LionAid’s Approach to Conservation Education

A very good question! A pride is a female coalition. It is the generational assemblage of females that control a territory, male lions come and go and reproduce where they can. Male lions disperse at age two to three from where they are born (not that far actually), but the females largely stay in their natal territories. During her lifetime, a female lion might encounter several different male coalitions and might give birth to cubs sired by a diversity of different males.

Well, lions are not really social, though they live in prides. There have been many attempts to explain why lions join together, but none of them seem really convincing. To us, the reason why lions formed alliances with other lions seems rather straightforward. Let’s start with the females. In terms of lion evolution, these are animals that can tackle large prey. There is huge competition among the many African predator species for small and medium-sized prey. But only lions can take on buffalos, giraffes, hippos, and even elephants. But this takes teamwork, and likely it began with a lion female and her offspring. Lions who joined together survived better, and raised more cubs compared with lions who decided to remain asocial. Male lions who formed coalitions were better able to take over a pride of females in competition with single males. But all of this is not to say lions are really social. African Wild Dogs are always together as a pack, but lion pride members frequently split off individually or as small groups. It is as yet an uncomfortable sociality but a profitable one. Look to the European Union as an example?

That really depends on where the prides are and what prey is available to them. In the Botswana study area, it was mostly impala , but then in other places in Botswana lions have been also known to prey on hippos and even elephants. Lions are greatly adaptable, and their meals come from what is on offer. It is interesting that some lion prides will ignore certain prey species as they do not have the generational knowledge how to hunt them. Consequently, two neighbouring prides in Botswana had very different diets….

Lions are supposed to be nocturnal, and there is a popular misconception promoted by guidebooks that lions sleep about 20 hours per day. In fact, lions are very opportunistic in terms of when they are active. For sure, most lions will probably wake from their daily slumber and begin to get active at dusk, but this is not always so. If lions have water within their territory that attracts prey animals in the daytime, the lions will be active in the day. Lions are extremely attuned to descending vultures during the day and will follow them to a free meal. Lions hunt at night not because their eyesight is better under low light conditions than that of their prey, but because with stealth they can probably approach their prey closer at night than during the day. Many antelopes also store heat in their bodies during the day and release it in the cool of the night, meaning that their muscles work less efficiently at dusk, so they run slower and have less endurance. That would also benefit a lion hunting at the end of a hot day.

Yes they do. Eyes have two kinds of receptor cells, called rods and cones because of their structure. Rods are mainly responsible for black and white vision, and cones do the colour bit. Human eyes have a predominance of cones – we see colours very well, especially in the red spectrum of light, but consequently we have a problem with night vision no matter how many carrots we eat. Lions have fewer cones so see less colour but have great night vision especially since their eyes also have a membrane that concentrates weak light back to the retina and their pupils are able to enlarge to an extent much bigger than ours.

The mane has many hypothetical purposes and some reasonable explanations. It is supposed to make the male lion look bigger to an adversary and therefore more intimidating. It is supposed to protect the male lion from being bitten and clawed by other male lions. Some researchers have proposed it is a handicap in hot climates and therefore the male lions in Tsavo, Kenya are “maneless”. The real answer is that nobody really knows.

It was originally proposed that male lions kill cubs to bring the females back into estrus. This has been disproven, but the original thinking was that if a male lion coalition takes over a pride of females, they cannot sit around and wait until the cubs are grown and the females then become receptive again. Better to kill the cubs that are not theirs, and start a new generation that is theirs – as male coalitions have a limited time with the prides. Male lions do kill cubs when they take over a pride, but it is not as prevalent as some would have us think. Females already pregnant when the new males come in can easily “disguise” their cubs as belonging to the new males, and even females with newly born cubs can hide them, mate with the new males, and bring their cubs out later. Females are clever, and males subsequently end up with offspring not theirs.

LionAid is a charitable organisation, registered in England and Wales. LionAid was formed in 2010 to encourage better protection of wild lions in Africa with focused and innovative programmes. LionAid has a long history of engagement in Africa and works on all sorts of levels – political in the UK and the European Union and Africa – with support of African wildlife departments and communities – and African politicians like the former President of Botswana.

Over the past 50 years Africa’s lion populations have plummeted from over 200,000 individuals back in the 1960’s to perhaps 13,356 today. A shocking number if you consider the size of that continent – and by far the greatest number of remaining lion populations are small, scattered, and highly vulnerable. There have been many conservation foundations working to improve the lot of the African lion, but sadly to date the declines have not abated. In fact the rate of decline is accelerating – Ghana is probably the latest African country added to long list that have lost all their lions, and Kenya and Uganda predict local extinctions in the next ten years. We have recently been informed that the supposed lion population in Angola, numbering over 1,200, probably numbers not more than over 30 lions. A new approach is clearly needed, and LION AID is committed to identifying issues that WILL make a difference, and executing meaningful solutions to these issues. So what WILL make a difference? Educate the general public as to what is actually happening to our top African predator – there remains an overall high degree of unawareness of the huge decline of lions. We are convincing the UK Government to effect a ban on the importation of lion trophies and indeed all lion products into the UK – while the UK only imports a very small percentage of the total trophy lions shot, such individual action by nations will make a difference. Encourage other European nations to similarly consider their positions – Spain, Germany, Hungary, Denmark and the Czech Republic together import over 100 lion trophies per year. Bring pressure to bear on the hunting organizations to voluntarily stop lion trophy hunting – there could be surprising levels of support with a carefully considered approach. Lobby the IUCN to change their present status of African lions as “Vulnerable” to “Endangered” on their Red List – lions meet all the IUCN criteria, but the organization remains oddly complacent.

