Sunday 10 March 2013

Half of Africa's Lions May Go Extinct in 40 Years


By Tia Ghose, LiveScience Staff Writer | LiveScience.com – 43 mins ago

Nearly half of all of Africa's lion populations could face extinction in the next 40 years if conservation measures aren't changed, according to a new study.

The study, published today (March 6) in the journal Ecology Letters, found that lion populations that were fenced into conservation areas rebounded in recent years, whereas lions in open preserves were challenged by prey loss and predation by human neighbors.

"Lions in fenced reserves tend to do much better, they're achieving much better populations," said Luke Hunter, a conservation biologist with Panthera, an organization that works to protectendangered big cats. "It's also cheaper to achieve those outcomes."

Big cats
Lion populations have been shrinking across Africa as they rub up against growing human populations. Herding cultures, such as the Maasai or the Zulu, may convert wild habitat to grazing land, thereby reducing the population of natural prey for the majestic cats. So instead of going after a zebra, lions will hunt people's livestock (and occasionally kill people).

"More and more people live in fairly rural areas where there is wildlife, but those people rely on livestock, so they're really coming into conflict often with lions," Hunter told LiveScience. "They just see them as a really dangerous enemy." 

To understand what strategies might best protect lions, Hunter and a few dozen colleagues analyzed lion population data from 42 sites across Africa. Some parks reported 46 years of data, whereas others had only three years of data.

They then compared the population trajectories with fencing, the money allocated to conservationand nearby human population density.



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