled Charlie The White Lion) fans of the ‘Lion Whisperer’ accused us of lying, and making up the facts we posted. Fans of Richardson refused to believe that he would ever be involved with allowing children to work with lions. After all, Richardson had never announced that he was working on such a movie. Clearly, we were just trying to smear his name.

After our first articles about the movie, de Maistre’s website devoted to it quietly disappeared, all evidence that Richardson was involved in making a movie where children interacted with lions gone. Supporters of Richardson commented on our posts announcing that there was no such website, that we’d fabricated it. The website was not entirely gone, of course. It had been deleted, but you can still find all the text from it if you utilize the WayBackMachine and type in www.CharlieTheWhiteLion.com.

For years, literally, Richardson’s social media pages stoically refrained from answering questions posed by fans who had read our articles. Even with the movies director de Maistre posting photos of himself and Richardson, children with lions, and glimpses of scenes along with the hashtag #miaandthewhitelion or #miaetlelionblanc Richardson’s pages made no comment, or acknowledgement that he was involved. Only once the movie was on the verge of release did Richardson’s pages announce his involvement in it, offering the excuse that StudioCanal had not yet given him permission to announce his involvement until that moment. Since the director had long since been stating that Richardson was involved, it seems more likely that Richardson’s avoidance has more to do with trying to distance his involvement in a movie where lions and children interact from the real life tragedy of one of Richardson’s human habituated lions killing a young woman at his sanctuary. After all, nothing will squash the success of a movie like fatal scandal. Mia And The White Lion was filmed at Richardson’s sanctuary during the same time that Megan van der Zwan was fatally mauled there. If the media had bothered to grasp this fact, and connect the two to the same sanctuary, and same lion trainer, it could have badly damaged the success of the movie before it was ever released. That was a bullet narrowly dodged. Pun totally intended.

Even after he announced his involvement with Mia And The White Lion, Richardson’s pages ignored questions about the lions used in the movie.

Only after CWW published multiple articles about the movie pointedly questioning the ethics of buying lions from within the canned hunting industry in order to make a movie did Richardson admit that lions had been purchased at all. Up until then, fans had assumed that the lions used already belonged to the ‘Lion Whisperer’, especially since they were interacting with human actors (this is an interesting point in and of itself, that people assumed habituated lions belonged to Richardson because that’s all he works with) After the proverbial cat was out of the back, Richardson’s profiles did what they could to avoid discussing the purchase of the lions, and what would happen to them afterward. Only once, early on did they admit that the animals had been bought from a facility that sold to canned hunters and that they were at Richardson’s sanctuary where they would stay.

Afterward, all references specified only a cub petting facility, and pointedly used the term “rescued”, as can be seen in the screenshots posted higher above.

It took more articles from CWW being published before Richardson’s pages admitted that the lions used in the movie were already at Richardson’s sanctuary, and would be staying there. By then Richardson was promoting his #landforlions fundraiser (which actually raised money for Richardson’s own captive lions, if you read the fine print) and it was a bit awkward to admit that he was raising money for his own lions, to which he’d added 5-6 more lions, whom were already fully funded for life by a trust fund. With Richardson finally acknowledging that lions had been bought for a movie, and that he’d help train children to work with them, and that they’d be living at his sanctuary for the rest of their lives, even Richardson’s fans began asking questions about the ethics of buying animals from the industry you want to shut down.

After all, “retail rescue” has become just another industry of exploitation within the captive breeding industry, and it’s something that all professionals (both wildlife and domestic) warn against. If you buy an animal, it is not rescuing it. Even groups which widely support Richardson, such as CACH state this point blank. They’ve been careful not to public comment on Richardson’s own “retail rescue” of buying lions from the canned hunting industry, but they still point out that buying animals is, emphatically not rescuing them, it’s merely supporting the industry that bred them.

Instead of addressing these concerns in an open manner, Richardson’s pages began banning fans, and deleting comments. It was simply easier than giving out more information which would cast Richardson in a bad light. After all, the movie was about to release, and that would ensure a wave of new fans coming in. No need to worry about pissing off a few here and there who obviously weren’t utterly devoted to Richardson anyway. Each comment thread where someone pointed out the hypocrisy of buying captive bred lions and training them for use in a movie became a tangle of mismatched comments, disappearing texts and new comments by different people either asking why questions had disappeared, or announcing (with no small amount of shock and awe) that they’d been banned by Honest Abe the ‘Lion Whisperer’ simply for pointing out an ethical quandary. Fortunately for Richardson, in most cases, once a comment had been deleted, or a commenter banned, other, more devoted, fans quickly took over the situation, berating the faithless for questioning Richardson’s honor, and intention, and buying into the “lies of haters” who would suggest that Richardson ever exploited lions.

An example of a comment thread where commenters found themselves banned, deleted, and/or attacked by other fans for daring to question Richardson.

Meanwhile, interviews promoting Mia And The White Lion were being published (all of them idolizing the use of real lions, and real children in the movie) wherein cast members avidly discussed things like working with the lions, and how they’d spent time at a “lion farm” in order for Richardson and the Director to audition children by allowing them to play with lion cubs, and then so that specific cubs could be selected for use in the movie. Many of these interviews also repeated the false information that the entire movie was based on a real story, and real characters. Since many of these interviews directly involved either de Maistre or Richardson, one wonders why they never clarified that the story was not true, and not based on real characters. Or, perhaps, this is simply a clear example of their willingness to manipulate things to suit their situation. After all, the actress did have a bond with Thor, and both of them are real living beings. So it’s not that much of a stretch to just claim that the movie characters are based off a real story involving people and animals. Even though those people and animals wouldn’t exist without the fictional ones which they were portraying.

Screenshot from an interview given by de Maistre showing his assertion that the movie was based on a real story, and how he showcased the interaction between the hand raised lions and child as a selling point.

The entire sordid handling of Mia And The White Lion by Kevin Richardson’s social media pages is what’s commonly referred to as “media manipulation”.

Media manipulation is a series of related techniques in which partisans create an image or argument that favours their particular interests.[1] Such tactics may include the use of logical fallacies, psychological manipulations, outright deception, rhetorical and propaganda techniques, and often involve the suppression of information or points of view by crowding them out, by inducing other people or groups of people to stop listening to certain arguments, or by simply diverting attention elsewhere. In Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes, Jacques Ellul writes that public opinion can only express itself through channels which are provided by the mass media of communication – without which there could be no propaganda.[2] It is used within public relations, propaganda, marketing, etc. While the objective for each context is quite different, the broad techniques are often similar.

By ignoring questions, diverting attention, subverting naysayers, accusing those that oppose him and his actions as liars, and offering intentionally misleading information and misinformation Richardson’s pages have carefully manipulated his fan base not only into embracing the fact that he participated in the canned hunting industry but also into actually declaring him a hero for doing so.

And now that the movie is out, and doing extremely well (while not providing many facts about the industry which helped make it) the manipulation continues.

Under a post on Richardson’s Facebook page made just days ago about breeding onsite, addressed in part to “those who continue to lie and insist we do” (CWW has never seen any accusations anywhere that Richardson breeds his lions, so we’re unsure of what provoked such wording) one comment reads:

“I read an article that said you bought 3 lions for the white lion movie that were breed by a guy that provides lions for canned hunts (sad emoji)”

This comment immediately received a heated reply from another fan:

“Bred*. Provide the source please or go spew that fake nonsense elsewhere. The White lions of Timbavati are one of the many established prides with white genes. Go on, post your sources, we’ll wait.”

Not only is this response typical of Richardson’s fans because of its antagonistic nature, but also because of its completely irrelevant rationalizing. The lions used in Mia did not come from Timbavati, nor are they there now. The established pride of lions in Timbavati have literally nothing to do with the movie, or the question posed by the first commenter.

Another fan quickly added:

“even if he did is that then technically a RESCUE!!!!!!”

Well, no. As we’ve already stated, all professionals in the lion conservation industry (and the professionals in domestic animal circles) clearly state that buying lions is not rescuing them. Not that this fact stops multiple people within the same lion conservation groups from doing it.

Richardson’s page finally did, in fact respond to the original comment, and Richardson’s answer was enlightening, both because it acknowledges yet again that Richardson did acquire the lions from a “notorious cub petting/canned hunting facility” but it simultaneously refers to the act as “rescue”. The gaslighting nature of Richardson’s response showcases his media manipulation of basic facts.

If buying lions from canned hunting facilities is all it take to save them, they why aren’t folks like Richardson promoting the endeavor? Why isn’t Richardson fundraising to buy all the captive bred lions from canned hunting facilities and save them? Of course he couldn’t house them all, but if buying them from the canned hunting facilities is all it takes to rescue them, why isn’t Richardson using his considerable platform to encourage other sanctuaries and conservation organizations to buy rescue lions who are #BredForTheBullet? If all we need to do is buy the captive bred lions from the canned hunting industry why don’t we do it already?

The reason Richardson isn’t publicly suggesting that conservation organizations buy captive bred lions from canned hunting facilities, of course, is because it doesn’t do anything but give money to canned hunting facilities. Richardson only calls buying lions from such facilities “rescue” when he does it.

And then there’s the caustic “Spin it any way you like it.” finale, clearly indicating that the commenter is misleading others with their accusations.

This simple line by Richardson, the expert conservationist, positions the ignorant commenter, who is, according to Richardson, spreading predesigned misinformation about him and his actions, in the crosshairs of every other fan reading the comment thread. It makes Richardson’s position explicitly clear by stating that the commenter is “spinning” the facts intentionally to make the innocent Richardson look bad.

Of course, the original commenter was utterly cowed by Richardson’s demeaning response virtually apologizing for their statements, and suggesting that perhaps Kevin, with his influence, could shut down these facilities. Never mind that Richardson has just admitted to patronizing these facilities for his own profit.

And the success of Richardson’s manipulation is blatantly clear from the last comment in the thread:

“Those canned hunting facilities must be forbidden. Why doesn’t the government ban them? They are breeding lions like lambs to the slaughter. It’s enraging! Anyone taking part in hunting should be sent to prison.”

Huh. Okay. But you’ve made this comment saying that those who take part in canned hunting facilities should go to jail in a thread where Kevin Richardson, famed ‘Lion Whisperer’ has admitted to utilizing a canned hunting facility… Clearly, the final commenter doesn’t mean Richardson should go to jail. Just other people who participate in canned hunting facilities. Richardson, even though he bought lions just like the hunters using these facilities, is absolved from participating in the exploitation and abuse, simply by virtue of being Richardson, the ‘Lion Whisperer’. Even though he did, in fact, hand money to a canned hunting facility.

This is where CWW’s will to truth shines through. In the last several years, our information, and our facts about Richardson’s participation in canned hunting facilities for the purpose of making Mia And The White Lion have never wavered, and never faltered. They have only grown in depth, the reach of this exploitation being verified time and again by both Richardson and de Maistre, as well as the actors participating in the movie. We have been called liars by fans of Richardson, until Richardson himself confirmed what we’d been saying all along. We’ve been accused of manipulating reality, until Richardson and de Maistre confirmed the real events we’d already described. We’ve been admonished for hating on someone who “rescued” lions from the canned hunting industry, when in fact all they did was buy those lions just like any hunter, handing money directly to the canned hunting facilities and supporting them, until Richardson himself admitted to buying lions from the canned hunting facility. We’ve been attacked for outing the truth every step of the way, but in the end, the truth we’ve been telling has been confirmed again, and again.

We’ve also been attacked for “stalking” the public social media accounts of the young stars of Mia And The White Lion, stars whom can apparently be official spokespersons for the Kevin Richardson Foundation, and whom can “spread” Richardson’s special brand of awareness, but whom CWW is then criticized for quoting as examples of how Richardson is hiding behind these children while using them to spread his own warped version of “awareness”. Just today, the actress portraying Mia in the movie shared a “behind the scenes” video to her official Instagram page in which she announces that “because of this film, these lions have a forever home at Kevin Richardson Wildlife Sanctuary”.

But that’s simply not true. According to director Gilles de Maistre, a lifetime trust and contract was in place which dictated that the lions would live out their lives at Richardson’s sanctuary before they were ever purchased in order to make the movie. Thus legally, these lions were purchased so that they could be used to make the movie, not the other way around. The film did not allow the lions to live at Richardson’s sanctuary, the lions were legally bound to live there before they’d ever been purchased in order to be used to make the movie. Despite being accused of “stalking” and “attacking” the actors and actresses who made this movie, CWW has never criticized them for their part in promoting this sham exploitation.

