Leopard-hunting holiday packages being sold for up to £116,000 while UK ban on trophy imports stalls

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 film-maker 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.

But 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.

In 2016, scientists said the big cat had disappeared from 75 per cent of its historical habitat, but since then, population numbers have been difficult to determine.

The report says numbers may have plummeted by up to 90 per cent in 50 years, to around 50,000.

Safari Club International, a club that supports legal hunting, offers awards for shooting the “African big five” – elephants, lions, leopards, rhinos and buffalo.

Steven Chancellor, a top donor to US president Donald Trump, is one of the world’s most prolific hunters, according to hunting records for 2015 and 2016 from Safari Club International - the world’s largest trophy-hunting group.

Mr Chancellor logged nearly 500 kills, including at least 18 lions, six elephants, two rhinos and 13 leopards. One of those was the largest ever recorded. In 2018, he reportedly said illegal poaching was endangering African wildlife, not hunting.

“Poachers are killing 30,000 elephants and 1,000 rhinos every year,” The Colombus Dispatch reported. And a blogger quoted him as saying in 2012 that hunting saved elderly male lions from disease, starvation or being eaten by hyenas.

The US was the biggest importer of leopard trophies last year, with 356 recorded, followed by South Africa and Hungary, according to the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting’s new study.

The package being offered by a commercial company for $156,300 (£116,476), which is for 28 days in Tanzania, may include chances to shoot elephants, lions, buffalo, hippos, antelope, guineafowl, ducks and geese.

Eduardo Gonçalves, founder of the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting, said: “Leopards are shy, intelligent, and iconic animals that are now on the brink, yet they're being massacred for bragging rights. It's not conservation, it's barbarism.

“Britain must show leadership. Nine out of ten voters want a ban. The government has drafted a bill. The bill passed unanimously in the Commons before the election.

“Why doesn’t Defra [the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs] bring it back as a government bill? Labour made a manifesto pledge to ban hunting trophies but won’t say when.

“It’s the 10th anniversary of the killing of Cecil the lion this year. The government should be prioritising this instead of seemingly sitting on its hands.”

A Defra spokesperson said: “The government was elected on mandate to ban the import of hunting trophies – that is exactly what we will do.”