The Professional Hunters’ Association of South Africa (Phasa) on Monday criticised the South African Predator Association (Sapa) for being the “sole exception” to the global opposition to captive-bred lion hunting. It said in a statement that its “international peer organisations as well as many of its members’ clients had expressed their relief that Phasa had distanced itself from a practice which a great majority of hunters regard as an embarrassment”.Phasa president Stan Burger said Sapa‚ “instead of joining the worldwide move to reform this industry the lion breeding and hunting industry…was trying to preserve its captive bred hunting component”.“Phasa tried to work with Sapa for a number of years in an attempt to introduce generally acceptable standards for lion breeding and hunting‚ and it was only when it became clear that this attempt would continue to fail in the face of Sapa’s persistent recalcitrance that we dissociated ourselves from them‚” Burger said.He denied Sapa’s statement that Phasa “buckled before (an) onslaught of uninformed social activists”‚ and instead said his association was “guided by the views of major industry role players‚ including the main hunting industry bodies as well as our own members”.“They were all of the opinion that captive-bred lion hunting was not only ethically repugnant but posed a real threat to the future of the entire trophy hunting industry‚” said Burger.He also questioned Sapa’s commitment towards conservation‚ saying that while lion hunting “in South Africa generated a revenue of close to R200-million…Sapa’s conservation fund only managed to raise R200,000‚ or 0.1% of that total”...