They simply don’t know any better.

Richardson took innocent children and ignorant adults, and trained them to handle lions, and taught them that the lions were better off with human contact. Richardson is the one who instilled these ideals into impressionable young children. In this day and age, when all ethical conservation groups are moving away from using real animals in film, and when ethical conservation groups are encouraging the industry not to use real captive wild animals, Richardson intentionally bought half a dozen captive bred lion cubs from a canned hunting facility, trained children to work with them, and used that novelty to market his movie as better than “other” movies using CGI animation. And because Richardson was the undisputed “expert” in charge of the entire movie, all the actors and actresses who spent years making the film are now simply repeating the lies and misinformation Richardson trained them to believe.

Using the hashtag #bancannedhunting in regard to a movie made with lions bought from a facility which supports canned hunting.

The information provided by CWW in regard to Mia And The White Lion has never changed, and has never been incorrect. Meanwhile, Richardson has changed his position and story multiple times, manipulating his fans into actually supporting his participation in the canned hunting industry. Contrary to the accusation that those who oppose him are misleading readers, Richardson himself is the only spin doctor present, first refusing to provide information, then altering that information repeatedly, changing stories, and going so far as to provide completely false information (such as telling Ms. Kahumbu that the lions used to make the movie are now living on the Timbavati reserve, when they’re actually at Richardson’s sanctuary) in order to assure that he is viewed as a hero for what he’s done, and in order to secure his own livelihood interacting with captive bred lions.

Let Richardson continue spinning his falsehoods and misinformation. CWW upholds the will to truth, and we will continue exposing that truth, even when no one else has the fortitude to do so.

The Gift Of Education

The Gift Of Education, And The Bravery To Use It

On the eve of Christmas (for those who celebrate Christmas) CWW thought it would be fitting to do a sort of holiday gift post focused on giving the gift of education and the bravery to use that education in defense of the world around us.

Earlier this month the conservation world was shocked and outraged when the US and Russia chose to align themselves with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait during climate talks at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The four countries then contrived to prevent the landmark 1.5C Report from being openly “welcomed” as fact to be considered in making future policies. Instead they suggested that the 1.5C Report merely be “noted” as existing. This allows such major powers to brush the gravity of climate change aside and continue to feed the public misinformation about it, while continuing to further their own agendas.

Although the delegates in attendance voiced their concern, saying that the unexpected development was “very frustrating” and “troubling” they stopped short of completely condemning the actions of their opposers. With only five days to establish a rulebook for the Paris agreement focus fell on Poland who would chair the final week of the meeting. The motion to “welcome” the IPCC 1.5C report instead of merely “noting” it could not pass with the current opposition. Poland’s vote, however, could make the difference and so delegates hoped to curry favor with that country and gain its support.

Even larger, however, than the issue of having world leaders choose to ignore hard science in favor of personal preferences, is the choice of those who have provided and accepted that science–those with the education to know that what the report contains is absolute truth–to not publicly take a hardline stance against those unwilling to accept that truth. The fate of our planet and it inhabitants literally depend on the willingness of these scientists and leaders to confront those who would try and ignore the truth, and when that confrontation doesn’t happen, when the only people who can speak up against truth-deniers remain silent, then the only voice left for the public to hear and cling to is the voice which is telling them lies.

Nowhere is this vacuum of silence more deafening than in the arena of animal conservation. In a world where the human population is booming while animal populations dwindle, truth should be the only thing that matters. Not making friends. Not giving old colleagues a free pass for questionable actions. Not allowing issues to go unaddressed in exchange for support which will allow you to do good elsewhere.

The truth is what separates those determined to protect the animals we share this earth with, and those who would profit off the illusion of protecting them.

In two days Kevin Richardson’s new movie, Mia And The White Lion will be released all across France, and after that elsewhere throughout the world. Despite that CWW has repeatedly addressed the endless problems with this film, moral and else wise that plague literally every facet of it, no other organization that opposes handling lions, and petting cubs has stepped up to point out that everything Richardson is doing is wrong. Nor had any other group made any statement about the fact that the movie, its production, and its current promotion is inextricably tangled with outright lies and misinformation that is astronomically damaging to the plight of both wild and captive wild lions.

Nevertheless, we persist, to spin a currently hot schtick.

In two days, the silence created by the groups, and foundations who have failed to publicly speak out about this movie beforehand will be filled by the fallacies, lies, and misinformation cobbled together into the fantasy that is Mia And The White Lion. And those fallacies, lies and misinformation will then be soaked up by the spongy minds of children everywhere–which is the very intention of the movie, as stated by both the director, Gilles de Maistre, and Kevin Richardson himself. And just as intentional as their goal of connecting with children is their intent in shaping and controlling what information they convey with their movie.

Photo from de Maistre's Instagram taken at one of the early screenings of his movie. Note that the majority of this audience is comprised of children about the same age as the character of Mia.

Much has been claimed by supporters of Richardson, but the Lion Whisperer’s own actions speak far more loudly than the idealistic defenses offered by his fans.

For example, the official plot synopsis, approved and released by those responsible for the movie–Richardson and de Maistre–suggests that captive born and raised lions can simply be released into the wild to live freely as wild lions.

From IMDb:

“Distraught by the thought that Charlie could be in harm, Mia decides to run away with him. The two friends set out on an incredible journey across the South African savanna in search of another land where Charlie can live out his life in freedom.”

From Cineuropa:

“Distraught by the thought that Charlie could be in harm, Mia decides to run away leaving the farm and her family behind. The two set off on an epic adventure across the wild African savanna in search for another land where Charlie can live out his life safe and free.”

From Unifrance:

“Distraught by the thought that Charlie could be in harm, Mia decides to run away leaving the farm and her family behind. The two set off on an epic adventure across the wild African savanna in search for another land where Charlie can live out his life safe and free.”

From the official trailer on Youtube released by Galatee Films:

“Distraught by the thought that Charlie could be in harm, Mia decides to run away leaving the farm and her family behind. The two set off on an epic adventure across the wild African savanna in search for another land where Charlie can live out his life safe and free.”

The same synopsis again, and again, each ending with the romanticized–and completely untrue–suggestion that all Mia needs to do to save her pet lion is to run away then release him into the wild.

This is but one of the grossly problematic lies on which Mia And The White Lion is based, lies which could have, and should have, been sharply and immediately addressed by reputable conservation entities who are concerned with trying to save wild lions. We must already combat the naive ideas that captive animals can be turned loose into the wild. We must already combat the idea that breeding lions in captivity can somehow save wild lions. We must already combat the idea that having special bonds with captive wild animals makes it okay to interact with them.

Screenshot taken from one of the many articles touting Mia And The White Lion (link below) Note the statement at the top that Charlie, a captive bred lion can be "returned" to the wild. Meanwhile, the accompanying movie still show that Charlie is, in fact, a pet, and is raised like one, in the house, on the table, and playing with the children.

And Richardson’s movie does nothing but reinforce these falsehoods we are already fighting against. Such incorrect and fictionalized ideals could have, and should have been publicly and promptly struck down in no uncertain terms, and the reality presented to the general public.

Another photo from the above linked article. Note the copyright (intentionally captured here) which lists Richardson as a holder of the copyright to this image, indicating that it was taken on the grounds of his sanctuary and is his property.

But other conservation organizations have said nothing to counter Richardson’s farcical “anti-canned hunting” movie. So on December 26th, thousands of children are going to view a movie that tells them the way to save captive lions is to release them from their cages and enclosures and let them run free. And they’re likely going to believe that it’s already been done in real life, since many recent articles and blurbs have begun stating that the movie is based on “real events” or inspired by “true events” implying that at some point there was a lion who loved a girl, and a girl who returned that lion to the wild.

This is, of course a complete lie.

There was never a girl living on a lion farm who ran away with her lion to set it free. What there was only a director who happily walked with lions in Africa and then realized after the fact that he’d been duped by lion breeders.

Photo of de Maistre originally posted on the movie website, which has now been deleted.

Now-deleted photo of de Maistre with lions.

Another photo from de Maistre's lion walking, which he stated inspired the making of Mia And The White Lion

After realizing that he’d been lied to (he never actually explains how he learned the truth) de Maistre decided to make a movie (based on a screenplay written by his wife) about a young girl raising a lion as her pet, and then running away with it to return it to the wild. Because somehow that, he decided, would solve the issue of captive breeding, canned hunting, and cub petting.

Richardson has also persisted in stating that he, himself, is responsible for opening the eyes of the public to the grotesque realities of cub petting and canned lion hunting. Richardson, who still claims that he remained ignorant of the truth for more than a decade while he was employed by Lion Park, which bred lions like rabbits for the public to play with and hold, and then sold older animals to hunting lots. Richardson has been widely quoted from a 2014 interview with 60 Minutes when in reference to the claim that Lion Park and others have stated that their older lions go to “good homes”, Richardson replied:

“Well, the question I have is where are these good homes? Because I'd like to visit a few of those good homes myself, and maybe even some of my cats could go to these good homes. The reality is there aren't any.”

Well, the question CWW has is if that’s the response Richardson gave for such claims, then where, for ten entire years, did Richardson think those good homes were? Because nearly a decade after the fact he’s still claiming that he had no idea Lion Park was selling lions to canned hunts, so just where did Richardson think the hundreds of cubs he’d help breed over his years at the Park were going?

Richardson has participated in cub petting, and supporting canned hunting literally since his career began, using his interactions with his own lions–and the cubs of some of those lions–to garner attention and headlines.

One of the interactions which gained Richardson considerable attention, when he went in with a lioness and her cubs. However, that lioness had been removed from her own mother by Richardson while he was working at Lion Park, and then once grown, she was bred repeatedly to produce more cubs, cubs which Richardson handled and used to gain notoriety.

Interview advertisement showcasing Richardson playing with lion cubs at Lion Park. Cubs which probably ended up sold to other breeding facilities or canned hunts, unless these two happen to be some of the select few Richardson took with him when he left.

Although he's known as the Lion Whisperer, Richardson has also readily handled other big cat cubs.

Yet Richardson has built his same career atop the idea that he doesn’t support cub petting. Meanwhile Richardson both overtly, and subversively states that such respected entities as Blood Lions (who do not condone any sort of hands-on interactions with captive big cats) do nothing to counter canned hunting, and have been entirely ineffectual in spreading any awareness and education about the issue. Publicly, in interviews, Richardson’s dismissal of Blood Lions and other groups is apparent in his repeated statements that his own activities, and ventures like Mia And The White Lion provide information to the public which otherwise would not be available or conveyed. According to Richardson, he and his actions and activities, are the only reason the public knows anything about canned hunting, cub petting, or the plight of lions.

In private, out of the public eye, and between individual members of conservation organizations, Richardson’s lack of respect for Blood Lions is more bluntly put, and widely known. In the circles of “shop talk” everyone knows that Richardson considers Blood Lions to be pointless, and not nearly as important as his own figure when it comes to lion conservation. He makes no attempt to hide such opinions because he knows that he will not be outed for stating them because, as mentioned, these organizations refuse to publicly criticize him and what he does, even when they acknowledge that he’s in the wrong.

For example, Richardson allows the propagation of claims that the children making Mia And The White Lion were never in danger from the lions they were working with. One article states “Wild cats only “tame” themselves after a long process of habituation, Richardson explained.” in reference to the logistics of making a movie where a real lion interacts with real children.

The problem is, captive wild animals are never tame. They are captive wild animals. The very definition of “tame” is domesticated. This is evidenced with exquisite savagery by the fact that while Richardson was coaching the child stars of Mia And The White Lion to work with “tamed” lions, one of his own “tamed” lions mauled a young woman to death right on his own sanctuary grounds.

The now deleted website which was flush with information about the film (then called Charlie The White Lion, and deleted after CWW began questioning the endeavor) contained a clear declaration that all filming would be stopped if Richardson sensed any danger at all for the children.

Disclaimer from the now deleted website regarding filming lions with children.

Yet our contacts in Africa confirmed that Daniah de Villiers was not only badly bitten by one of the lions used to make Mia And The White Lion, requiring hospitalization and numerous stitches, but that she was so afraid to work with the lions afterward that filming had to be paused. Not stopped, mind you, the show must go on, after all.

