Getting closer to a much better count of Africa’s lions

A young lion cub rests in the branches of a large euphorbia tree in Uganda’s Queen Elizabeth Conservation Area.
Alex Braczkowski, Author provided

Alexander Richard Braczkowski, Griffith University; Duan Biggs, Griffith University; James R. Allan, University of Amsterdam, and Martine Maron, The University of Queensland

African lions are one of the world’s favourite animals. But their numbers have been shrinking over the past century, especially over the past 30 years. Some scientists estimate that their numbers have halved since 1994.

Estimates of the total population of Africa’s king of beasts vary, but a recent CITES report suggested that only about 25,000 remain in the wild, across 102 populations in Africa. But the numbers in this report aren’t particularly reliable. Most used traditional survey approaches – like counts of lion footprints, audio lure surveys or expert opinion – and many were not peer-reviewed.

These traditional methods of counting lions produce highly uncertain estimates. A count of lions using their footprints may give you an estimate of, say, 50 lions in an area. But the uncertainty around this estimate could be between 15 and 100 individuals. This large uncertainty makes tracking how lion populations change from year to year nearly impossible. Our recent review shows that the majority of methods used to count African and Asiatic lions use these less robust methods.

Two young lions rest in the branches of a Euphorbia tree on the Kasenyi Plains of Queen Elizabeth National Park.
Alex Braczkowski

Making sure that lion numbers are accurate and reasonably precise is key for the species’ conservation. Estimates of lion numbers underpin their classification as ‘vulnerable’. They also form the backbone for controversial management practices like the setting of trophy hunting quotas.

The good news is that better ways of counting lions are being developed. So called spatially explicit capture-recapture methods are useful for conservation because they tell us not only how many animals live in an area, but how they move in a landscape, what their sex ratios are and even where their highest numbers are located. This method has been used to count tigers, leopards, jaguars and mountain lions for over a decade but it is only now becoming popular for lions.

A review of 169 peer-reviewed scientific articles (Web of Science and Google Scholar) showed many lion abundance and density estimates rely on traditional methods like audio lure or track surveys.

Spatially explicit capture-recapture methods use a mathematical model which incorporates the individual identity of animals (usually from photographs of natural body markings, spot patterns or even whisker spots) and their location in a landscape. By identifying and “marking” individuals over a period of time an estimate can be made of the total number of animals that live in an area.

Better methods from East Africa

This method was first used to count lions in a 2014 study in Kenya’s Maasai Mara. The lead authors capitalised on a historic way of identifying lions: their whiskers. Every lion in the wild has a unique whisker spot pattern, very much like a human fingerprint.

Recently, some of us applied this technique in a count of African lions in southwestern Uganda, in a region known as the Queen Elizabeth Conservation Area. These lions are interesting because they have a rare culture of tree-climbing. This means they have great local tourism value as each lion raises about USD$ 14 000 annually in park fees.

The status of lions in Uganda was not previously very well understood. After a wave of intense poaching during the unstable Idi Amin and Milton Obote regimes – 1971 to 1985 – during which time wildlife numbers plummeted.

But recent aerial surveys and radio-collaring studies suggested that lion prey numbers were recovering. A radio collaring study of lions from 2006 to 2010 also showed that lion home range sizes were small, and because range size is predicted by abundant prey, this suggested lions here were in good health.

Uganda’s lions in peril

From October 2017 to February 2018 we drove more than 8 000 km in 93 days searching for lions in the Queen Elizabeth Conservation Area. We obtained 165 lion detections. Using individual identifications from photos, we calculated that on average one could expect to find about 3 individual lions per 100 square kilometres, with a total of 71 lions in the entire area.

Scientists during a census of the lions in Uganda’s Queen Elizabeth Conservation Area.
Steve Winter

We used the spatially explicit capture-recapture method to assess how lion movements had changed from the home range study performed a decade earlier. Worryingly, our results showed that lions had increased their ranges significantly in just 10 years – above 400% for male lions and above 100% for females.

Also, there was only one female for every male in the wild. This is very different to other African lion populations which have a much higher proportion of females relative to males (about two females for every male).

Next steps

From the standpoint of lion conservation and recovery these results are concerning. But, on a positive note, this finding has provided a timely alert. And we recommend the use of this relatively novel survey methodology to assess other lion populations across Africa.

Four young lion cubs trigger a camera trap set on a waterbuck kill on Queen Elizabeth’s Kasenyi Plains.
Alex Braczkowski

More recently, in 2020, another rigorous study at Lake Nakuru National Park, Kenya, applied this approach and found that this method estimated lion population size to be about a sixth of what was previously thought. The Kenya Wildlife Service, in collaboration with local partners is now using spatially explicit capture-recapture in an ambitious nationwide survey of lions and other large carnivores at all potential strongholds across Kenya.

