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Perspective Needed on Lion Decline
07 Nov 2011


The meaningful decline – a giant 96% over the past 50 years - in the number of free roaming lions is frightening, but is it really reason for concern or should it be placed in perspective?

“The future of lions is at stake with numbers that have declined from 450 000 to 20 000 over the past 50 years, as the environment programme 50/50 recently put it. Dereck Joubert said in this programme that the specie may become extinct in 15 years.

JP Niemand reckons such statements should be put in perspective. Within 50 years Africa’s population of 285 million increased to more than a billion – an increase of 350 870%! Population growth and the loss of food security leads to dependence on existence farming for survival which in turn leads to habitat destruction – a sure-fire recipe for conflict between man and animal.

Elephant often destroy a family’s harvest within a few hours. In addition, an existence farmer’s few chickens, goats or cattle can be killed within the wink of an eye by a genet or a lion.

The question is, therefore: should a growing African population accept that the international community should expect them to share their area with potentially dangerous wildlife without receiving any remuneration or advantage?

Does it entail that the decrease in lion numbers should be written off as a hard, but sad reality of Africa?

The answer is no! Keep in mind that the decrease in lion numbers includes the whole of Africa. It is equivalent to saying that the whole continent’s human population is dying of hunger because a few countries in East Africa are experiencing food shortages.

The circumstances in South Africa differ vastly from many of its northern neighbours. Environment management is being approached in a scientific manner here, in Botswana, Namibia and increasingly in Mozambique and Zambia – and it works.

Lion numbers in Namibia has increased considerably over the past 15 years. The Kgalagadi Trans-Frontier Park’s lion population shows no decrease since the middle 1970s and Kruger’s lion population is described as stabile.

The increase of many lion populations in South Africa, as well as in neighbouring countries, is controlled with contraceptives.

One of South Africa’s top ecologists recently made it clear that, taking cognisance of the available conservation areas in Southern Africa, lions cannot be regarded as threatened, but that it may not be the case in other parts of Africa.

By withholding certain facts, a selective truth is presented. Animal rights organisations annually receive hundreds of millions of American dollars in stark contrast to non-government organisations such as the Endangered Wildlife Trust, World Wildlife Fund and Peace Parks Foundation that pump millions into environmental projects. Unfortunately, only a fraction of the income of the overwhelming majority of animal rights organisations is spent on environmental projects, because administrative costs - salaries, vehicle and house subsidies and business class plain tickets – swallow most of the donour money.

The so-called “threat” to lions is exaggerated in order to get all forms of trophy hunting banned – to the disadvantage of the people who have to share their direct environment with wildlife.

In Marromeu on the east coast of Mozambique the numbers of buffaloes during and after the civil war decreased from some 50 000 to 500. Game only started stabilising and increasing when hunting concessions were awarded in the area. The concession holders controlled poaching and people in the environment derived direct benefit from trophy hunting.

In KwaZulu-Natal a researcher, who disapproved of trophy hunting, proved that die numbers of leopards increased if scientific information is used as a basis for granting hunting permits.

The future existence of lions or any other form of game lies in the management thereof as a sustainable, renewable source. If people who are sharing their environment with game are not advantaged by it, they will use poison and other methods to destroy lions.

Roaming lions will not become extinct in Africa over the next 15 years; although it may happen in a country like Kenya where the government succumbed to international pressure to prohibit certain forms of game utilisation. In Southern Africa, it is highly unlikely as long as we don’t allow everyone that presents himself as an environmental expert to force his will on our environmental scientists.

Take note of the Wildlife Society’s view on animal rights organisations and decide for yourself who and what presents the greatest threat to Africa and its wildlife, Niemand concluded.

Excellent post. Joubert is a film maker and not a scientist. The problem is he has the extremely influential, largely anti-hunting media behind him. I really believe that National Geographic should be taken to task for promoting him as the saviour of the African lion. His title should be changed from "Explorer in Residence" to "Exploiter in Residence."

excellent article, balanced and logical.