On March 13th and 14th, the second annual Global March for Lions will take place in cities across the world again. This year we have once again been organising the Sydney event and we’re so excited to march will all you lion lovers again! Our march will be held on Saturday 14th at NSW Parliament House at 11am and we will march to Town Hall. We have a few very special guests – Ace Bourke of Christian the Lion fame, and James Aspey of Voiceless365. You may have seen him on Sunrise in January where he spoke for the first time after being voiceless for an entire year in the name of animal welfare.

John Rendall, Christian the Lion and Ace Bourke in the 1970's.

I’ll be there from around 10am setting up a mini-stall with the Animal Works team. They’ll be selling raffle tickets to their upcoming luxury Kenyan safari, where you can see actual lions where they belong – in the wild, as well as some other goodies too.

What is the point of this march you might be asking? We are marching to raise awareness and hopefully end the barbaric practice of canned hunting. Canned hunting is the hunting of wild animals in a confined area from which they cannot escape. It is not only legal in South Africa, it is flourishing. Hunters from all over the world (but notably from the United States, Germany, Spain, France and the UK) flock to South Africa in their thousands and send home lion body parts, such as the head and skin, preserved by taxidermists, to show off their supposed prowess. The animals involved are habituated to human contact, often hand-reared and bottle fed, so are no longer naturally fearful of people. Such animals will approach people expecting to get fed – but instead receive a bullet, or even an arrow from a hunting bow. The animal is sometimes drugged so it can’t run away, and often lioness mothers refuse to leave their initial enclosure (where it grew up) because it is leaving cubs behind, so the mother lion is shot right there in front of them. It is really a disgusting industry that we need to raise awareness about. Absolutely disgraceful I know! That is why we need as many people as possible there marching with us.

This image brings me pain, both the sad look in the lions' eyes and the losers below celebrating the death of such magnificent animals.

We hope you can join us on this momentous day! The more people that attend, the louder our ROAR.

More info on the Sydney march here, and more info on all other cities here. One last thing, please check out our shop, we have some limited edition tees available this month to celebrate the march by Gary Hodges featuring a stunning male lion.

'Last year's Global March for Lions created unprecedented public awareness world-wide about the plight of the lion. It was really extraordinary. During my almost thirty years fighting for the lion, never before I had I seen such a public outpouring of concern for the King of Animals. It was so heartening, and is making a difference. With this year's March we must build on this. The lion needs us like never before'.

Gareth Patterson, Author of My Lion's Heart.