How extraordinary that major airlines are now setting their own policies prohibiting their transporting decapitated heads of lions and other wildlife "trophies." Good on them! Perhaps now it's time to see eBay step up with a comparable policy.
I have no idea how many lion heads are the result of actual hunts (legal and otherwise) as opposed to how many are sold to those who only get to travel and kill African wildlife in their own twisted imagination, but eBay is the marketplace for alarming numbers of such so called "trophies" -- and, of course, eBay is as such making a profit on the death and commerce of these dead animals.
I just typed in "taxidermy lion" on eBay and, at this writing, 181 "products" were available for purchase. Lots of claws, several skulls, one lion's body skinned as a rug, quite a few full heads, and even whole stuffed and staged bodies. Some reproductions, most marked as real, dead lion.
Here's one of them. The description reads:
Here is an awesome huge male African Lion. This is an awesome Shoulder Mount Lion. This guy has an awesome full mane. He is a very large male. This lion has about the nicest mane of any shoulder mount lion I have ever seen. This is a big lion. He is about 30" tall, comes out 26" from the wall, and is about 19" wide. This was a real wild African lion, not a zoo or pen raised lion. This guy has a few scars on his face from when he was alive. He has an awesome look to him. The quality of the taxidermy work on this guy is great. He has awesome coloring and markings. You will go a very long way to find one as nice as this. This lion is definitely top notch. He has a slight offset shoulder with a little bit of a turned head. If you are looking for a great Lion, look no further. This is the nicest African lion head out there for the money. Don't pass this one up. It is not too early to start thinking about that next Christmas gift for that hard to buy for someone in your life.
For what it's worth, my eBay searches for "taxidermy zebra" produced 164, "taxidermy sable antelope" produced 10, and "taxidermy elephant" found 70 items. While most of the "elephant" products were listed as reproductions, of those 70 four were made of what the sellers claimed as real skin and or hair, interesting in light of eBay's own policy statement on the sale of animal "products" which specifically prohibits: "Any part, pelt, or skin from an endangered species. Examples include but are not limited to: elephants, rhinoceros, and tigers."
Readers are encouraged to report their own findings, as well as their own opinions, to eBay. There's a "report item" button on every page.
P.S.: Congratulations and thanks to the editors at The San Francisco Chronicle who in the August 5 edition endorsed the proposed state-wide ban on hunting California bobcats. See my previous post for more on this issue.