At 10am on Wednesday, 10 December, an incinerator somewhere in Gauteng came alive with a roar, superheated flames instantly melting the plastic bags around the bones of 42 lions. It was dramatic, symbolic and garishly real. Ribs, leg bones and snarling skulls blackened in the intense heat as the doors of the hellish cauldron slid shut, having given observers a brief glimpse of the blaze that would reduce nearly half a tonne of lion remains to ash. Symbolic, because an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 lions still live behind fences on breeding farms across South Africa. But also a statement - a stark, emotional reminder that in a humane society, dead lions should have zero value. Those who had come to witness the burn - provincial government officials, a handful of NGOs, Kobus Steyn (the dealer who owned the bones) and Lord Michael Ashcroft - stepped back from the heat, visibly shaken by the spectacle. For most of them this was a moment shaped by years of work to shut down the captive lion breeding industry. Instead of triumph, however, there was gathering concern.