There is no truly safe way for children and lions to interact, despite all of Richardson’s claims of otherwise. Richardson himself has repeatedly over the years misjudged his own lions and been bitten and harmed by them. In most cases, those lions are not, conveniently, still in his care. Instead, he has “rescued” and kept only lions he could easily interact with.

Likewise, there is no truly ethical way to make a movie with live lions purchased from a lion farm. This fact is something Richardson has undoubtedly admitted to others in private, but one which he continues to deny in public, again and again claiming that making an “ethical” movie was the entire point.

One article quotes director de Maistre as saying “the whole principle was first to making an ethical shoot, we've got lions from hunting farms, lions have been respected as actors, they've never been trained, but tamed,”

Again, lions cannot be tamed, and if they behave the way you want them to through positive reinforcement, they have, in fact been trained. But those facts aside, here is yet another acknowledgment that the lions used to make this movie were purchased from Ukutula lion farm, which breeds lions exclusively to be used for cub petting, and lion walking, with older animals being sold, in all likelihood, to canned hunting. This is yet more evidence of Richardson’s derisive disrespect for Blood Lions–who bought canned hunting to the forefront of the world theatre while Richardson was busy buying lions from the farms they were exposing–since Blood Lions named Ukutula in their documentary, confirming it’s support of canned hunting.

And yet, Blood Lions maintains a silent front when it comes to Richardson’s actions in buying lions from one of the farms they actually outed as a participant in canned lion hunts. We cannot know why Blood Lions refuses to call Richardson out, but we do know that their lack of gumption in doing so has provided Richardson with a free rein to lie and misrepresent the truth to hundreds of thousands of fans, even more with the production of Mia And The White Lion.

But perhaps Blood Lions is simply afraid of Royalty. After all, His Serene Highness Albert II Sovereign Prince of Monaco himself actually bought the lions from Ukutula, and subsequently supported cub petting and canned lion hunting by doing so. According to this article, the entire production of Mia And The White Lion “benefitted from generous financial support of the Foundation Prince Albert II de Monaco and the Princely Government” And we know from statements made by the director Gilles de Maistre that the perpetual care of the lions had been set up by investors before the animals were even purchased. Investors who then facilitated in the purchase of the lion cubs from Ukutula. Considering the financial cost of purchasing white lions (worth far more to canned hunters than tawny lions) and then the cost of care for multiple lions for the duration of their lives, it seems likely that HSH Albert II of Monaco probably had a hand in providing the trust which obtained and will now provide support for those lions, support which will be carried out by Richardson’s own sanctuary.

Gobsmackingly, in this article by Reader’s Digest from July of 2018, Richardson presents himself as being steadfastly against taking any more lions into his care.

“The last thing he wants, however, is to end up with more lions in his sanctuary, a big reason his females are on contraception. His aim is for the captive population to plummet; he supports a nationwide moratorium on breeding.”

But by the time that article was published, Richardson had quietly already brought all the lions used in the making of Mia And The White Lion to his sanctuary. Lions which were bred in captivity, even though he also claimed in the recent article to support a nationwide moratorium on breeding.

Well, gosh darn, that’s convenient of him to support a ban on the captive breeding of lions, and to declare that he doesn’t want any more lions on his sanctuary after he’s already helped buy captive bred lions for his own use, and after he’s already brought those lions to live at his sanctuary.

It seems that for Kevin Richardson, the “truth” is an ephemeral thing, ever-changing to suit his own needs and purposes. Handling lions is acceptable if he says it is, supporting canned hunting by handing money over to it is acceptable if he deems it so, teaching children that captive lions can simply be set free in the wild is realistically possible if he says it is, and training lions for use in the film industry isn’t exploitation if he’s the one doing it.

Unfortunately, until truly ethical conservation groups and organizations like Blood Lions “grow a set” and publicly speak out to permanently, decisively emasculate and banish the lies and misnomers provided by Kevin Richardson and those like him, fairytales and falsehoods are going to continue to be spun for public consumption. With less than 48 hrs to go until Mia And The White Lion is released in France, all we can do is wait and see just how hungry the public is for utterly fake, romanticized stories about girls and their pet lions.

And then we’ll get to the business of publicly, pointedly, correcting the fake facts propagated by Richardson with his pet projects. Because what good is the gift of education, if you don’t have the courage to use it to protect the things you love?

*** While no established conservation group has spoken out against Kevin Richardson’s practices and projects like Mia And The White Lion, nor his claims of leading the charge in the anti-canned hunting and anti-cub petting movements, Blood Lions was specifically named in this article because we consider them to be the first and foremost authority in the matter of anti-canned lion hunting education. That said, LionAid, Panthera, nor any of the other well known lion conservation groups have publicly addressed Richardson’s actions. We invite any of these groups to contact us if they wish to make a statement on the matter.

Mia And The White Lion Premiers In Monaco

Its Acclaim Highlights The Viability of Commodifying Captive Lions For Profit

It was a big weekend for “Lion Whisperer” Kevin Richardson. The movie for which he helped purchase and train several captive bred white lion cubs, Mia And The White Lion, enjoyed a premier screening first at the Grimaldi Forum of Monaco, then in Paris. In attendance at the Monaco screening were members of the cast, including the children Richardson trained to work with the lions used in filming, as well as Richardson himself and director, Gilles de Maistre. Even His Serene Highness Albert II, Prince of Monaco participated in the event, posing for photos with Richardson and the teen stars of the ill-conceived film.

Richardson’s social media pages posted photos, and even a short video clip from what seemed to be a question and answer session. In the clip, Richardson states that lions ending up in the canned hunting industry is a big reason behind why he became involved in making Mia And The White Lion. He goes on to state that his foundation “fights against” the canned hunting industry, and that it’s his hope that the movie Mia And The White Lion does well, and gives a “voice to lions” and brings world-wide attention to the issues of captive lions, and the canned hunting industry which is continually fed by the captive lion breeding industry.

But there are several profoundly troubling quandaries associated with Richardson’s claims, and with his attempts to justify both the movie, and his participation in making it.

The most glaringly blatant of these problems is the fact that if your foundation truly–and ethically–fights against an abusive industry, you do not participate in that industry.

Period.

Not for the sake of saving a few animals, not for the sake of spreading awareness, not for any reason at all.

If your foundation is willing to compromise itself, and be complicit to the very abuse it claims to stand against in order to achieve its own goals, then the ethics of your foundation are for sale. The only question is how much it will cost for someone to buy them.

In the case of Mia And The White Lion, that price is, at least in part, quite obvious: Richardson receives worldwide fame for his participation (plus whatever he was paid and will receive in revenue from sales) as well as the several young, soon-to-be-worldwide-famous magnificent white lions used in the making of the movie, who will be in Richardson’s care for the rest of their lives. Richardson has already used one of these lions for the creation of high-end art photography (although since this young lion was named Thor, after the white lion Richardson previously owned, many fans didn’t realize that this lion was actually a new addition to Richardson’s sanctuary) and we can presume that since Richardson believes that his lions benefit emotionally from interacting with them, and the lions used to make MTWL were hand raised from birth, and trained to interact with humans, Richardson is not going to abstain from continuing to interact with them in the future.

One of the fine art photos of the new Thor, already for sale.

Fans of the “Lion Whisperer” have already publicly in various comment threads made it clear that they’re willing to overlook the fact that Kevin Richardson participated in buying lion cubs from Ukutula, South Africa’s most notorious lion farm, which has repeatedly been connected to the canned hunting industry, because “at least these lions are safe now”. Yes, a few, special, white lion cubs will not grow up being handled by children and then get shot. Instead, they already grew up being handled by children, and now they’ll spend their entire lives being handled by Richardson. But what about the some 3,000 other, not-special, tawny lion cubs which were born in captivity in the years since Richardson helped buy the handful to make MTWL? The 3,000 other captive bred lions which either have already been killed within the canned hunting industry, or which will eventually meet that fate? How many more lion cubs were born due to the thousands of dollars that were put into the canned hunting industry by Richardson and those funding the purchase of lions for use in MTWL?

We’ve also already seen fans argue that Richardson “rescued” the lion cubs used in MTWL, and that whatever money was spent to buy them is negligible compared to what canned hunters spend. But that simply isn’t true.

White lions have been worth four or five times as much as tawny lions in the canned hunting industry for decades. Heck, the recent, and ongoing saga of Mufasa the white lion, who is being touted as so valuable that the government would rather auction him to hunters than sell him to those who would save him is based solely on the extreme value of male white lions within the canned hunting industry. So it’s simply not plausible that Richardson could secure the purchase of multiple male white lions from an established breeding farm for less than the fair market value of the same number of adult male white lions. Therefore the purchase of those cubs by Richardson is no less a participation in the canned hunting industry than hunters purchasing them for sport.

And honestly you could even argue that hunters would only exploit the lions once, when they bought and killed them. Richardson not only helped buy them, and use them in a feature length film, but he’ll be using them to “raise awareness” by interacting with them for the rest of their lives, over and over again.

There are distinct differences between “raising awareness” about an issue, and capitalizing off that issue for your own gain, but these differences are something Richardson has carefully endeavored to blur for his fans.

The fact is, canned hunting has been in the public eye since Richardson first started working for Lion Park, who was, at the time that Richardson worked for them (and continues to) participate in selling lions to canned hunting contacts.

The widely watched investigative program, “The Crook Report” which was known for undercover documentaries first exposed the true horrors of canned hunting to the worldwide public in 1997. In its segment on the matter (coverage begins at 11:30 in this video, but be warned, it is graphic) undercover reporters involved with The Cook Report’s investigation presented horrific video evidence, such as the killing of the Dark Lioness, who had been separated from her adolescent cubs only hours before the hunters who purchased her arrived. She was then butchered just feet from her watching cubs, shot twice by a paying hunter who sat comfortably inside a vehicle. Such was the documented atrocities of The Cook Report. (the canned lion hunting segment begins at 11:30 but again, it is GRAPHIC)

But the video evidence pertaining to canned lion hunting almost didn’t make it off the lion farms where it was filmed. The investigative reporters were locked behind the gates of one such farm, and trapped there by the angry owners who suspected that they’d been duped into allowing the wrong people to see their dirty secrets. Only quick thinking, and good luck allowed The Cook Report investigators to escape with their stomach churning evidence. Evidence which was then aired on international television, to dramatic effect.

Within days of The Cook Report’s release on television, 55,000 signatures had been gathered to protest the sport of canned hunting, and you must remember that in 1997 at the time The Cook Report aired, the internet was not the ubiquitous force it is today. Petitions were largely products of paper, and their creation something that required people to go out and actually participate in real life, rather than simply typing on their personal computers. It is clear that The Cook Report put the atrocities of canned lion hunting (as well as that of other animals) front and center for the world wide public to grasp and loathe.

But while The Cook Report was prompting hundreds of thousands of viewers to cringe and writhe upon viewing its documentation of canned lion hunting, Kevin Richardson was hiring on to work for a lion farm which actually participated in the industry that The Cook Report was working to expose. Over a decade later, in 2009, Richardson was still working for Lion Park, and even today professes to have been completely ignorant to the fact that Lion Park’s constant conveyor belt of captive-bred lions were handled by the public and then fed directly into the canned hunting industry. No one is born knowing everything. However, it boggles the mind to consider that a grown man who built his entire career working with lions within the confines of a lion farm, and within the world of the captive lion breeding industry, claims that he did so without actually understanding how lion farms, or captive breeding worked.

Those claims of ignorance become even more absurd when you take into the account that Richardson was at the center of many of Lion Park’s exploitive commercial endeavors. By his own account, Richardson took part in the filming of multiple for-profit ads, commercials, and staged ‘documentaries’ using the lions of Lion Park. In the case of White Lion, which began planning and production in 2005, Richardson was not only the producer, but also the head lion wrangler. It was Richardson who was charged with selecting and securing the over sixty (60) lions, ranging in age from small cubs to adults, which were used to make the movie. When it was decided to change the lions from regular tawny animals, to white lions, which would allow capitalization on the rise in interest of rare white lions, it was Richardson who had to come up with white lions to replace the tawny lions he’d already cast.

