Lions Face Extinction in West Africa

Fewer than 250 adults may be left in West Africa, and those big cats are confined to less than 1 percent of their historic range.

The new study, detailed in the journal PLOS ONE, suggests that without dramatic conservation efforts, three of the four West African lion populations could become extinct in the next five years, with further declines in the one remaining population, study co-author Philipp Henschel, the lion program survey coordinator for Panthera, a global wildcat conservation organization, wrote in an email. [In Photos: The Biggest Lions on Earth]

The majestic lion once roamed throughout West Africa, from Nigeria to Senegal.

But as people have converted wild lands to pastureland, hunted the lion's traditional prey antelopes, gazelles, wildebeest, buffalos and zebras and gotten into conflicts with the animals, the big cat population has plummeted in West Africa.

Cash-strapped West African governments have put little money into lion conservation, in part because "wildlife tourism is quasi-absent in West Africa," Henschel said.

And research institutions have similarly neglected the region.

"Like wildlife tourists, most international research institutions and conservation organizations active in Africa also flock to the iconic game parks in East and southern Africa, meaning that lions faced a silent demise in West Africa over the past decades," Henschel told LiveScience.

Massive Survey

To remedy that, Henschel and his colleagues recently completed a massive, six-year survey of West Africa's lions, using remote cameras, interviews with people and counts of lion tracks. The survey, carried out between October 2006 and May 2012, builds on a smaller study done last year, which found shrinking savannas for lions in the region.

About 400 adult and juvenile lions existed in the region. And the wild cats, which were originally thought to have inhabited 21 separate regions, actually exist in just four. Their range is now confined to pockets in Senegal, Nigeria and the borderlands between Benin, Niger and Burkina Faso.

View original post here:
Lions Face Extinction in West Africa