Holidays to shoot endangered leopards are being sold online for up to £116,000, The Independent can reveal – while a long-promised UK ban on trophy hunt imports remains stalled.
Big-game tour companies are openly promoting online holiday packages or auctions to win the rights to kill the animals in Africa, whose numbers are in decline across the continent.
Some companies, which have dozens of hunting trips on sale, offer “extras” to wealthy hunters, including the chance to shoot elephants, lions and cheetahs.
One website has a points system, under which gunmen may be awarded silver, gold, platinum or diamond membership as they notch up rewards for hunting more animals and rarer species.
A new report by the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting reveals the “disturbing” tactics used, such as baiting leopards with live animals or starting fires deliberately to flush the big cats out of hiding.
In one case, a filmmaker recalled seeing a live duiker – or antelope – being tied by wire to a tree to lure a leopard, which was then shot illegally at night, the International Leopard Report says. It was not known who was responsible.
The report also reveals statistics showing that 709 leopard trophies – skins, skulls, bones and full bodies – were exported from Africa in 2023. Four of those mementoes were brought into the UK.
Governments have repeatedly promised to ban imports of hunting trophies to discourage Britons from overseas shooting safaris.
Both Conservative and Labour election manifestos have included pledges to introduce a ban, and in a government public consultation in 2020, 84 per cent of respondents backed a ban on imports and exports.
However, both the Tories and Labour have been accused of dithering since then. In 2022, Boris Johnson’s government dropped the Animals Abroad Bill, which would have brought in a ban.
Last year, 11 peers in the Lords blocked the Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill, written by the government and passed by MPs. A private member’s bill of the same name by MP John Spellar later ran out of time.
Now, another private member’s bill, by Conservative David Reed, is due for a second reading next month. It is understood that the government will say then whether it supports it.
The Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting, backed by television stars Joanna Lumley and Chris Packham, is calling on the government to make a ban a priority.
Leopards are protected under international law and classified as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), with some subspecies facing greater threats.
