A US restaurant is to serve burgers made with real lion meat during the World Cup, causing outrage among wildlife campaigners. The Il Vinaio restaurant near Phoenix, Arizona, is offering a "lion burger" for $21 (£14), served with spicy homemade crisps and roast corn on the cob.
The restaurant has already received a bomb threat and hundreds of angry emails from animal rights activists. Owner Cameron Selogie said the decision to serve the lion burgers was a tribute to South Africa, host nation of the World Cup. He said: "In Africa they do eat lions, so I assume if it's OK for Africans to eat lions then it should be OK for us."
Mr Selogie added: "We thought that since the World Cup was in Africa that the lion burger might be interesting for some of our more adventurous customers." The meat is from a lion that was raised at a free range farm in Illinois, which is regulated by the US Department of Agriculture. Mr Selogie said he had explained to protesters that African lions are on the protected list, but not endangered.
He said: "Most of them, when we tell them the facts, that this is farm raised and it doesn't hurt the endangered animals, seem pretty reasonable." The restaurant ordered 10 pounds of African lion meat from the farm and it is mixed with ground beef to make a "lion burger." The restaurant is to serve about 15 burgers on Wednesday and the same on Thursday as part of its World Cup celebrations. Animal rights activists are expected to protest outside. A spokesman for the US Department of Agriculture said lion meat was uncommon but not illegal.
11 comments:
That is interesting! I didn't know lions were edible. Or that there was a free range lion farm. I think I would try one.
Yeah, I was unaware that people actually ate lion meat. I find hard to justify not eating lion meat (seeing that we eat dolphins and cows with no regret) but it doesn't feel right to me. I wouldn't try it.
I would say the biggest argument for not eating lion would ne the number of lions, if its going to put a strain or endanger the species.
He said: "In Africa they do eat lions, so I assume if it's OK for Africans to eat lions then it should be OK for us."
Some people eat all kinds of things... including other people.
We don't eat dolphins in the U.S. Maybe you are thinking of mahi mahi, the dolphin fish. I wouldn't eat lions either.
As a general rule, we don't eat predator animals, at least in the U.S. I can't imagine eating a cat, dog, bear, coyote, mountain lion, or wolf, let alone a lion.
I don't see anything wrong with it. I wouldn't eat it only because I can't imagine it tastes very good.
If they're farm-raised, though, eating them won't affect the survival of the species in the wild.
Huh... I'd never noticed the pattern before. Thanks for pointing that out.
I guess it has to do with farming/ranching. It would be hard to raise (or herd) animals that needed to prey on other animals.
It just seems to me that people get together and try to figure out what ELSE they can kill and eat. Blah.
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