Update: On Jan. 24 the Tucson, Ariz., restaurant owner announced he was canceling plans to serve lion tacos.
It seems like a sick hoax to drum up business, but it’s shockingly true: Tucson restaurant Boca Tacos y Tequila is serving up African lion tacos on Feb. 16. Boca’s Facebook page is even accepting prepaid orders for the tacos.
[teaserbreak]
The sale and consumption of lion meat raises serious animal welfare, conservation and human health concerns. Lion meat is virtually unregulated. Lions raised for consumption in the United States are most assuredly not protected by the Animal Welfare Act and are completely omitted from the Humane Slaughter Act. Lion meat is largely ignored by federal authorities unless there were to be an illness-related complaint.
Born Free USA has discovered an alarming number of examples of wild animal meat for sale across the United States. Lion meat specifically has shown up recently on several restaurant menus, including a pub in Philadelphia, a grill in Sacramento, Calif., and a bistro in Mesa, Ariz., that sold it during the recent World Cup soccer tournament (which was held in Africa). Many of the sales, including Boca’s, are executed as cruel promotional gimmicks.
The African lion faces a number of threats in the wild, including habitat loss and severe population decline, and the species is globally protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). We should be saving lions in the wild, not eating them in Arizona!
There is no good reason to keep lion meat on any restaurant menu. If you’re an Arizonan or someone who feels passionately about this issue, please contact Boca Tacos y Tequila today and politely ask owner Bryan Mazon to take lions off his Feb. 16 menu. Call (520) 777-8134 or e-mail the restaurant.
Sincerely,
Will Travers
P.S. Read what our Canadian representative, Barry Kent MacKay, has to say about lion burgers.
P.P.S. Want to know more about lions and Born Free’s history of protecting them? Watch and own “Elsa’s Legacy: The Born Free Story,” a wonderful documentary that aired earlier this month on PBS.