Since Lion Park only had one adult white lion, Letsatsi, and two younger white males, Thor, and Gandalf, Richardson was forced to “source” a pair of teenage white male lions from elsewhere. It’s never been specified where those lions came from, nor is it ever revealed what happened to them. We do know, however, that part of White Lion was filmed on the Entabeni Game Reserve. This is important because filming on White Lion was finished in late 2008, part of that filming of which took place at Entabeni Game Reserve, located in Limpopo Province, which is renown as the premier location for lion hunting.

In 2009, in Limpopo Province white lions fetched, on average, a price of $18,691 USD at auction, nearly five times the average price of $4,021 USD for a standard tawny lion. Just as the marketability of white lions to the larger public made them ideal for use in Richardson’s movie, White Lion, it also made them in high demand for canned hunters, driving up their auction price. To suggest that Richardson–who was smart enough to know that white lions would (and still do) sell to the public better than plain tawny lions, and smart enough to work with multiple lion farms which focused on the captive breeding of white lions, within a Province where white lions carried five times the market value of tawny lions as trophy animals–was not smart enough to understand that these same farms and Lion Park were participating in the canned hunting industry, is preposterous.

Likewise, the persistent claim that Richardson “saved” what lions he could from Lion Park when he left there, remains laughable. Aside from the fact that over the years since his supposed split with Rodney Fuhr, Lion Park’s owner in 2011, Richardson has alternately stated that he bought the lions, then stated that he had not been able to buy them until 2016, there is the question of which lions Richardson chose to take with him. Over 60 lions were used to film White Lion, but of those 60, the current location of only a small handful can be confirmed. Notably, Thor, and Gandalf, both white males, were saved/bought/adopted however you choose to frame it, by Richardson. Along with them, were several other lions whom Richardson had hand-raised from birth and/or had intimate, and useful relationships with.

In sharp contrast to Thor and Gandalf, the fate of Bruce and Bravo, the two teenage white lions used in White Lion, remains unknown. Letsatsi, though originally personally groomed by Richardson for months before filming so that he could be the proud star of the movie, was quickly discarded from the “Richardson pride” after he refused to perform on cue. Richardson had known Letsatsi for five full years before the filming of White Lion began, and knew that the lion was not ideal for what he was trying to force him to do.

Nevertheless, with the opportunity to promote the film at the Cannes Film Festival in France, Richardson needed a promotional clip, which included “the majestic Letsatsi, our star, striding through a wide-open expanse” (Richardson, Kevin, and Tony Park. Part of the Pride: My Life Among the Big Cats of Africa. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2009. First Edition, Print. Page 202).

Photo from Richardson's autobiography.

According to Richardson’s own words:

“Letsatsi wasn’t a filming lion” something that Richardson had recognized early on, and which had been previously discussed. “Letsatsi had never enjoyed being loaded and driven around on trucks” but “he was our only adult white lion at the time and we just had to hope it would work out.” (Richardson, Kevin, and Tony Park. Part of the Pride: My Life Among the Big Cats of Africa. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2009. First Edition, Print. Page 204)

So under Richardson’s direction, Letsatsi was loaded onto a truck, driven to a private filming location–where local media, photographers, and press had also been called so as to promote the movie–and then unloaded so that he could be forced to perform. Letsatsi, however, did what Richardson already feared he would do. He refused to perform. Instead, he walked off. The “majestic” white lion proceeded to “stride through a wide open expanse” for about five hours, refusing to acknowledge Richardson, or obey his commands. Eventually the lion was shot with a dart gun, sedated, and physically hauled home.

In Richardson’s words:

“I loved him to bits, but our relationship took a big strain that day, when all of a sudden he wanted to roam free. In fact, my five year relationship with him went down the toilet at that point.” (Richardson, Kevin, and Tony Park. Part of the Pride: My Life Among the Big Cats of Africa. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2009. First Edition, Print. Page 204)

Richardson literally blamed a lion whom he already knew hated being driven around on trucks and forced to perform, for destroying their five year relationship. Later, Richardson admitted to having pushed Letsatsi, “harder and harder in the weeks leading up to his spectacular walkout” but blamed his position as producer for that pressure, claiming that if he’d only been responsible for wrangling the lions, and not getting the best shot, he wouldn’t have tried to force Letsatsi to perform.

The fact remains, however, that Richardson was, in fact, the head lion wrangler on White Lion, and Richardson did, in fact, choose to try and force Letsatsi to perform when he knew the lion was not comfortable, and had been overworked in the weeks prior. And once Richardson’s own actions had destroyed the five year relationship he had with the lion Letsatsi, he discarded that lion like the useless offal he was. After their break, Richardson could not work with Letsatsi, could not film with him, and thus could not market him. When Richardson parted ways with Rodney Fuhr, and left Lion Park behind, he also left Letsatsi. Although Richardson has always professed that his lions are his “family” and that he would never leave them behind, that commitment clearly only pertains to the “family” he can manipulate for filming and photos. Since Letsatsi could not be used in such a fashion, Richardson left him at Lion Park, where he has lived for the last ten years, siring litter after litter of cubs to be used for cub petting, and later, canned hunting.

Screenshot of Letsatsi taken this year at Lion Park.

This video from October of 2018 shows Letsatsi (housed with the two white lionesses supposedly responsible for a mauling, though it’s not clear what mauling, since the keeper simply refers to “the old park”)

Meanwhile, Thor (who ended up being the star of White Lion) and Gandalf, who were both much more amendable to Richardson’s control and influence, were “rescued” and taken to Richardson’s current sanctuary.

Taken from Richardson's autobiography. Thor was one of Richardson's most popular lions, and was featured in numerous photos and videos until his untimely death by lightning strike.

At the time that White Lion was released, Richardson claimed to hope that the movie would “give people second thoughts about participating in” canned hunts, saying that, “Canned hunting, in my opinion, is likened to fishing with dynamite in a pond and then calling yourself a fisherman.”

While making such statements in interviews pertaining to his movie, Richardson took a very different position in his own autobiography, saying “I don’t have a problem with people such as Dirk, the professional lion farmer, and hunter, breeding lions for hunting.” And “I don’t begrudge an ethical lion farmer making money out of lions, any more than I would think it wrong for a fair cattle farmer to sell his animals for slaughter.” (Richardson, Kevin, and Tony Park. Part of the Pride: My Life Among the Big Cats of Africa. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2009. First Edition, Print. Pages 133-134).

Richardson’s only complaint was in facilities that offered cub-petting and then sold older animals into canned hunting (which is, perversely, something Lion Park has done for decades) because “That’s an example of where a lion hunting farm starts to come into my territory, and I don’t like it.” (Richardson, Kevin, and Tony Park. Part of the Pride: My Life Among the Big Cats of Africa. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2009. First Edition, Print. Page 133)

In 2016, Richardson quietly edited these statements, and many more, from his autobiography, carefully reshaping his position to be firmly anti-lion farming, anti-cub petting, and anti-canned hunting. This revision of his autobiography coincides with the filming of Richardson’s current movie, Mia And The White Lion, which is being heavily advertised as yet another attempt to “raise awareness” about canned hunting.

But the 2018 release of Mia And The White Lion marks twenty years that Kevin Richardson has been working in the captive lion industry, using lions to film commercials, and make ad campaigns, and film movies, and talk an awful lot about how bad canned hunting is. And yet, Richardson is still willing to participate in the very industry he continues to insist he, and his Foundation, “fight against”.

In the last two decades, huge strides have been made in raising awareness about the captive lion breeding, cub-petting, and canned hunting industries. From investigative reporting like that carried out by The Cook Report, to the next breakthrough documentary Blood Lions, to the more questionable, but very effective recently dramatized plight of Mufasa the white lion, media outlets have, for the past two decades, embraced the understanding the canned hunting is deplorable, and breeding lions in captivity is not going to solve the problems of wild lions. There are now watch lists that those who wish to volunteer in South Africa can reference in order to assure they apply to reputable foundations which do not participate in the canned hunting industry.

Yet Kevin Richardson has not evolved along with this growing understanding of the exploitation of captive lions. Although he has spoken (for years) about the need to raise awareness about canned hunting, and the desire to ban canned hunting, Richardson has not made any move to push legislation on a governmental level, which would help stymie the massive reservoir from whence canned hunting draws its seemingly endless supply of lions, both tawny and white. A ban on cub petting and lion-walking has been discussed at length, but Richardson did not add his voice to the matter. Interactions were even briefly banned at Lion Park, but then quickly resumed. Captive breeding to supply the cubs needed for cub petting is another area of possible regulation on which Richardson has never spoken. Of course, Richardson’s silence regarding a ban on captive breeding, and cub-petting of lions, might well be one borne of self-preservation. After all, if it were to become illegal for Richardson to interact with his lions, if such were to be viewed as bad form, then where would Richardson end up? He is famous for little more than his own lion interactions, and his constant rhetoric about “raising awareness” about canned hunting. And if there were a ban on the captive breeding of lions, where would Richardson secure his next batch of lions, to make his next movie?

When viewed objectively, Richardson as “the face of lion conservation and the anti-canned hunting movement” is a mirage which cannot be sustained. And one which is an unconscionable slight to those who have genuinely carried lion conservation and the anti-canned hunting movement forward.

While groups like The Cook Report were going undercover to expose the horrors of canned lion hunting, and people like Ian Michler, of Blood Lions were penning articles which addressed conservation, and the issues facing lions in South Africa during the late 1990s and early 2000s, Kevin Richardson was embedding himself in a commercial lion farm, staging “documentaries” using captive bred and hand raised lions, and putting out Go-Pro videos of himself interacting with captive, hand raised and trained lions.

In the mid 2000s to 2010, while National Parks like Kruger, and other conservation organizations were covering the move to ban canned hunting in Africa, and publishing articles which warned against interacting with captive lions and encouraged the public to take responsibility and action, Richardson was conspiring to undertake, and then proceeding to engage in filming a feature length movie which capitalized on the rarity and mystic of white lions, using some 60 captive bred lions, with Lion Park who participated in the canned hunting that everyone else was trying to get banned. Richardson also wrote and publish his autobiography, which covered his life spent interacting with captive bred lions, at Lion Park, which actively supported the cub petting and canned hunting industries.

In the wake of his own autobiography’s success, and amidst a growing fan base, and a growing stable of sponsors, Richardson attempted to open his own lion park, Kingdom Of the White Lion, with Rodney Fuhr (although Richardson claimed to have cut ties with Fuhr in 2011) The venture was short-lived, and by 2013, Richardson was in court fighting with his new partner, Alan Friedland (some accounts state that Richardson left Fuhr, and opened Kingdom Of the White Lion with Friedland, but since part of White Lion was filmed at the KOWL location, and that movie was funded by Fuhr, this seems unlikely) As recently as 2015, at least one article claimed that Richardson was “petrified” that he was going to be thrown in jail after he claimed that he had no money to pay the debts he accrued in his failed venture and court fight with Friedland.

Despite such legal woes, by 2015, while such acclaimed documentaries as Blood Lions were hitting the airways, exposing the canned hunting industry with new resolve to end it (and directly linking both Lion Park where Richardson had worked for over a decade, and Ukutula lion farm to the canned hunting industry) Richardson was already engaged in yet another feature length movie endeavor. Having been approached by director Gilles de Maistre with the scheme of making singular movie that would contain real white lions, interacting with real children, Richardson happily signed on to the project. By the time Blood Lions was released, Richardson had already helped de Maistre hold casting calls for children at Ukutula Lodge lion farm (breeders of “rare” white lions) where the child actors were allowed to play with cubs and interact with them. Based on the children’s behavior, Richardson helped select the human stars of the movie. Richardson and de Maistre then revisited Ukutula lion farm in order to secure a number of male white lion cubs which would be used in the making of the movie, which at the time, was being called Charlie The White Lion (though readers will note that on some pages of the now deleted website, the movie name was changed to Mia And The White Lion before the website was deleted).

After the release of Blood Lions, and the public outrage over the killing of Cecil the lion, and with himself involved in the production of a movie that was framed to be anti-lion farming, and anti-canned hunting, Richardson revisited his autobiography, and removed large portions of it. Removed passages include addressment of lion farms which Richardson states he does not have a problem with them (cited above) as well as passages that criticized those who question his own interactions, and lion captivity in general.

