The piercing yellow eyes of a 200kg male lion glare straight at you as he devours a piece of horse meat centimetres above your head.
In this heart-racing and controversial new tourism experience, visitors to Marakele Animal Sanctuary in Limpopo are locked in a steel cage on the back of a vehicle and driven into a lion enclosure. Chunks of meat are thrown on top of the cage, luring the cats to jump onto it and devour the meat over visitors' heads.
Sounds of panting, bones crushing and the odd roar reverberate through the property owned by UK-born Mike Hodge. There are dozens of enclosures, boasting other predators such as tigers and leopards as well as wild dogs and a hyena.
It’s feeding day and the animals pace the fence line, knowing that the sound of a vehicle signifies food. The enclosures are reinforced by solar-powered electric fencing.
While the lions look healthy, they are confined to their enclosures without stimulation or the need to hunt for food.
“They get little exercise compared to lions in the wild. All they do is eat and sleep,” an employee at the reserve says. “They are fed twice a week, on Wednesdays and Sundays.”
The stench of rotting flesh fills the air. A rotting pig leg is flung over a fence by an employee tasked with riding at the back of a bakkie to feed the hungry carnivores.
For the vehicle-based experience, two wooden benches with a thin mattress are fastened inside the cage. A general worker hops on and before we enter the enclosure jokingly proclaims “welcome to your funeral”.
The animals take turns in aggressively jumping on the cage and as the meat finishes, they start sniffing and smelling around the humans before losing interest and walking away.
Calm and in his element, Hodge provides brief information about the big cats during the experience.
“The only lions that have not been bred here are the three big male lions and the two females which I rescued about two years ago, who were going to be put down.”
A sanctuary is a place where animals come to rest in a natural habitat. [But this is] basically a zoo. Calling it a sanctuary is misleading
— Smaragda Louw of Ban Animal Trading
Smaragda Louw of Ban Animal Trading said a true animal sanctuary would not allow human interaction.
“A sanctuary is a place where animals come to rest in a natural habitat. [But this is] basically a zoo. Calling it a sanctuary is misleading. Just because the animals get to eat meat around a cage doesn't mean that they are displaying their wild side,” Louw said.
Marekele Animal Sanctuary declined to comment.
Hodge’s lion-mobile is not the only cage experience to be offered in South Africa.
The Glen Garriff Conservation facility in Harrismith launched its 45-minute Plexiglas cage experience five years ago, but has since called a halt to it. Steel bars formed one side of the box, allowing visitors to get up-close and personal with some of the 70 lions.
Traci Shannon, CEO of GG Conservation, said the family-run business operates on a 1,000ha farm, one-quarter of which is set aside for lions.
“It began when one of our frequent international photographers donated funds for us to build a cage so he could get close to the pride and take better pictures. We then reworked the design of the cage to incorporate Plexiglas.”
Asked about the zoo comparison, Shannon said: “It is a difficult question. We have had a lot of criticism which we try to address. But I have decided to ‘park the bus’ on the lion cage experience because it is a lot of work to arrange.”
She said the operation had required precise planning.
“The lions are lured into their feeding enclosure and locked inside. We put the cage on the back of a trailer and drive it into the enclosure. I have two teams circling the enclosure during this process and when people are inside the cage. That's why we keep it to 45 minutes. I cannot have two teams there for hours.”
Shannon said she was now concentrating on a new venture — a hotel-pod lion experience.
“Visitors will enter the hotel from outside the lion enclosure and once inside, they will have full view of the lions within the enclosure.”
She said some lions were bred at the facility, a practice that ended in 2014, while others had been rescued and brought to their facility from other countries.
Campaign co-ordinator of Blood Lions, Cath Jakins, who holds an MA in wildlife criminology, said the group did not support any facility that bred lions and other big cats in captivity, traded them commercially or offered human interactions.
“The statement in the Southern Africa Tourism Services Association guidelines from 2019 puts it very aptly — 'the interests of animals should not be subordinate to the benefits humans derive from their existence'.”
According to the association, places where visitors can appreciate nature and ecosystems in their original and natural state are increasingly attractive.
But it notes: “Animals in captivity for human enjoyment is not investing in this long-term unique selling point of Africa; it is perverting it to satisfy the instant gratification, thrill-seeking nature of visitors.”
According to the department of forestry, fisheries and the environment spokesperson, Albi Modise, Regulation 27 of the Threatened or Protected Species regulation (TOPS), 2007 provides for the compulsory registration of, amongst others, commercial exhibition facilities.
"These include zoological gardens, aquariums and travelling exhibitions that keep listed threatened or protected species for display or performance purposes.
"The TOPS Regulations do not make provisions for activities related to the so-called 'cub-petting and in-cage experience'."
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.