Welfare problems have always characterised the captive lion industry, but have proliferated over the past few years due to a shift in the market as lion breeders actively promote lion bone exports.

The government is now legally obliged to consider animal welfare in all its wildlife conservation decisions. This is the message from the judgment handed down on 6 August by the Gauteng High Court which determined that South Africa's 2017 and 2018 lion export skeleton quotas were unlawful and constitutionally invalid, although the exports under those quotas have already been made. The judgment strongly rejects the view that "adaptive management" of wild animals can arbitrarily be divorced from ethics.

The National Council of Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NSPCA) was the applicant, and the respondents were the Minister of Environmental Affairs and the South African Predators Association (SAPA). The NSPCA objected to the way in which the quota had initially been determined as it ignored welfare considerations.

In November 2018, a report adopted by the National Assembly called for the termination of the country's predator breeding industry, requiring a review of current legislation with a view to ending the industry. The then minister of environmental affairs...