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Last Update: Monday, January 16, 2006. 8:26pm (AEDT)
Plan to save African lions developed

Regional governments and conservationists have agreed on initial steps that need to be taken to save the African lion, which has been pushed to the brink of extinction throughout much of its range.

The strategies were worked out at a workshop on lions in east and southern Africa, which wrapped up at the weekend.

"The reduction in the lion's wild prey base, human-lion conflicts and habitat degradation are the major reasons for declining lion populations and need to be addressed," the World Conservation Union (WCU), one of the workshop's organisers, said.

Government officials, local community representatives, lion biologists and safari hunters attended the meeting.

"Regulated trophy hunting was not considered a threat, but rather viewed as a way to help alleviate human-lion conflict and generate economic benefits for poor people to build their support for lion conservation," the statement said.

Trophy hunting of lions already takes place in several African states including South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.

But expanding these lucrative operations to other states is bound to be opposed by animal welfare groups, which view hunting as cruel.

With its iconic status as "King of the Beasts," the hunting of the lion is an emotive issue sure to stir controversy, even if it does generate revenue for poor rural communities from licensing fees and jobs created.

Other strategies agreed on at the meeting include: action to prevent the illegal trade in lions and lion products; developing management capacity; and creating economic incentives for poor rural folk to live close to lions.

The lion's overall situation is dire in the face of swelling human populations on the world's poorest continent.

"Over the past 20 years, lion numbers are suspected to have dropped dramatically from an estimated 76,000 to a population estimated to be between 23,000 and 39,000 today," the WCU said.

"Across Africa, the lion has disappeared from over 80 percent of its former range."

In West Africa, lions number fewer than 1,500.

Conflict between humans and lions is a huge problem with attacks on people on the rise in Tanzania and Mozambique.

- Reuters

The decreasing habitate and increasing population (of humans) conflicting with wildlife areas would be a major impact on the lion numbers.

IF the lion population has declined to these numbers, how many of them would be "shootable" mature males?

Seems like surely less than 10%? 2300-3900 in all of Africa!

How many are been hunted as trophies every year?

Is this sustainable?

.

This figure was the same one put out - and discredeted - at the last CITES conference. Does not take into account any of the lion populations in central or west Africa.

Don,

It does mention 1500 West African lion.

If these numbers are incorrect, what are the correct numbers? Does anyone know?

Les

A quick search of back topics on this from 04 gives some background.

Basically the real answer is - who knows? We have no real way of counting lions and any figure thrown out by ANY scientist is at best, an educated thubsuck...and will all such thubsucks, the individuals personal adgenda has far more influence on the final figure than science.

At the lion meeting in South Africa last month the "agreed figure" was arround 40,000.