“Some people say I shouldn’t be domesticating my lions, but I say that is rubbish. I enrich their lives”

“What angers me about the debate over animals in captivity is that it’s been hijacked by a small number of people at the extreme end of the spectrum. The die-hard greenies want to end any form of captivity,”

“Lions exist in captivity for a number of reasons. Firstly, there is education. Even if I stopped working in television I would want to bring school groups to see my animals,”

“Lions are kept in captivity at facilities such as the Lion Park for tourism purposes.”

I see no problem with any of the above reasons for keeping lions in captivity as long as the lions are well cared for and happy.”

(Richardson, Kevin, and Tony Park. Part of the Pride: My Life Among the Big Cats of Africa. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2009. First Edition, Print. Pages 107-109).

In addition to the entire removal of passages like those from which the above quotes were taken, Richardson also removed all capitalization of the Lion Park in reference to his place of work, allowing readers to question whether or not he is referring to the Lion Park owned by Rodney Fuhr featured in the movie Blood Lions as a participant of canned hunting. After the redactions and editing of his autobiography (which has never been publicly declared, and which is mentioned only in one single sentence within the Introduction of the book) Richardson and his PR folks began promoting his biography again, with Richardson once more making the circuit of public speaking engagements, his presentations now carefully anti-cub petting, anti-lion farming, anti-captivity.

This reconstruction of his position came at a fortunate time, as it was shortly after the release of his edited autobiography that groups like CWW began questioning the ethics of the movie Charlie the White Lion, questioning the ethics of Richardson to participate in making the movie, questioning the ethics of purchasing lions cubs to be raised by hand, by children for the making of the movie.

To date, neither Richardson nor de Maistre have ever responded to any of the articles CWW published discussing Charlie the White Lion. However, after we published several articles about it, the entire website, which had detailed the production of the movie, was deleted. The website can now only be accessed via the Way Back Machine, where one can enter the original address www.charliethewhitelion.com and be taken to the cached pages. While photos are gone, all the text remains. On social media, Charlie the White Lion ceased to exist until de Maistre began using the hashtag #Miaandthewhitelion. No new website for the movie was ever made, nor has any information regarding the production of the movie, now renamed Mia And The White Lion, been made public since CWW first began questioning the ethics of the movie.

Richardson continued his promotions against canned hunting, and cub petting on his own social media pages. He also continued producing his YouTube videos of himself interacting with his personal lions. Many of these videos were filmed not on Richardson’s sanctuary, but out on the expanses of the Dinokeng Reserve–which means that wild lions who live on the reserve were forced out of the area so that Richardson’s captive lions could be filmed there instead. Such activity ended abruptly, in early 2018, however, when one of Richardson’s captive lions left the open area of the Dinokeng, and entered an area of Richardson’s sanctuary which was supposedly safe, and once there, fatally mauled a young woman visiting the sanctuary with a friend who was interviewing the camp manager.

The only public statement Richardson ever made regarding it placed the woman “outside the car”, while assuring that he had properly notified everyone that lions would be out of their enclosures on the (Dinokeng) Reserve, and specified the he and his colleague had “assessed the landscape for other big 5 animals”. Outside of the direct quote from Richardson, the statement made on his social media pages went on to claim that before leaving the reserve the two visitors had stopped to take photographs.

The legally precise, and carefully worded statement made by Richardson's social media pages.

This careful press release concisely placed full responsibility for the fatality on the dead girl herself, for being out of her vehicle on a game reserve, and resulted in a massive online response wherein literally thousands of commenters asserted that the dead young woman actually deserved to be killed and that Richardson was completely absolved of responsibility, despite that it was his own lion who had committed the fatal mauling, and despite that just weeks prior, during an “Ask Meg” video segment, Richardson had stated that if one his lions were to encounter a stranger they would probably attack them.

With the fatal mauling as minimized in the public eye as possible (investigations by authorities are still ongoing) Richardson went on to announce the creation of the Kevin Richardson Foundation (though the foundation has actually been registered for a number of years) and then proceeded to unveil various “projects” throughout the year, each carefully structured to present a firm stance toward conserving, for the first time ever, wild lions. With his LandForLions campaign (though this first fundraiser is actually to buy his own sanctuary, where his captive lions live) Richardson has done what he does best, con the public in to believing that he’s interested in saving whatever it is they want him to be interested in saving.

The fine print of the #landforlions Thundafund stating that the money will actually be used to buy the land where his sanctuary is located. The Thundafund notably advertises the camp where one of Richardson's lion fatally mauled a young woman as a reward for donations of $14,400 USD and up, which contradict's Richardson's public statement insinuating that the girl's death occurred outside his sanctuary.

Richardson’s ability to evade responsibility, or accountability remains his most astounding feature.

Now Richardson–who began his career at a lion farm that supports captive breeding, cub petting, and canned hunting, and who has for two decades interacted with captive bred lions for profit–is enjoying the company of Royals, during the Monaco premier of Mia And The White Lion, a commercial movie made, using captive bred white lions, bought from a known lion farm that supports captive breeding of lions, cub petting, and canned hunting, and for which Richardson trained children to interact with captive lions.

And Richardson still has the gall to say the only reason he made this movie is to “bring awareness to canned hunting, and cub petting”.

Mia and The White Lion has all the earmarks of becoming an instant classic, at least amongst the white lion-craving public. But considering that the entire thing has been made in collusion with the very industries it’s supposed to deride, we hold no hope that it will convey anything more than the romanticized story of a beautiful girl, and her gorgeous, noble beast friend. A real live beauty and the beast. No resulting message can erase the hypocrisy of how the movie was made.

“It’s a film for all age groups,” said Richardson, “with every ingredient to be a runaway hit. And the cubs will pull at the heart strings of the most seasoned moviegoer.”

Oh, oops, pardon, that’s what Richardson was quoted as saying about White Lion, before it’s release back in 2009.

But hey, why change a good thing? Captive white lions sold like hotcakes back then, they’ve sold in the years since then, and they’re only going to sell better now. Especially with the edition of an attractive young girl, and the message of saving lions everywhere attached to it.

Yes indeed, captive lions are more valuable than ever before. Thank you for showcasing that fact, Mr. Richardson.

***************** ADDENDUM***************

Which looks extremely similar to the set up of Richardson’s sanctuary:

left a comment suggesting that people should question where Richardson obtained the white lion cubs that were used in the making of Mia And The White Lion. She pointed out that they’d been bought from a breeding facility which is renown for selling to canned hunting. When asked by another commenter if she had any evidence to back up her statement, she replied, stating that she had already posted a link to evidence, but that it had been deleted. She went on to say that originally, it was KR’s own PR person who had named the farm (Ukutula). In response to this comment by the question-raiser, the Kevin Richardson Facebook Page actually directly addressed her, declaring that “It’s no secret the lions were purchased from a cub petting facility” and then went on to attempt to justify the purchase by insisting that they’d been saved, and “will live our their lives at our sanctuary.”

The comments of the question-raiser have since been deleted from the comment feed.

The reason this is important, is because just a few days ago, Paula Kahumbu, of Wildlife Direct posted about attending the world premier of Mia And The White Lion. Although Ms. Kahumbu pointed out that the movie “portrays a romantic image of Africa that simply does into exist” inasmuch as its romanticism of Africa (true) she also suggested that others “watch this film and tell me what you are going to do”. about the problem of canned hunting. Quickly, comments appeared, expressing surprise that Kahumbu would support a film which used lions that had been purchased from within the very industry the movie supposedly derides. Kahumba replied thoughtfully, and we’ve put a screenshot of that reply below, underlining the most important part for easy viewing.

A sanctuary in Timbavati? Though Kahumu doesn’t specify who, exactly, made this claim, she did clearly indicate that she spoke to both Kevin Richardson and Gilles de Maistre, and that she was told that the lions were in Timbavati. Yet in the same time as the comments on Kahumu’s FB page, Richardson’s page posted the above photo of the human and lion stars of Mia And The White Lion at a location that closely resembles Richardson’s sanctuary. And then under that photo the Richardson Page commented, confirming both that the lions had been bought from Ukutula lion farm, and that they would live out their entire lives on Richardson’s sanctuary. Likewise, this screenshot from one of the star’s Instagram page clearly indicates that the cub she’s shown holding is now an adult and living with Richardson.

And within the same time that this Instagram photo was posted by one of the actresses involved, the Richardson FB page also commented on a post about the movie stating in response to a question about where the lions in the movie would live, and again state firmly that the lions will live out there lives at Richardson’s sanctuary.

This, of course, directly contradicts the answer given at the premier of the movie, where it was stated that the lions were living on a reserve in Timbavati, which is famed for hosting a population of white lions. So which is the true story?

Marketing The Mythical White Lion

Marketing the Mythical White Lion

We couldn’t help but notice that Mufasa the white lion is all over the internet.

Again.

Apparently, Mufasa the white lion is in desperate need of rescue from being auctioned off to canned hunting.

Again.

Because, apparently, even though “a sanctuary” has offered to take Mufasa the white lion, along with his “mate” Suraya (or Soraya) and give them a forever home, “the government” has refused this offer and would rather sell him to canned hunters.

Again.

We aren’t being facetious, or heartless. We’re simply pointing out that for over two years now, Mufasa the white lion has been in dire straights, but suspiciously, Mufasa has never been saved, nor has he ever been auctioned to the ubiquitously insidious canned hunters, who are, according to every fluff-piece article currently circulating, waiting within the shadows of evil to swoop in and buy a “rare” white lion. Because nothing sells like the timeless, yet modern-made, myth of the mystical White Lion.

Our caustic position is not directed at the lion, Mufasa, but rather at the media hysteria so easily induced, so easily spread, and so poorly informed. The tipping point for us, which brought on the addressment of the Mufasa situation, was when even dear old #PapaBear of #BlackJaguarWhiteTiger, himself, Eduardo Serio decided to grab some of the current “white lion mania”.

Over on the #BJWT Instagram page, Eddie shared one of the dozens of headliner articles currently circulating about Mufasa the white lion, and took the opportunity to ramble into a tirade about how corrupt Africa is (laughable, coming from a guy in Mexico who’s personally just as corrupt) and rail against trophy hunters before winding up by misquoting Einstein and then suggesting that the best way to save planet earth is to stop reproducing.

(For the record, #PapaBear the correct quote from Einstein is “Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.” So, even though you butchered the quote, you’re sort of right, because energy can be directed for either good or evil.)

Honestly, though, the “real” story of Mufasa the white lion doesn’t make anymore sense than Serio’s disjointed, misquotes and suggested doomsday-fixes

Here are the facts we can 100% verify regarding Mufasa the white lion:

1. There is a white lion named Mufasa who is living somewhere in Africa.

2. Mufasa was confiscated from a private owner.

3. Another cub named Suraya (also spelled Soraya) was confiscated around the same time, and the two are now a bonded pair.

And… well, and that’s all we know for sure.

Back in February of 2016, a white lion cub named Mufasa, accompanied by the backstory of having been confiscated by North West Nature Conservation and introduced to a cub named Suraya, or Soraya, and being involved in an “ongoing court case” first appeared on the Captured In Africa Foundation’s website. CIA still lists Mufasa and Soraya under their “Past Projects” with the description of “duration ongoing” in the write up which accompanies Mufasa, who is pictured as a 4 month old cub shortly after confiscation.

Mufasa's profile under the "Past Projects" section of the Captured In Africa Foundation website.

Fast forward three years to the present, and while Mufasa is still listed on the Captured In Africa Foundation’s “past projects” page, his story has been recirculated over and over again for the last year, with each manifestation of it repeating the same vague and undefined facts, that “the government” has refused to allow the white lion and his companion to be moved to “a sanctuary”, and instead wants to “auction” the white lion off to canned hunters. But while the trail of Mufasa begins with the listing on the Captured In Africa Foundation website (CIAF has never, that we know of, shared any media links decrying Mufasa’s dire situation, or attempting to garner support for him, or the cause of rescuing him, even though they have him listed as a rescue they are involved with) it quickly fades away into a world-wide internet game of “telephone” with hundreds of articles being shared, all repeating much deteriorated “facts” which are neither cited to source, nor independently verified. Most of them actually link directly to the GivenGain fundraiser being held by Wild For Life, where Mufasa is being housed. Because that’s not like the fox guarding the henhouse, or anything.

