Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa Lions dissappearing?

Are the lions disappearing fast. Saw a commercial wanting to give to some organization to protect the lion and leopard. The lion, according to the commercial, is down 90% from when they didn't say. The leopard is also in decline.

Now I don't believe all of it, but thought I would check with those who know.

Thanks.

My understanding (i had just been talking to a friend from south africa and another from zimbabwe about just this subject) is there are estimated to be about 50 000 african lions left in the wild, and that numbers were probably only about 4 to 5 times higher a century or two ago. So to the best of my knowledge they aren't acutely threatened. I don't know about leopards, but my south african friend owned a large farm and said he saw leopards regularly early in the morning. The asiatic lion, of the western indian deserts is down to 300 to 400, and is clearly on the brink.

It would be interesting to know who did the research and what the actual figures are. It cannot come from our completely incompetent F&W people because they cannot do research at all anymore. The competent scientists have long left the government service and the current ones are more interested in playing politics than working.

Captive bred lions have boosted the populations a lot but they cannot count as being part of the wild population. There are a number of wild lions on private land in South Africa but the most are in national parks. Couple months ago I hunted in Zimbabwe and got a pride of lion (5 females 1 male) on trail cam and another single male on another bait. In another area during the same time we came across lion tracks more frequently than leopard tracks.

With regards to leopards it is very difficult to research them because of their nocturnal secretive lifestyle. They are adaptable and do urbanize without difficulty. About 10 years ago a leopard was run over on the interstate right here in Pretoria. Only 150 leopard tags are issued nation wide by CITES per year and roughly 60% of those tags are filled. An unsuccessful hunt cannot have the tag carried over to another time span, so when the hunt ends is when it ends. Scientific data is hard to come by because biologists research subjects that they get funding for.

By the looks of it it seems that lion and leopard numbers are bounding back but I do not have scientific proof of it, neither am I aware of such data being available.

Hope this helps somewhat.

Pieter

Its like the Tiger, all my life and I am 57 years old just about, I have heard that the Tiger was in trouble give us money to Save the Tiger, well the Tiger is still in trouble, where did the money go? My guess this group like the Save the Tiger group are nothing more than money making proposition for the people running these groups. Sure those populations would be down,since game populations in the places where lion and leopard live are down. And of course the habitat is not what it was 100 years ago either. Its to easy to start a group all you need is a phone number and a fax machine.

Feline aids, indiscriminate poaching by cattle owning tribes and destruction of habitat have greatly reduced lion populations. The estimate above of around 50K is correct. The ONLY thing saving the lion is it's incredible value (currently around 80-100k for a lion hunt). Leopards on the other hand are ubiquitous throughout all of Africa with population estimates around two million.

After I left Matetsi, Zimbabwe earlier this year, there was one less male lion....

Good for you! pictures???

it is happening in Detroit too!

I don't know about these organizations but the lions in fact are disappearing. There are many places where there were lions in living memory but now they're gone. Like grizzlies, they can't live where there are a lot of humans. The humans won't tolerate it.

Three years ago hunted in the Binga district of Zim. Just a few years ago there had been lions. My PH said he had not seen a track for two years. Many natives had moved in and, with their goats, were destroying all vegetation. We confiscated 35 wire snares that we found and barely saw an antelope. Yet, elephant and buffalo were reasonably common and I took one of each.

This year I hunted in Dande North. No people there but lots of lion and of course tsetse flies. The only places lions still live is where there are tsetse because domestic animals cannot survive very long. So the natives live elsewhere.

I wanted to get a lion while it is still legal, and I did. I remember about 1970 when you could still book a tiger hunt in India. No more.

There are 1 billion people in sub-Saharan Africa right now. By 2100 there will be 3.6 billion, it is estimated. I do not think the lion will survive. But who knows? Read Boddington's first book about African hunting rifles. He said that elephant hunting will be no more and everyone will hunt hippos as a substitute (a danged poor substitute if you ask me). But the elephant situation has turned around.

Originally Posted by dhg

The asiatic lion, of the western indian deserts is down to 300 to 400, and is clearly on the brink.

The Asiatic Lion in India is making a comeback. From a low of about 150 about 50 years back they now number 450 approximately. This is still a low number compared to say 400 years ago but they have outgrown their habitat and need to be introduced in other areas where they were previously extant.

Tuberculosis is also a problem. Lions contract it from eating buffalo who have the disease.