Young minds making strong statements

The young people of today, the next generation of conservationists, give us hope. We believe they have

the power to bring lasting change.

These phenomenal young minds are growing up under the glaring reality of climate crisis and extreme habitat degradation. We often hear from our smaller supporters about what they are doing to raise awareness for the cause of lions.
Today we want to introduce you to Gurleen-Sabrina Hayer. Gurleen is 14 years old and has been watching Kevin’s videos with her family for years. Gurleen was inspired to spread awareness about canned hunting – the act of hunting in a confined space where a lion is often quite tame, or drugged, and thus has no chance of fair escape. Gurleen wrote the poem “the Hunt” when she was just 12 years old, which was published in a book called “Poetry Escape” in 2019. Here is the powerful poem.

The Hunt

It paces;
Back and forth,
The animal, he traces.
This is not his first time, in fact, his fourth,
Bang! Bang!
The shots are fired.
“I got it!” he sang,
His work, he admires.
The animal lies dead on the ground,
You can hear his brother’s roar.
The guy thinks, maybe I’ll have another round,
And he screams, “Is that all you got? Give me more!”
He brags about his hunting skills,
When the truth is he’s canned hunting,
The thing that raises animals just for kills,
The thing that lies, and the thing that is murdering,
Those poor wild animals, gone with a shot
And no one cares, they just want to prove themselves,
And the innocent are gone, blinked out like a dot,
I think we should all be ashamed of ourselves,
This has to finish,
So let’s start,
Stop their wishes,
Be smart,
Stop canned hunting.

Gurleen-Sabrina Hayer (12)