IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Funston, P.; Henschel, P.; Hunter, L.; Lindsey, P.; Nowak, K.; Vallianos, C.; Wood, K. | |
| Beyond Cecil: Africa's lions in Crisis | |
| 2016 Full Book | |
Few stories about an individual wild animal have had as much global impact as that of Cecil, the magnificent, black-maned lion that was illegally hunted in Zimbambwe in July 2015. The massive outpouring of grief and anger spurred significant global restrictions on the import of African lion trophies, and it raised the bar for hunters and governments by requiring them to provide scientific evidence of the purported benefits of lion hunting to the species. More importantly, this tragedy focused worldwide attention on the plight of the African lion, which is now known to be racing toward local extinction throughout much of the continent. Contrary to popular belief, trophy hunting is a small factor in the fate of the African lion - a relatively minor battle in the larger war on lions that has caused their populations to plunge by more than 43% in the past two decades to just around 20,000. In the same period, populations in West, Central and East Africa area collectively estimated to have declined by 60%. The loss of lion habitat to agricultural expansion is the underlying factor that gives rise to all major threats to lions. Having lost at least 75% of their original habitat over the past 100 years, lions now occupy only about 8% of their historical range and area reported to have already vanished from 12 African countries. As Africa's human population grows exponentially - from 1.2 billion currently to 2.47 billion in 2050 - more land is needed to house people and produce the required food to sustain them. Cultivated land area in sub-Saharan Africa is expected to increase by 21% and livestock by 73% within this same period. As human occupation of African savannas expands, interactions between lions and humans become more frequent. Lion prey species compete with livestock grazing in protected areas (PAs). Close contact with domestic herds can lead to lions killing livestock, which in turn provokes retaliatory killing of lions by herders and ranchers. This is one of the top three threats in West, Central, East and parts of Southern Africa. Outside official PAs, retaliatory and preemptive killing is considered the primary threat to lions. Human encroachment also leads to illegal bushmeat hunting, a second severe threat to both lions and their prey. While bushmeat was once obtained primarily for subsistence in rural communities, today it is also sold commercially within African urban markets and internationally to markets in the United States and Europe. As bushmeat hunting expands from the forests to the savannas, vast areas have been emptied of large wildlife, especially the medium to large ungulates such as wildebeest, zebra, buffalo and impala on which lions subsist. Even the largest PAs are affected by bushmeat poaching, including the Serengeti where tens of thousands of wildebeest are killed in snares each year. In addition to a depleted prey base, lions are often caught and killed in the snares poachers indiscriminately set of the lions' prey. In Mozambique's Niassa National Reserve, snares are the biggest threat to lions, causing 52% of mortalities. The good news is that there are solutions to most of these threats to lions. Wherever human pressures have been reduced, savanna habitats, their wildlife populations, and particularly lions, have bounced back. Perhaps the single most important step in securing the future of lions in Africa is mobilizing massive support for effective protection and management of its systems of PAs. Successful ion conservation requires significantly more resources than are currently allocated to PAs in range states. Outside of these areas, conflict arising from depredation of livestock by lions must be addressed. Reducing the vulnerability of livestock to lion predation and encouraging local people to value lions' presence are critical steps forward. |
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