Although “a sanctuary” is referenced repeatedly, only one article we found actually named a sanctuary, the validity of which we cannot confirm. Though the same sanctuary has been named in speculation amongst private fb groups, that sanctuary has never publicly posted about Mufasa on any of their social media pages, or their website, nor have they indicated they are attempting to rescue the white lion.

Multiple government agencies have been referenced as being responsible for refusing to allow Mufasa to be taken to “a sanctuary” but none of those agencies have ever made a public statement about the white lion or his companion, aside from denying accusations, nor can we find any specific person or official named in association with the refusal of “the government” and its supposed actions.

No specific reason aside from “recouping money” has ever been listed as to why auctioning Mufasa off would be preferable to allowing him to be sent to a sanctuary. If money is the issue one wonders why the “government agencies” wouldn’t just offer to sell Mufasa to the public at large? After all, the latest update on the “Save Mufasa” fundraising page states that “The Department” has declined “our offer” to write off costs in exchange for the lion (virtually every article about Mufasa addresses only him, but the lioness he lives with is interchangeably ignored, or presumptively lumped in with him) the update goes on to say that “court costs” will be pushed over R100000. That fundraiser, however, has already gathered some R142000 (about $10k USD) So if that much money can be raised to defend Mufasa in court, surely more could be raised to simply buy his safety. Never mind that the same article which did speculate about specific sanctuaries also noted that “the department” responsible for refusing to let Mufasa go to that sanctuary was offered some R300,000 (about $21,000 USD) which they refused. That same article then posited that “the department” wanted to sell Mufasa into the canned hunting industry for $50,000 USD. The article did not, however, offer any evidence to back up this claim.

White lions are not rare. Not in captivity.

They’re just not.

Sorry to destroy the mythos, but white lions are bred constantly because–brace yourself for this shocker–the public is fixated with white lions, and the white lion mythos.

Yes, in the wild, white lions are rare. But in captivity, they are THE THING to have. And since the first lions possessing the recessive trait that causes the coloration were identified, they’ve been consistently, constantly bred in captivity, while their mythology has be built up to epic proportions, and entire foundations have been created with the supposed goal of preserving them as a species. Even though the truth is that the captive white lions of today have been created and maintained to feed an idealistic mythology contrived to sell a romanticized fiction to the public. This is also why Mufasa was given a vasectomy. Because he was bred in captivity, from a captive population. We do no need more captive white lions created to perpetuate a largely fictionalized mythos, nor do we need average tawny lions being bred in captivity. Therefore Mufasa was given a vasectomy, as he should have been. However, the fact that he cannot sire more captive offspring is now being falsely vilified–when it was the appropriate thing to do. Those pushing this effort to “save” Mufasa are now implying that because he’s received a vasectomy, he’s “worthless” to everyone except canned hunters. However, the only value Mufasa would have as a stud producing cubs, would be measured in how many captive-bred cubs he could sire in his lifetime. Cubs which would be bred only for the purpose of being , exploited within the captive lion industry.

Any common captive bred male white lion, can, theoretically, be sold for $30,000+ USD to the canned hunting world.

So why would “government departments” in SA spend two years or more battling in court, spending money on the effort, to get their hands on Mufasa specifically, just so they can turn around and “auction him off to canned hunters” to “make back the money spent on his care” when there are hundreds of other captive white lions in existence at any given time? The numbers just don’t add up.

Well, not when you look at the possible monetary profit to be gained by putting Mufasa up for auction. Now, if you’re talking numbers as they relate to website hits, shares, and the attention of the public, then you’re on to something. Because if there’s one thing that sells, it’s a mythical white lion in crisis. Just Google Mufasa the white lion. Hundreds, and hundreds of hits, articles that give no actual information, or give incorrect facts stating how “rare” white lions like Mufasa are, linking to questionable statistics provided by foundations built on the fictions of the white lion mythology, rather than science. The internet is currently awash with all things Mufasa The Mythical White Lion.

Now, with the public whipped into a frenzy over Mufasa’s imminent demise at the hands of canned hunters, with the mythical, “rare” white lion front and center it the public eye, and with celebrities like Ricky Gervais and Russel Crowe vowing to take on the entire African canned hunting industry in order to “save Mufasa the white lion” the Mufasa the White Lion FB page (which didn’t seem to even exist before July 12, 2018) has suddenly changed their story.

Although the top-pinned post on their feed discusses the imminent removal of Mufasa, under a court order (dated from early September) pleading for public support:

Post pinned to the top of the Mufasa FB page as of the publishing of this article

Lower, more recent posts, from just the past two days, announce that the campaign for legal costs has now been closed, saying:

“I have closed the campaign for legal costs for the court case for Mufasa and Soraya. Following the generous offer by our lawyer Carel Zietsman and other members of the legal team to donate the money towards the lion's immediate needs, it is only fair not to take any more donations for that campaign.”

Much more recent post, only visible if you scroll down the page, stating that the original legal-fee fundraiser is closed, but that the money raised will not, in fact, go to legal costs, but rather be used, in part, for the current care of Mufasa.

Wait, after months of circulating this story, and raising money for court costs so as to allow the rehab center where Mufasa and Suraya are living to fight for their lives, the lawyers have decided to donate all that money for the immediate needs of Mufasa and Soraya?

The post goes on to state that:

“We have therefore decided to use some of that money to create a safety zone around the area where they are kept. This will increase our ability to react quicker in case of intrusions and especially before anyone can get to our lions. This will be in addition to the double fencing, cameras and other security measures already in place.”

Buuut what about the court order demanding that Mufasa be turned over to Natcon?

What about the legal fight to have Mufasa sent to “a sanctuary”?

Now money donated for the legal battle to save Mufasa and get him moved to “a sanctuary” is being used to “create a safety zone” around the area where he’s currently living? A place where he’s not going to stay?

And how does the announcement that the lawyer and her legal team have decided to donate the money raised for them, to the care of Mufasa even make sense? That first campaign for legal funds said point blank:

“Although our lawyer is working pro bono, court cost in this case will come to approximately R50 000”

This number was then raised to R100 000 in the most recent update, saying:

“The case will now be heard in High court in Mmabatho, which pushes up our court costs to R100 000. We tried to stay in regional court to prevent the escalation, but the department has now forced our hand, hence the increase in fundraising effort.”

If the court case is ongoing, then court costs still exist. Lawyers don’t get to just waive them, and choose to donate the money designed to cover them to some other area.

And in another post (both posts are from 11/17/2018, put up within about 20 minutes of each other) the Mufasa FB page says:

“our legal team are hard at work in trying to secure Mufasa and Soraya a safe, lifecare agreement at a reputable sanctuary”

Another post, even farther down, stating that a new fundraiser is being started, even though the fight is "not over", also naming Drew Abrahamson for "handling this" apparently referencing Mufasa's saga.

This post continues to say:

“I am hereby posting our new campaign for the relocation of the lions when approved including veterinary care, relocation of lions and humans as needed when the time arrives.”

Okay, now just hold on.

In two separate posts from the same day the Mufasa FB page announced that it was closing the campaign to raise money for court costs, and instead, was going to use that money, which was raised for legal fees (legal fees they had just increased on the fundraising page) to “create a safety zone” around the Mufasa’s current location at Wild For Life. The Mufasa FB page then turned around and announced that it was opening a NEW campaign to raise money in order to pay to relocate Mufasa and his companion, vet care, and humans (?) “when the time arrives”.

The link accompanying this post takes the viewer to a totally new fundraiser that has an even more confusing write up stating:

“We are in the middle of the legal fight to get Mufasa and Soraya to a sanctuary, however we have to look forward and start thinking about their future. Our legal team has identified a preferred sanctuary and a letter of confirmation to confirm their future care is in our hands. The building of a totally new enclosure has been sponsored by an anonymous sponsor. We are still working on getting sponsorships for certain aspects. This campaign focusses to raise funds to relocate the two lions from their current location to their future home including veterinary care-darting, vets accompanying lions, relocation of lions as well as travel and overnight costs for humans involved in the relocation.”

So, the fundraiser to support legal fees has been closed, and now that money isn’t going to legal fees, it’s going to be used for the lions current care, without any explanation as to why the (ongoing) court costs magically do not need to be paid, even though the group actually increased the sum needed to cover court costs in that fundraiser’s last update. There’s a court order to relinquish Mufasa, and he’s apparently still on the verge of being auctioned off to canned hunters, but the Mufasa FB page is now running a new fundraiser to pay for the transport of two lions they don’t yet legally have a right to transport anywhere but which they eventually intend to transport to a sanctuary where a “totally new enclosure has been sponsored by an anonymous sponsor.” and where work is still being done toward “getting sponsorships for certain aspects.”

Screenshot of the "new" fundraising campaign created for Mufasa

Are you confused yet? Because we sure are.

This second post also gives a special “thank you” to Drew Abrahamson “for handling this”. Abrahamson is the founder/owner of the Captured In Africa Foundation. You know, the one who claimed to be in charge of “saving” Mufasa back in 2016.

And in case you doubt our assertions, here’s Drew Abrahamson, of the Captured In Africa Foundation enjoying a little playtime with Mufasa shortly after he arrived at Wild For Life (but apparently available for cuddles, if you know the right folks).

Wait, what?

Is, or is Mufasa not in any real danger?

Is, or is Mufasa not about to be auctioned to canned hunters?

Is, or is Mufasa not safe in his current location?

Is, or is Mufasa not the center of a legal conflict?

Is, or is Mufasa not in need of monetary support at all?

Just which sanctuary has been anonymously funded to house Mufasa?

If “other sponsorships” are being secured, why is there a new fundraiser to cover costs associated with relocation that isn’t guaranteed to happen?

If the court battle is ongoing, and it’s “not over” as the Mufasa FB page says, why is the money that was raised to support the legal battle not being used to fight the legal battle that’s still ongoing? And where did those court costs disappear to, since they apparently don’t need to be paid now?

If only part of the money which was originally raised for court costs which have now disappeared, is being spent on improvements to where Mufasa is currently living, but where he won’t be staying forever, where is the rest of the money going to go?

If the same person (Drew Abrahamson) who stated that her Foundation was directly involved with saving Mufasa as a 4 month old cub back in February of 2016, who was apparently able to visit him, and interact with him whenever she wanted, and who also stated back in 2016 that “Both cubs will be relocated to a sanctuary in due course.” is the person who is “handling everything” now, in 2018, and has been directly involved start to finish with Mufasa, why are articles claiming that Mufasa is about to be auctioned off to evil canned hunters at any moment being circulated and recirculated around the internet? And why isn’t Abrahamson, or her Foundation, Captured In Africa making any effort to publicly clarify the facts surrounding Mufasa, since she is apparently the one “handling everything” associated with him?

The answer to everything above, is:

We don’t know.

But we do have a few ideas.

The mythos of white lions has been something marketed and capitalized on for years now. Exceedingly few white lions have ever existed in the wild, yet an ever-growing captive population of white lions persists, and there are more than one group and/or foundation who seek to use them as figureheads. Richardson used white lions in his movie White Lion (then continued to use those white lions for his own purposes). Many books touting the myths of the sacred white lion can be found through a simple Google search, and many of them urge readers to help “preserve” this fictionalized species of lion. Now Richardson has endeavored to make a second feature length film, Mia And The White Lion, showcasing another mythical white lion–and the white lions used in that production are already living at his sanctuary where he’s already using their images to sell products and raise money.

Similarly, Drew Abrahamson of the Captured In Africa Foundation, has quite a lot to gain from the media attention and world-wide focus being enjoyed by a white lion she has, by her own words, known since he was a young cub. After all, Abrahamson describes herself as “being involved with various initiatives and organizations” including “fundraising for Sanwild Wildlife Sanctuary”. Huh, imagine that. Sanwild Wildlife Sanctuary is the very sanctuary who has been mentioned only once via a public article, as being the probable future home of Mufasa the white lion. The same white lion lion Drew has been involved with since he was a cub in 2016. Well, that’s awful convenient, isn’t it? And rumors are going around that Abrahamson would like to expand her largely self-promoted reputation outside of South Africa. Single-handedly facilitating the “rescue” of the now-world famous Mufasa The White Lion would be quite the feather in her cap wouldn’t it? Organizations in countries other than SA would probably line up to hire Abrahamson to talk about herself then, wouldn’t they? No conflict of interest there...

