Lions and People Must Learn to Get Along, Experts Say

Leon Marshall in Johannesburg
for National Geographic News

May 3, 2006
The king of beasts may soon be dethroned, as conflicts between African lions
and humans contribute to the big cats' population decline.

Now, to improve the lions' lot, conservationists are trying to rekindle an
age-old aspect of life on the continent, when lions and people lived
relatively peaceably side by side.

The effort will be tough, researchers say, but it is the best way of
preventing the iconic species from becoming even more threatened.

"Africans know how to live together with lions-they have been doing so for a
very long time," James Murombedzi told a workshop held earlier this year to
consider the lions' plight.

Based in Harare, Zimbabwe, Murombedzi is the regional director for southern
Africa for the World Conservation Union (IUCN) based in Switzerland.

IUCN and the Bronx, New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society convened
the workshop in Johannesburg, South Africa, following a contentious
conference in Thailand last year.

At that event officials from Kenya (see map) had to back down in the face of
fierce opposition from other African countries when the Kenyans proposed
that lions be given more protection.

The suggested changes would have slapped tough restrictions on commercial
trade in lions and their parts, most notably trophies from safari hunting.

Cramped Cats

IUCN data show that lion numbers have remained relatively stable inside game
reserves.

Currently between 23,000 and 39,000 of the big cats roam wild, according to
official estimates.

The trouble is in nonprotected lands, which encompass about half of the
species' range. This is where the lions' decline has been the biggest.

Overall the cats' population is estimated to have declined by 30 to 50
percent over the past 20 years.
The African lion is classified as vulnerable on the 2006 IUCN Red List of
Threatened Species.

In West Africa there are now thought to be fewer than 1,500 lions left,
meeting the Red List criteria for "regionally endangered."

Kristin Nowell of IUCN's cat-specialist group says in western and central
Africa lions have lost some 80 to 90 percent of their historic range.

Gus Mills, a senior researcher with South Africa National Parks, says that
the main trouble for the lions is that their roaming area has become so
cramped.

"We are going to have to find ways of expanding their living room," he said.

"The only way is to identify areas surrounding wildlife reserves where it
will be possible for people and lions to coexist, and then to work at ways
of bringing this about.

"There cannot be hard and fast rules, because circumstances differ from
place to place and country to country. But where possible, we must see if we
cannot get a more mutually beneficial relationship going between lions and
people," Mills said.

Lion Safety

The key to success, Mills says, would be to help communities see lions not
as a liability but as something that can secure an income in the form, for
example, of ecotourism or sustainable hunting practices.

He cautions that people will have to learn safety precautions, such as to
put their livestock inside enclosures at night.

Mills also says that a managed plan for killing lions that become a danger
to people or regularly attack livestock is better than indiscriminate
hunting or poisoning.

But some experts fear it may no longer be possible to get lion-friendly
projects going in densely populated areas, such as those adjoining South
Africa's Kruger National Park.

Southern and eastern Africa are home to the biggest lion population, with
between 21,000 and 35,000 of the animals.

In southern Tanzania more than a hundred people are attacked by lions every
year.

And in the area surrounding Nairobi National Park in Kenya farmers seeking
revenge for livestock attacks have killed an estimated 40 lions over the
past four years.

Mills says another option is to look at creating corridors between protected
lands as a way of expanding the animals' ranges.

The Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, now in the process of being formed,
would link the Kruger park with Zimbabwe's Gonarezhou National Park and
Mozambique's Limpopo Park.

Such a project would allow animals, including the lions, to expand their
range and use traditional migratory routes that are now blocked by fences.

Power only repects power.

In places where Africans are armed and aggressive lions and Africans get along. There are very few if any lion attacks in those parts of the Congo where everybody has an AK.

In Masailand the lions are not so cheeky because they know from trying to pinch Masai cattle that it means a spear in the ribs.

In the Kilombero Valley where the fishermen are armed with a clenched fist and a high pitched scream lions bump them off all the time.

I know Ralp Baldhus well and I was suprised to see his his maneating lion summary that he shows no kills from the Kilombero Valley.

This is because Ralph sits in Dar es Salaam collecting reports from the District offices and uses this hard data to make his reports.

Some of the distrcts don't compile reports or even send people out when there is a maneating lion which is why the report shows one district with many kills and the adjacent district with none.

As far as bush pigs being the reason for people going into the fields and getting killed while protecting theire crops - this has been going in Africa as long as there has been slash and burn agricultur. I think the bush pig is just a scape goat.

People are just big monkies. When lions know they can kill and eat them with impunity they do.



VBR,


Ted Gorsline

Ted's absolutely dead right - when Lions get hungry, they kill something if they possibly can and eat it . If there's only cattle and humans around, or they're the most convenient target then that's what they kill and eat.

Could we "reestablish" them in places like Central Park, New York City? Or maybe in other major city parks? If not lions, how about wolves?

Dear Prof 242,

In Mumbai (formerly Bombay) a city of several million people in India leopards have established themselves is a city park about like Central Park in New York.

They don't have enough to eat so they sneak into town at night and kill and eat people. They have already eaten more than 12 people.

NGS did a story about it.


VBR,


Ted Gorsline