A court action brought by breeders failed and they were denied leave to appeal. They have now asked the Supreme Court to rule on whether the measure violates constitutional protections of private property.

Carel van Heerden, the chairman of the South African Predator Breeders’ Association, said that if judges decided not to hear the case, “it will be the end of the road for us”.

“It will be a devastating effect on our members, it will be a sad day for South Africa. It will take away the economic value of every lion,” he added.

The association’s members own around 4,300 lions, each of which costs about £800 a month to feed.

“They will have to kill them,” said Mr van Heerden. “It’s going to be a slaughter.

“If you have to make a decision whether you are going to have to feed those lions and you are not going to get any income from that you are going to have no alternative but to kill them, which is very sad. We don’t breed lions to kill them, we breed them to hunt them.”

Lionesses fetched trophy fees of around £3,000, he said, with males worth as much as £20,000. More than 1,000 government permits are issued annually for the hunting of lions and the export of trophies, mostly to America.

Critics claim that the captive lions are inbred and vulnerable to illness.

Fiona Miles, a spokesman for Lionsrock, the biggest lion sanctuary in the country, said: “Canned hunting means hunting in a small space where an animal has no chance of escape. People are doing it and satisfying their ego to say they killed a lion.

“They don’t particularly care how they shot that animal. The animals are looked at as a completely commercial tool, but these are living beings.”

Chris Mercer, the director of the Campaign Against Canned Hunting, dismissed the breeders concerns as “just waffle, kicking up dust”.

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