More broadly, these results further bolster the view that by relying on ad hoc, indirect methods to detect lion population trends, we may end up with misleading answers and fail to direct scarce conservation resources optimally.

We argue that all stakeholders involved in lion conservation across Africa and Asia should use rigorous survey methods to keep track of lion populations. These results should then form appropriate baselines for continent-wide reports on lion abundance, and help inform strategies aimed at their recovery.

Alexander Richard Braczkowski, Research Associate, Griffith University; Duan Biggs, Senior Research Fellow Social-Ecological Systems & Resilience, Griffith University; James R. Allan, Postdoctoral research fellow, University of Amsterdam, and Martine Maron, ARC Future Fellow and Professor of Environmental Management, The University of Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Dynasties: Lions may disappear without urgent funding for conservation

Niki Rust, Newcastle University

In part three of the BBC’s new nature series Dynasties, the protagonists, Charm and Sienna, show us how hard it is to be a successful lioness in a land filled with enemies.

Under constant threat of marauding hyenas and cub-killing male lions, the two mothers have to fight for their lives to ensure their offspring have a chance of making it to adulthood. But the episode also shows us that the biggest enemy of lions isn’t other wild predators – it’s humans.

Down from as many as 200,000 lions a century ago, some experts believe that we could now have as few as 20,000 individuals remaining in the wild – and that number is likely to be falling by the day. Worryingly, the general public are mostly unaware of their precarious conservation status. We have done a bad job of showing the perilous state of these big cats.

The lion’s kingdom under siege

Lions face attack by humans on many fronts. Panthera, a wild cat conservation organisation, believes the most serious causes for their decline include habitat loss, humans killing them to protect their livestock, wild prey depletion, accidental snaring, poorly managed trophy hunting and the illegal wildlife trade.

Since their threats are so varied, there is no single solution for protecting lions and overcoming these threats will be no mean feat. It will require locally-tailored solutions that fit each specific context. For instance, for lions that reside alongside people in areas outside national parks, research has shown that it is absolutely vital to reduce the perceived costs of lions to local people, like livestock depredation, while increasing their benefits, such as income from photographic tourism or trophy hunting.

Tourists gather to spot lions on safari in the Maasai Mara park.
Wikimedia Commons/Bjørn Christian Tørrissen., CC BY-SA

For lions inside protected areas, some experts argue that we must fence lions in to stop them causing problems with people. However, this has earned criticism from others, who believe that fences incur significant ecological and economic costs by disrupting the migration of herbivores. The issue over “to fence or not to fence” has turned into a bit of cat fight and shows the political nuances and ecological complexities of conserving such a charismatic species.

In a bold attempt to reunite conservationists, Pride, the Lion Conservation Alliance, has brought together five lion NGOs to pool their efforts and share funding. It may come as no surprise that, like the species they’re fighting to conserve, they have realised the benefits of coming together and working as a team rather than competing.

A lion always pays his debts

Focusing on lion populations in Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia, their community conservation efforts empower locals to be stewards of wildlife. By turning lion poachers into guardians, their initiatives have reduced lion killing by up to 99% in some of the areas in which they work.

By building on the cultural significance of lion hunts, young warriors that would usually show their bravery by killing lions are now employed to track lions and monitor their activities. They also inform their community if lions are approaching so that farmers can guard their livestock.

While TV shows such as Dynasties are helping to raise the profile of this threatened carnivore, what the lion needs now more than anything is funding. Conserving lions is an expensive business: one recent paper showed that to effectively manage the protected areas where lions currently reside would require a whopping US$0.9 billion to US$2.1 billion in additional income per year – on top of the money that is already raised.

The areas where lions are known to have lived in the past (red) versus where they survive today (blue).
Wikimedia Commons/Tommyknocker.

Where this cash comes from remains a bit of a mystery. We have to go beyond financing conservation from the meagre income of photographic tourism in national parks. Solutions could involve more corporate partnerships and financially linking lion lovers in the West to Africans living with lions.

An idea from Sir David Attenborough himself argues that companies that use lions in their marketing should pay for lion conservation. What is abundantly clear is that if we want lions to have a future, we must start stumping up the cash for their conservation.

Many commentators have suggested BBC’s Dynasties takes on the gripping, conflict-ridden format of storytelling that Game of Thrones perfected. If this is the case, humans would surely play the vicious and selfish King Joffrey. It is us, after all, who terrorise lions the most. But it is us, too, who have the power to guarantee their survival.

