What is the economic value of lion breeding in South Africa? This was the question Prof Melville Saayman and Prof Peet van der Merwe of the research unit TREES (Tourism Research in Economic Environs and Society and members of the South Africa Predators Association) asked when certain pressure groups again asked for captive lion breeding to be banned.  

“If all of us were to say ‘We are all in’, it will be a good transition to the new dispensation.” That was the appeal made by the Rector of the Potchefstroom Campus of the North-West University (NWU), Prof Fika Janse van Rensburg, at the official opening of the academic year.