Episode Information

In this thought-provoking documentary, Penguin Random House author Richard Peirce investigates why lions are being farmed in South Africa, and sets out to tackle the question ‘should lions be farmed’? He makes the shocking discovery that wildlife ranches are farming lions in their thousands to export their bones to Asian markets for traditional medicine. Richard leads the dramatic adventure from lion farms in South Africa to wildlife traffickers in Laos and Vietnam. The farmers guard the secrets of their industry closely, so Richard’s investigations must be both overt and covert to get to the truth and to enable him to come to his own moral conclusions on the industry. Richard battles to uncover the elaborate wildlife con of processing lion bones into food products that could contain the ‘world’s deadliest infectious disease.’ Amongst Richard’s investigation we follow the heartwarming tale of two lion cubs who are given a new life. Along with positive approaches to wild lion conservation and a government intention to move away from lion farming, ‘Lions, Bones & Bullets’ leaves audiences with a sense of hope for the future.