Kenya: KWS to Set Up Task Force in Bid to Conserve Country's Lions


The Nation (Nairobi)

19 February 2008
Posted to the web 19 February 2008

Odhiambo Orlale
Nairobi

The Kenya Wildlife Service is to set up a task force to study how to protect, conserve and promote the over 2,000 lions in the country.

The team will be made up of experts from within KWS and the tourism industry who will also study why the carnivore's population had declined from 10,000 in the 1970s to 2,729 in 2002 and to 2,280 in 2004.


Lions are spread out in the country's national parks, game reserves and private conservancies as follows: Narok and Kajiado districts - 825; Tsavo - 675; Laikipia - 230; Meru - 80; Samburu and Isiolo - 100 and Northern Kenya - 100.

Reduced population

Yesterday, the KWS director, Dr Julius Kip'ngetich, said: "Large carnivores are in decline throughout the country and Kenya's carnivores are no exception.

"Despite their reduced population, large carnivores still cause problems for pastoralists and farmers, for conservation managers."

The director noted that predation on livestock by large carnivores was a serious problem because it had a major impact on the livelihoods of pastoralists and farmers.

In a speech read by Mr Benjamin Kavu, Mr Kip'ngetich told participants at a workshop on national action planning for lion and spotted hyena, that the high decline of lions had a lot to do with the human/wildlife conflict.

In a speech read by the senior assistant director, the KWS boss said: "Lions also play a critical role in Kenya's tourism industry for lion presence in an area is considered an indicator of its wild and natural integrity.

Flagship species

"The lion is thus one of the flagship species of Kenya for research and tourism, and indeed one of the Big Five."


The other major wildlife that attract tourists to the country are the leopard, buffalo, rhino and elephant.

The director reminded the participants that the African lion was classified as vulnerable by experts, and had been extirpated from at least 30 per cent of their historical range in East and Southern Africa.

Said the director: "As is often the case in conservation, there is limited data on status, population trend and ecology. However, Kenya's population of lions was estimated at 2,749 in 2002 and 2,280 in 2004."

That hunting ban really helped hasn't it.

quote:

Originally posted by larryshores:
That hunting ban really helped hasn't it.

I was thinking the same thing. Will make a good poster for the anti's.

sorry in advance, but all i could think of was this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDYcW_tvSDw

724 great, I will be stuck with that tune in my head for years.
HMMM HMMM only in Kenya, Kenya

Isn't a big issue that the lion populations are isolated in these pockets and suffering from some debilitating disease cycles normally broken by a free ranging population?

A big part of the issue is that lions dlo not put food on people's tables but rather are viewed as resource competitors. With zero value to local populations, lions are viewed as a nuisance and are dealt with as such.

The survivors have thus been pushed into isolated pockets in different areas of the country, where they are indeed prone to be more susceptible to diseases and the impact of inbreeding.

What hunting does is turn a liability to the local populations into an asset. They are more apt to forgoe the opportunity to shoot, shovel and shut up when they will receive a sizeable bounty in allowing a hunter to take the animal.

The human population in Kenya, like elsewhere in Africa, is growing. The needs of man always win out over the needs of wildlife. And unless the wildlife, particularly wildlife that competes with man for resources, has some value to the local population, it is not going to be around long.

Kenya can bring all the birkenstock-wearing, tree-hugging vegetarians it wants, but those eco-tourists are essentially cheap bastards who contribute little to the local economy in their tour busses that are back in the big cities by nightfall. Pictures of lions put no food on the peoples' tables (heck, they don't even get their film developed there!), and pictures of food don't fill their stomachs.