Niki Rust, Postdoctoral Researcher, Newcastle University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

South Africa’s role in the trade in lion bones: a neglected story

Most lion bones in South Africa come from captive-bred lions.
Author supplied

Ross Harvey, South African Institute of International Affairs

Africa’s wild lion population is estimated to be between 20 000 and 30 000. Researchers have good reason to believe that the real number is closer to 20 000. This puts lions in the “vulnerable” category of threatened species.

The categorisation masks important realities. The only growing populations are those in fenced reserves with small wild managed populations. This is not only a species crisis. It’s also an ecological and economic crisis. Lions are apex predators, which means that entire food chains and ecological systems depend on healthy populations. Lions are also a significant tourism drawcard, and tourism is a significant employer.

South Africa, uniquely, also allows the breeding of lions in captivity, most of which have no conservation value. It has an estimated 7000 to 8000 lions in captivity across roughly 300 facilities. These lions are predominantly bred for canned hunting and the Asian predator bone market.

But, following a global campaign, the demand for canned hunting has plummeted in the last few years. Environmental lobby groups argue that lions are now increasingly being killed for the bone trade.

A report prepared by by EMS, an activist charity, and the lobby group Ban Animal Trading, shows that lion bones are sold on the black market as tiger bones. The bones are dropped into rice wine vats and sold as tiger bone wine which is promoted in Asian markets as a treatment for rheumatism and impotence. The bones are also used to produce tiger bone cakes, an exotic small bar of melted bones mixed with additives like turtle shell.

The report argues that most lion bones come from captive-bred lions in South Africa.

Captive breeding is perfectly legal, if distasteful. But there are limits on the trade of lion bones. In 2016 the 17th CITES Conference of the Parties decided that no bone exports should be allowed from wild lions. But the conference also agreed that South Africa should establish a quota for skeleton exports from captive-bred lions. Captive breeding only occurs at scale in South Africa, so no other country is permitted to export lion bones.

A year later the Department of Environmental Affairs set an annual lion skeleton export quota at 800. It raised this to 1500 in July 2018. It did so without public consultation or the support of research. Even an interim report prepared for the department by the South African National Biodiversity Institute did not specify grounds on which to establish, or expand, a quota.

On top of this, there’s poor regulation of lion breeding facilities. The department doesn’t have a working database so doesn’t know how many facilities there are, or what the total number of captive-bred predators is.

How it works

In my new report, I discuss how breeding facilities are linked to the trade in lion bones.

The facilities arrange hunts that cost in the region of $22 000 for a male and female combination. Wildlife researcher, Karl Amman, describes how trophy taxidermists then sell the lion skeletons (without the skull) on to buyers. These are usually in Asian countries. A skeleton can fetch $1500.

The importer then sells the bones on for between $700 and $800 per kg. A 100kg lion yields about 18kgs of bone, worth roughly $15 000 at this point in the supply chain. The bones are then imported into Vietnam, boiled down in large pots to yield 100g bars of cake which are sold for roughly $1000.

Conservationists are concerned that South Africa’s quota provides an incentive to breed lions not only for the bullet, but also for the bone trade.

The 2017 quota was fully subscribed within weeks while a newly released report prepared for CITES suggests that 3469 skeletons were exported that year, nearly double the allocated number.

This rise in the trade of lion bones shouldn’t come as a surprise. In 2016 the US banned the import of captive-origin lion trophies from South Africa. Breeding facilities began looking for alternative markets. Selling lion carcasses was an obvious option given that a lioness skeleton fetches roughly R30 000, and a male skeleton about R50 000, when sold to a trader.

The predator breeding industry in South Africa argues that captive lion populations serve as a buffer against wild lion poaching because it can satisfy the demand for bones.

But those who oppose the trade in lion bones cite evidence that suggests the opposite is true. If anything, the quota could fuel the demand for lion products and provide a laundering channel for illegally sourced wild lion parts. This may imperil already vulnerable wild lion populations elsewhere in Africa. It also makes law enforcement extremely challenging: officials cannot be expected to distinguish between legal and illegally sourced bone stock.

What is being done about it?

The public outcry over an apparently arbitrary quota has been notable. The backlash against canned hunting and the bone trade has been similarly vocal.

The arguments against the trade have been put on the table at a two-day colloquium in South Africa’s parliament. The question being asked is: does the captive lion breeding industry harm, or promote, South Africa’s conservation image?

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Ultimately, it is parliament’s job to hold the government to account. The colloquium may go some way towards doing so. It may even end the brutality of captive predator breeding.

Ross Harvey, Senior Researcher in Natural Resource Governance (Africa), South African Institute of International Affairs

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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