Whoever winds up with Mufasa the mythical white lion (and make no mistake, if Mufasa ever was in any real danger, he most certainly is well clear of that now, what with literally millions of internet users sharing his story tens of thousands of times and growing) is going to have the equivalent of a public relations’ wet dream. A gorgeous, mythical male white lion, snatched from the proverbial jaws of the canned hunting industry by an adoring public who chose to stand up against the darkness in a show of solidarity against those who would decimate the dwindling numbers of magical white lions in the name of greed and profit.

Oh, the drama of it all!

Too bad none of the people involved, from the internet masses, to those like Drew who have been involved the entire time, and have just remained mum about their involvement, to the passionate, but largely ignorant celebrities like Gervais, and Crowe (so eager to tweet and retweet, but not taking the time to ask important questions first) don’t feel the same way about plain old boring tawny lions. If they did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. If boring old tawny lions were treasured even half so much as largely captive-created mythical white lions are, we wouldn’t be sitting here speculating on what Foundation, or movement is going to wind up using Mufasa’s noble white lion visage as the face for their project, or cause, or coalition, or whatever they decide to call it. We wouldn’t be waiting to see who ends up using Mufasa the white lion as a figurehead for their efforts or causes, using his name and story as leverage to further their own ends by drawing in the public’s adoration and fanatical devotion.

We don’t know who will eventually benefit from being able to say they hold guardianship over the world famous, mythical Mufasa The White Lion.

We don’t know who will step forward to hoist Mufasa The White Lion up as a figurehead, leveraging his internet stardom to bolster their own agendas.

We don’t know exactly how the melodrama of the mystical Mufasa The White Lion will eventually play out.

But what we do know, is that white lions and the carefully cultivated mythos surrounding them sells. The only question is who’s going to end up selling Mufasa’s image for their own use?

And with November now packed with White Lion Drama pertaining to the valiant “rescue” of Mufasa the White Lion from the clutches of Canned Hunters, it’s setting up the December release of the feature length film Mia And The White Lion which just happens to be about a White Lion at risk of falling into the clutches of Canned Hunters, to bring in a tidy sum of profits. Because, you know, the entire internet world is going to be pumped and primed with save the mythical White Lion fever just in time to go drop a dime watching the heart-wrenching theatrical drama of a girl trying to save her mythical White Lion friend from being killed by canned hunters, just like the real-life Mufasa was saved from canned hunters.

Whether or not this is a coincidence of mythically convenient proportions (see what we did there?) we don’t know.

But what we do know, is that mythical white lions sure do sell. And someone in South Africa, some group, or Foundation, or cause, is about to cash in huge, where Mufasa The White Lion is concerned.

*** ADDENDUM***

Because of the controversy this article has inspired, CWW has chosen to add this update in order to make our position on several points regarding Mufasa explicitly clear. This article was not written in any attempt (as has been suggested in some cases) to prevent Mufasa from being rescued from auction. Whether or not Mufasa is sent to auction, or allowed to be moved to a sanctuary is a LEGAL MATTER which will be decided by the courts in South Africa. This is not something CWW has any influence over. If we did, we would be influencing those courts to pass legislation which bans canned hunting and the breeding of lions in captivity.

The purpose of this article was to raise questions as to how the case of Mufasa is being handled by those who wish to secure his safety, because right now there remain many unanswered questions which needed to be asked. As of the addition of this addendum, Carel Zietsman, who has named himself as the lawyer working on Mufasa’s case, and as the person in charge of putting him in the public spotlight, has not formally engaged with CWW. He did, however, post a lengthy explanation of the “timeline” regarding Mufasa, in a public Mufasa Facebook group. This post was made after his attempted to get us to sign off on a joint statement with him via an individual he believed to be one of our members, that effort having been made outside professional channels and having been declined by us. In his explanation in the Mufasa Facebook group, Zietsman still failed to answer the questions we posed in this article, but he did highlight one of the main concerns CWW has which provoked the writing of the article to begin with.

After recapping the death of Cecil the lion, in his post, Zietsman went on to say:

“I decided that there was no way that we were going to read about a white lion named Mufasa being hunted and then we have this post mortem Facebook outcry. I was going to make him famous. After I was done with him, he would be such a household name that no trophy hunter in his right mind would come closer than a country width from him.”

There are several glaring issues with taking this approach the rescue of an animal. Firstly, it should be noted that there would not have been any sort of “Facebook outcry” in response to Mufasa’s death before now because until Carel chose to make Mufasa a household name, no one knew he existed, whereas Cecil was already a famous fixture in Hwange National Park at the time of his killing. Mufasa, known or not, does not deserve to be killed as a trophy (neither do the hundreds of tawny lions killed each year) However, the fact remains that Mufasa’s death would not have created an uproar before Carel chose to “make him famous” and turn him into “a household name”. Secondly, and this is the more poignant issue, the argument that making Mufasa a famous household name would indelibly protect him from trophy hunters is patently flawed.

Cecil (lion) Xanda (lion, Cecil’s son) Skye (lion) Wolf 527 (wolf) O-Six (wolf 832F) White Alpha (wolf) Big Brown (wolf 778M) Scarface (No. 211, grizzly) Pedals (black bear) Albin (moose) Ferdinand (moose) Bullwinkle (elk) Spirit Moose of the Mi’kmaq (moose) Emperor of the Exmoor (red stag)

All of these animals were famous. All of these animals were celebrities, and some of them were known worldwide. And that celebrity status did nothing to prevent them from being killed, legally, or illegally. Carel himself went on to acknowledge that by creating this media frenzy, he was also endangering Mufasa.

“But I created a problem as well.” Carel admitted in his post, explaining why the proposed sanctuary where Mufasa will (hopefully) be sent must remain secret. After pointing out the problem of paparazzis trying to take photos of the lion if they’re lucky, he went on to add that “If we are unlucky some stupid with a shotgun may want to rid the earth of the scourge of man eaters.”

These conflicting statements underscore one of the issues CWW has with the way that Mufasa is being presented and his situation handled. Carel first states that he wanted to make Mufasa so famous that no hunter would come near him, but then just a few sentences later, Carel states that because Mufasa is famous, his location must remain secret as someone may try to shoot him due to his notoriety.

And that brings us to another ethical issue CWW has with all of this. If you create a market for celebrity animals by sensationalizing them and their rescue, you are still turning them into a commodity. Those supporting the attention Mufasa is getting maintain that by making him famous, they can bring awareness about canned hunting to the world. They’re giving Mufasa value as a celebrity figure, and thus commodifying him. It pays to be famous.

But Blood Lions has been, and remains, the largest, most established, and greatest advocate for the anti-canned hunting movement, and they became the central voice of that anti-canned hunting movement without exploiting the animals they’re endeavoring to save.

The exploitation of an animal in the name of raising awareness about how people should stop exploiting animals is an issue CWW has covered at length. It’s the theory on which every exploiter we discuss has founded their individual existences. Kevin Richardson handles his lions to raise awareness about canned hunting. Eduardo Serio handles his animals to raise awareness about not keeping them as pets. The Real Tarzann, Doc Antle, and so on and so forth, all of these people have turned their animals into commodities used to supposedly stop animals from being turned into commodities. But the truth is that they’ve simply turned those animals into a commodity that is tastier for human consumption. It’s easy to feel good about doing something you know is wrong, if you can say you’re doing it for the right reasons. That does not, however, make whatever you’re doing less wrong.

There are numerous foundations which do not seek out headliner stories, or fame and fortune, or direct animal interaction, but who do tirelessly rescue, rehab and offer safe and lasting homes for those animals in their care. The Wild Animal Sanctuary, Drakenstein, Four Paws, Lions Rock. These and more have established themselves as entities devoted to saving animals, public education and raising awareness, without capitalizing on, or commodifying, those animals. If one is willing to exploit an animal in the name of saving it, or “raising awareness” about it, where does one then draw the line defining how much or what kind of exploitation is, or is not, acceptable?

As we said in the original article, Mufasa’s saga, and the intentionally cultivated hyper-sensationalism of it, stands to net those involved with his rescue a huge amount of press and prestige (along with security nightmares, regarding Mufasa’s safety) but the question is, did Mufasa need to become world famous in order to be rescued? Groups like TWAS and others mentioned manage to wage a savage war against animal cruelty and exploitation both in and out of court without turning the animals they’re fighting for into worldwide celebrities. There remains a sharply defined division within the conservation world, between rescue organizations and sanctuaries who strive to help animals and educate the public without seeking fame and public adoration, and those rescue organizations and sanctuaries who thrive off of news coverage, and public praise, and who use that coverage and attention just to function. The former respect the animals for what they are, preserving the agency of those animals as they work to affect changes that will protect them in the future, while the latter commodifies the animals they rescue, using them as as tools and figureheads in the pursuance of their endeavors.

That difference is key. This is why CWW was first moved to write the above article. We had fair and reasonable questions as to why Mufasa’s situation was being turned into a media blitz with few concise facts and several concerning inconsitencies. These questions remain unanswered for now. Eventually, Mufasa’s saga will play out, and when that occurs, we will then be provided a better view of the mechanisms involved with his case. Will he and Soraya be afforded the peaceful lifelong home they deserve? Or will they become simply the headliner for whatever sanctuary (be it an existing one, or a newly founded one, since there is mention of new enclosures being built) ends up taking on the role of protecting them? Only time will tell.

Ukutula

Conning The Public With Conservation Claims

It was recently brought to the attention of CWW that Ukutula Conservation Center & Biobank (the fancy new face of Ukutula Game Reserve and Lodge) will be hosting a “One Day Professional Conference” on November 16th, 2018, and after some considerable research, we have questions. Very, serious questions. Namely questions about how multiple professionals (some of them with exquisite records) have been conned into speaking at a conference hosted by one of South Africa’s most notorious for-profit lion farms.

Some of the connections are obvious. For example, many of the guest speakers presenting at Ukutula’s “conference” are associated in some way to local universities, such as the University of Pretoria, North-West University, etc. Ukutula has carefully cultivated its connections with local universities as a way of attempting to validate itself. It’s not difficult to look at Professors or students committing research for their thesis papers or schoolwork, and understand why it would be advantageous to work with Ukutula in order to have access to the animals they want to study. In fact, one of the “Advisory Committee” members of UCC Dr. Imke Lüders has stated point blank that she utilized Ukutula for research trips on multiple occasions because the lions at Ukutula are habituated to humans, and used to being handled and therefore very easy to work with.

It’s reasonable then, to speculate that the majority of the academic “professionals” who engage with UCC do so out of convenience and self-interest. This statement is not made in judgement of those research professionals, so much in acknowledgment that very often in the name of science, sacrifices of ethics are made in order to obtain research and information.

The announcement of the live birth of the two AI cubs in early September, 2018 was made with great pride and fanfare, as those involved touted it as the potential baseline for the conservation of other endangered large wild felids. These claims, however, directly conflict with the statement of criticism levied against UCC and the University of Pretoria, by no small number of conservation experts.

According to these groups which all signed a letter of concern addressed to the University of Pretoria, the captive breeding of lions, whether assisted or not, does not contribute to biodiversity conservation or address the main threats to wild lion conservation. The group letter goes on to detail how the captive lion breeding industry in South Africa is associated with the exploitation of lions through interaction activities, canned hunting, and the lion bone trade.

Nonplussed by the letter, despite the considerable expertise of those who signed it, both UCC and UP have continued to tout their achievements as “world-firsts” and UCC continues to bill itself as a leader in lion conservation.

Ukutula Conservation Center’s website is full of eye-catching graphics, but one only needs to watch a few videos for the gaps in facts, and misinformation provided to be blatantly clear.

For example, this video, featuring Ukutula Lodge owner Willi Jacobs, opens with Jacobs declaring that “Ukutula Lodge and Ukutula Conservation Center both contribute very meaningfully to conservation. The Lodge,” Jacobs says, “Hosts “ecotourism” and the ecotourism pays for conservation that the Conservation Center and Biobank are involved in.”

What Jacobs does not specify is that this “ecotourism” as he spins it, is nothing more than cub-petting and lion-walking ventures which are perpetuated by the constant breeding of captive lions in order to produce cubs to be used first for cub-petting, and later for lion-walking.

Cubs are a constant presence at Ukutula.

As the cubs grow they become part of the lion-walking tours.

