A British safari boss is charging callous trophy hunters thousands of pounds to kill lions that have been bred in captivity, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Gruesome photographs show Alex Goss posing beside the bodies of two lions after they were slaughtered during hunts in South Africa.
He is believed to be the only British operator openly organising what campaigners call ‘canned hunts’ – where lions bred in captivity are pursued and shot in fenced enclosures.
Gruesome photographs show Alex Goss posing beside the bodies of two lions after they were slaughtered during hunts in South Africa. Goss, from Oswestry, Shropshire, owns and manages Blackthorn Safaris
Earlier this year, this newspaper published extraordinary details of a year-long investigation by the former Tory peer Lord Ashcroft which exposed the cruelty and horror of lion farms in South Africa.
It revealed how up to 12,000 lions bred in captivity are destined to either be shot by wealthy hunters or killed in squalid slaughterhouses, with their bones then exported to the Far East.
Goss, from Oswestry, Shropshire, owns and manages Blackthorn Safaris, dividing his time between bird-shooting and deer hunts in the UK and big-game hunts in South Africa and Zimbabwe.
In a series of photographs on his website, he is pictured posing beside a dead crocodile, a hippo, a buffalo, a pair of zebras, a huge male lion and a lioness.
He also offers leopard and elephant hunts.
It is understood that he first experienced hunting in South Africa when he was five and has subsequently ‘hunted all over the world’.
In a series of photographs on his website, Goss is pictured posing beside a dead crocodile, a hippo, a buffalo, a pair of zebras, a huge male lion and a lioness
Until three years ago, his father is believed to have owned a safari lodge near Kimberley.
Blackthorn is believed to charge clients up to £13,000 for a five-day lion hunt. Guests are based at a five-star lodge described as a ‘slice of paradise in the bush’ on the edge of the Kalahari desert.
Similar to other operators, Goss is understood to woo prospective clients by sending them pictures of the type of lions