The major threats to all wild African lions are: The massive growth in human populations. The African National Parks and Reserves had their origins in colonial times. These days, because of economic pressures, very many of those protected areas have become little more than paper Parks – in other words they have ceased to exist in terms of effective wildlife conservation. LionAid is working hard with a number of African partners to minimise the effect of human/wildlife conflict and to work with African partners so that currently struggling nationally protected areas will be revived in the future. There is a very high rate of infection among lions with Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (Feline Aids) that shortens their life and compromises reproduction. That infection also pre-disposes lions to infection with a number of other diseases, most notably, canine distemper that killed over 1,000 lions in the Serengeti National Park in 1984. LionAid, with collaborators, is engaged in research of feline immunodeficiency virus and with other collaborators is attempting to minimise exposure of lions to diseases transmitted by domestic animals – such as canine distemper and bovine tuberculosis. Lions also suffer from a tremendous decrease in natural prey caused by out of control bushmeat poaching across the entire lion range. We are working with partners to attempt to reduce such bushmeat poaching especially by a means to allow rural communities to have access to food resources that do not involve poaching. As we stated in answers to other FAQs, LionAid is working tirelessly to prevent unnecessary and additive mortality from trophy hunting. As stated above, LionAid is working with our associates to reduce human/lion conflict by implementing tried and tested means to protect cattle in their bomas at night and is also working with Governments in Tanzania, Botswana and Kenya on their land use planning that reduces potential conflict between livestock and lions. LionAid has recently initiated a highly innovative project with the Maasai community living next to Kenya’s Amboseli National Park to reduce lion/livestock conflict.

Lion trophy hunting is a complex issue is some ways and a very simple issue in others. The hunting arguments are basically these: Trophy hunting operations (not just shooting lions) say they lease very large tracts of land across Africa, and by so doing protect wildlife that would otherwise be confined to nationally protected areas. In fact, the lease areas exceed the protected areas in additive size in many countries. The hunting community says that if commercial value through hunting is not placed on wildlife, such land will revert to cattle and/or crops, and much wildlife will be lost. The hunters say they aid communities and governments with substantial income by their sustainable activities, and therefore engender a conservation value for wildlife. Our facts are these: Trophy hunting has not led to the conservation of lions in Africa. In fact, if we take the example of Tanzania, where there used to be 154 big game hunting areas, 72% have now been abandoned because they are no longer profitable for hunting organisations. Trophy hunting of lions and many other species has only shown minimal commercial returns to governments and communities, e.g. in Tanzania communities receive an average income of 8 CENTS per hectare per year to allow their land to be used for trophy hunting. This contrasts with the Masai Mara conservancies who earn 40 dollars per hectare per year to allow their land to be used for photographic safaris. While some African governments have pledged to disallow the shooting of any lion under six years old, this has never been enforced and most male lions shot these days are much younger and will never have reproduced. Such excessive and unsustainable use has led to severe decreases in reproduction among lion populations, not only in hunting areas, but also in neighbouring National Parks. It is becoming increasingly clear that because of the over hunting in trophy hunting concessions, the operators are now almost completely reliant on luring trophy quality lions out of nationall protected areas – Cecil was not the first and certainly will not be the last of these lions.

What you must realize is that all those trophies were legally exported and imported according to international regulations. CITES and the IUCN refuse to change their stance on elevating the status of lions to an endangered species. It is however a fact that any nation can independently ban the import of any wildlife product. In fact, as of today, Australia, France, Belgium and the Netherlands have banned all lion trophy hunting imports. A similar trophy hunting import ban is still with the UK Parliament but has not yet been passed into legislation. The USA has imposed very strict regulations on the imports of lion trophies – such imports must be shown to benefit the conservation of the species. LionAid is continuing to work very hard to convince other governments to follow the examples of Australia, France and the Netherlands and even the USA to impose much stricter limitations on the import of lion trophies. LionAid is also working very hard with African lion range states to completely ban lion trophy hunting as it has no conservation value for the species..

There are maybe only 4 lion populations left in Africa that can, by scientific standards, be considered to have any long term future. The number of 13,356 might seem to some to mean that there are still “plenty” of lions, but that number includes very many small populations. Africa is a very large continent, and if you add up 20 lions here and 30 lions there it is not difficult to end up with 13,356 overall. The problem is that those small populations are at extreme survival risk – even a fire in their habitat, a disease or maybe just one poisoned carcass, put out by local pastoralists experiencing lion conflict, could destroy a small population in the space of a few days. To comprehensively conserve lions, we need to ensure the survival of small populations as well as ensuring the longevity of the large populations.

FIV is a big threat as the virus compromises the lion’s immune system. We cannot do anything about the currently widespread infection. But we can encourage management plans that minimize risks of lions being exposed to additional domestic animal viruses and bacteria prevalent in Africa’s wildlife. Canine distemper virus and Bovine tuberculosis are some of those. Ensure that protected areas where lions roam are buffered from domestic animals that could spread deadly diseases to Africa’s increasingly threatened wild lions.

A very good question. Ecosystem health is built on the concept of biodiversity, starting with bacteria and moving all the way up the line to top predators. You could criticize us for focusing on the charismatic lions, but we feel than any ecosystem that has top predators present is a healthy one. We could be accused of a top down approach, but keystone species are necessary to maintain overall ecosystem health. If you look at the great positive changes in the ecosystem of Yellowstone National Park in the USA with the reintroduction of wolves, you will see the difference a major predator makes in the overall function of an ecosystem and biodiversity. These days we have very few ecosystems that are functioning properly as they did perhaps many thousands of years ago, with little human interference.