Once those cubs age out of lion-walking, it is not known where they go, but Ukutula has been linked to intermediaries who are known to buy and sell lions for and to canned hunting outfits. UCC claims to participate in two animal-tracing databases, but these databases are not accessible to the general public, and are simply a way for owners to track their own animals, so they offer no traceability the way UCC suggest they do.

In another video which focuses on the value of research at Ukutula Jacobs, again narrating, opens with declaration that with the recent success of research carried out by the Ukutula Conservation Center, and the University of Pretoria (regarding the AI cubs) there, “seems to be a misunderstanding” within the media and among certain individuals “with regard to the value of this research.” Jacobs goes on to claim that while lions have been used almost exclusively in the research at UCC, they are not actually the main focus of that research. Rather, according to Jacobs, all the research done on lions bred by Ukutula is simply to help other endangered large felids. Jacobs admits that lions have no real trouble breeding either in the wild, or in captivity, but reiterates that the study of lion reproductive physiology can be used to help other endangered species in the future. It should be noted, however, that more than one study carried out at Ukutula involved researching the gene responsible for white lions, so that the ongoing breeding of white lions could continue.

Jacobs lists the Black-footed cat, the Scottish wildcat and the Asiatic golden cat as examples, stating that “these techniques” (referencing the techniques supposedly pioneered at Ukutula) have already been applied with great success in the aforementioned felids. These assertions create a conundrum, however, when one considers the timelines of conservation efforts for these other cat species, which largely took place some years ago, which means that the research done at Ukutula in the last year, resulting in the successful AI breeding and birth just two months ago couldn’t have been used. Never mind that in the first part of his narration, Jacobs stated that the studies done at Ukutula would help save wild cats in the future, and then he immediately states that the studies already have, past tense, helped wild cats.

Jacobs then says that the success with AI really “marks a stepping stone towards meaningful conservation initiatives which can be applied to critically endangered cat species.” Which again contradicts the prior statement that the research has, past tense, helped.

Circling his narration back toward the criticism that UCC has received, Jacobs continues, “It is very clear that there is a wrong perception among the public and some media that Ukutula is a commercial breeding facility. We’d just like to categorically state that this is not the case. Ukutula does have a breeding program which is a controlled veterinary-supervised project so as to be able to host various research projects.”

Please take a moment to carefully consider exactly what Jacobs has stated about Ukutula Conservation Center. “Ukutula does have a breeding program which is a controlled veterinary-supervised project so as to be able to host various research projects.”

Lions at Ukutula are bred by veterinarians in order to fulfill the needs of research projects. Not for conservation. For research. Like rats, mice, rabbits and other laboratory research animals. The founder of UCC has stated point blank that Ukutula’s breeding program is designed to produce lions for use in scientific research.

Let that sink in.

Now, note as per their own website that Ukutula is registered as a:

Wildlife Breeding Facility

Wildlife Trading Facility

Animal Exhibition Facility

UCC is also listed as a rhino orphanage, and animal rescue center but we have been unable to find any references to rhinos, or animal rescue linked with Ukutula independent of Ukutula’s own claims on their website.

Back to this video, Jacobs moves on to defend UCC despite the fact that he just stated the facility breeds lions to be used for scientific research, “For years Ukutula has been criticized for the research done here and one wonders what the motives are of these critics that keep pointing a finger at Ukutula.” We have been unable to find any article that criticizes research done at Ukutula. Rather, they all criticize the lack of useful and meaningful research, along with criticizing the fact that Ukutula continually breeds lions and allows human and lion interactions.

Jacobs goes on to question the motives of Ukutula’s critics, suggesting that they are simply jealous because Ukutula has “taken the rug out from under” them by “proving that research is important and that they are now not able to use the emotion and sensation of the very important subject of conservation so that they can collect funds and receive donations from people who are ill-informed, or mis-informed by them.”

Thus is the gist of the videos available on the Ukutula Conservation Center website. Since the first two videos we checked out were clearly defensive responses to the deserved criticism and questions posed by those who do not support the continual captive breeding of lions, we tried a few more videos, to no avail.

Links to so-called research projects contain only more videos, filled with simplistic, and un-educational fluff such as images of an unconcious cheetah with the text “Sedating male cheetah” images of medical personal holding a thermometer in the cheetah’s rectum accompanied by the text “Wildlife veterinarian monitors temperature” the cheetah is then pictured on an exam table with the text “General health check by veterinarian” similar images appear with the text “Professional biodata recording”. The same video containing the above listed images also includes completely incorrect descriptions, such as showing the process of intubation for anesthesia but describing the scene as ”Examination of the mouth and throat” Placing an Intubation tube and securing the airway for anesthesia in a big cat for a surgical procedure, and carrying out an oral exam are two vastly difference procedures. To mistake one for the other is both laughable, and tragically revealing in regard to the ignorance involved.

If one can disregard the self-serving (and in the case of Jacob’s admittance that Ukutula breeds lions for use in scientific research like lab rats, horrific videos) we have to admit that UCC’s website is shiny, and attractive, if not terribly functional. Although it’s superficially stacked with interesting teases of supposed research projects, and successes, there are few links to any in-depth information. Instead, we’re left with only videos containing little information and flashy powerpoint diagrams which contain even less information of any value.

When one checks out the “experts” who comprise the UCC Wildlife Research & Conservation Education Advisory Committee, the ethical oversight of UCC goes right out the window. Ignoring the fact that Willi Jacobs, who founded UCC is a member of his own Advisory Committee, three of the other four committee members are either employed by the University of Pretoria, and/or graduated from UP. This includes Dr. MJ Grundlingh, who also happens to be the founder of the Wildlife Education Foundation. That last is important because UCC offers a myriad of “predator education courses” which upon completion offers the attendees “official WEF & ACC accredited certificates” to verify their level of education. Grundlingh’s books are also peddled on the Ukutula website under educational products.

In case you still don’t follow, UCC basically offers “educational courses” for “wildlife & conservation enthusiasts, educators & students, wildlife volunteers and nature enthusiasts” promising them a certificate of accreditation once they’ve completed the course. But in reality, there is no accreditation, nor is there any formal certificate to be gained. UCC runs the courses it offers, and then UCC hands over the certificates of accreditation, but UCC has no actual authority to issue any certificate of accreditation of education to a civilian. On top of that, the Wildlife Education Foundation which co-signs these “accreditation certificates” is owned and run by a member of UCC’s own Advisory Board.

And the conflict of interests doesn’t stop there. Another member of UCC’s Advisory Committee, Claudia Dinkelman, described as a “Qualified, award-winning Veterinary Technologist” who is a full time associate with the UCC & Biobank, is listed on Zoominfo (as of November 2, 2018) as also being currently employed by Deltamune Ltd.

Deltamune Ltd just happens to be “a world class South African-based biotechnology company, with a focus on veterinary and public health”, which strives to “be a vaccine partner who is committed to finding solutions to our African diseases and conditions” as well as offering a “comprehensive laboratory solution to the animal health and food industry in South Africa.”

So now we have Ukutula Conservation Center breeding lions for scientific research, with an Advisory Committee full of persons attached to the very Universities that use UCC for their staff and students in research, persons who are also possibly employed by a biotechnology company involved in researching and laboratory testing of vaccines and pharmaceuticals. A biotechnology company which also just happens to list North-West University as one of its associates, and surprise, North-West University also uses UCC for its scientific research projects. With literally every facet of Ukutula and all the “experts” and Universities both directly and indirectly attached to UCC and each other, it’s impossible to maintain an objective oversight of ethics and standards. Everyone has something to lose if anyone tries to blow the proverbial whistle over a problem, so no one is likely to say anything. The reputation of prestigious Universities have been inexorably bound to the reputation of UCC, as have the reputations of all the individuals who have carried out their own research at UCC. This conflict of interests even carries on into some of the guest presenters at UCC’s upcoming “professional conference”. Professor Ché Weldon is an Associate Professor with North-West University, which as just listed, both uses UCC for research, and is an associate to Deltamune Ltd.

With all of these grotesque facts laid out like wastrel possibilities abandoned in favor of easy and convenient research, it’s unconscionable to see figures like Dr. Johan Marais and Dr. Zoe Glyphis of Saving The Survivors sign on to present at UCC’s farcical “Wildlife Research & Its Contribution to Conservation” conference in November. Ukutula has struggled valiantly to sweep it’s dirty cub-petting and lion-walking business out of sight under the proverbial rug, replacing that reputation with the facade of a reputable center. By engaging with UCC, genuine conservationist only help blur the public’s understanding of the damage that groups like UCC cause.

UCC continues to pour money into sculpting a new image for itself, repeatedly posting on their pages that UCC supports “the IUCN’s one-plan-approach (OPA) to species conservation and animal breeding principles, where animal breeding is considered an important part of conservation management as stipulated in terms of the convention of biodiversity held in 1994.”

This disclaimer appears in multiple places throughout the UCC website.

But UCC is not actually a member of the IUCN, and while they claim to “support” the OPA their statement regarding it takes an immensely complex concept and narrows it down to one ideal–that captive breeding is an important part of conservation management–while ignoring the overreaching scopes of the OPA. And for good reason. If one actually takes the time to understand the OPA, they will find that UCC does not meet the requirements laid out by the IUCN, nor does the IUCN support captive breeding cavalierly the way UCC presents.

OPA was originally written as a failsafe in order to include even captive populations (ex situ) of animals within the scope of longterm planning for conservation. Because any captive population is ex situ, but only ex situ populations which meet strict specifications to qualify as part of OPA, the IUCN guidelines are specifically intended for situations in which individuals (or live bio- samples) of any species (or other taxonomic unit) are present ex situ for any period of time for a clearly defined conservation purpose.

The IUCN guidelines go one to clarify that:

Only ex situ populations with clearly defined conservation goals and objectives that contribute to the viability of the species as a component of its overall conservation strategy. While many different types of ex situ populations exist, with many different and sometimes overlapping roles and contexts, ex situ management for conservation only applies to those ex situ populations that have conservation as their primary aim. The ex situ activities must benefit a population, the species, or the ecosystem it occupies and the primary benefit should be at a higher level of organisation than the individual. The conservation goals and objectives can be diverse and may include not only providing individuals for reintroduction or other conservation translocations, for genetic rescue or as insurance against extinction, but also for allowing tailored conservation education, conservation research and training that targets the reduction of threats or the accruement of conservation benefits for the species.

Again, and again, the IUCN guidelines specify that any and all breeding or captive management of a particular species be maintained solely for the purpose of conservation, with any and all research focused solely on the conservation of the species in question. Meanwhile, Ukutula commercially breeds, sells, and trades, lions for scientific research purposes which–in Ukutula’s own words–are not designed to benefit lions at all.

UCC’s obsessively repeated claim that the IUCN considers captive breeding an important part of conservation management is simply one more intentional mistruth in their bid to con the public with their conservation claims. It’s just a new spin on an old lie, that lie being that the continued breeding of captive lions will somehow aid in the conservation of wild lions. And as long as scientists and universities are willing to turn a blind eye to the abuse of cub petting and lion walking in favor of getting in some research, Ukutula will continue putting new spins on its old lies. As long as genuine conservationists are willing to overlook the constant breeding, and missing older lions in favor of “not rocking the boat” Ukutula will continue to farm lions like potatoes in the field. And as long as idolized figures like Kevin Richardson are willing to buy into the scheme by purchasing farmed lions from Ukutula (as he did for his upcoming movie, Mia And The White Lion) there will always be an open market of people willing to buy farmed lions.

Guest at Ukutula participating in cub-petting with a white lion cub.

Scene from Mia And The White Lion featuring white lion cubs purchased from Ukutula, supposedly this represents conservation.

Another Ukutula guest participating in cub-petting with a white lion cub.

Another still from Mia And The White Lion using white lion cubs purchased from Ukutula, supposedly offering a message of conservation.

Every engagement professionals participate in with Ukutula–no matter the goal–supports the systemic breeding and abuse of captive lions and other animals for research and profit. And every time the conservation community allows such participation to slip aside without rebuke, we are endorsing that support of systemic breeding and abuse of captive lions and other animals for research and profit.

Don’t be conned by new spins on old lies. Don’t stand aside and allow lion farms like Ukutula to quietly redress their shabby exploitive realities with fancy conservation window dressings. Speak up, speak out. If we don’t do so today, our chance will be gone by tomorrow.