A complex nexus of concerns is often attendant upon cases of international trade in wildlife products. Concerns may include: species conservation, livelihoods, personal freedoms, animal welfare, and politics. Regulatory decision-making regarding wildlife trade is rarely straight-forward, given the multitude of (often conflicting) perspectives manifest in such debates. The international trade in African lion (Panthera leo) skeletons, of which over 6000 have been legally exported from South Africa to Asia since 2008, is used as a case study of a multi-faceted contemporary wildlife trade debate. This thesis examines the lion skeleton trade debate both for insight into public decision-making in wildlife trade regulation and with the aim of contributing empirical information to further understanding of the trade in lion skeletons and body-parts.
The thesis begins analysis of the lion skeleton trade in Chapter 1 by outlining major arguments present in the lion skeleton debate and demonstrates the inherently ethical nature of the debate, whilst showing how the use of formal argument analysis can provide clarity in public decision-making. To achieve this Chapter 1 details 10 generalisable lessons that can be applied to any ethical analysis. Through argument analysis a number of empirical information gaps in lion trade debate arguments were identified. Three of these gaps are addressed in the thesis’ central chapters. Firstly, in Chapter 2, I investigate preferences for lion or tiger (P. tigris) bone wine products from farmed or wild sources amongst the urban public in the consumer countries of China and Vietnam, and tested for the effect of demographic and attitudinal variables on those preferences for bone wines. Results indicate that tiger is greatly preferred over lion and that for second choices of bone wine product respondents will elect to switch between species over changing the farmed or wild origin. I discuss the findings in the context of the potential for farmed lion bone to reduce exploitation of wild felids. I then, in Chapter 3, looked to field reports of lion mortalities to assess the extent of targeted illegal killing of wild lions for bones and body parts, and explore trends over time, in two major lion population strongholds: finding that the majority of body part removals were opportunistic and there was no evidence for systemic targeted killings of lions. Finally, in Chapter 4, I focused on concerns surrounding the differentiation of wild from captive-bred lion bone and tested whether an emerging technology, DART mass spectrometry, could be used to distinguish between such sources of lion bone. Preliminary analysis showed that DART mass spectrometry could be used to differentiate between a batch of captive-bred lion bones and a batch of wild bones: indicating that this technology has potential for use in the investigation and regulation of captive-bred lion bone trade. I therefore discuss the results with regard to the enforcement of legal lion bone trade.
Following exploration of new empirical information, I return in Chapter 5 to consideration of decision-making and regulation of the lion skeleton trade. I argue that the lion trade debate typifies decision-making under deep uncertainty; whereby conclusions of arguments are rendered perpetually uncertain due to the complexity and unboundedness of the system in question. After the revelation of deep uncertainty I conclude by articulating sets of values which I believe would best benefit from adjudication in the making of future policy decisions regarding lion farming and trade. </p
