Jason's Blog: 2011

Fast Facts

Height: 4 feet (1.2m) (males).
Length: 5-8 feet (1.5-2.4m) (males).
Weight 330-500 lbs (150-227 kg) (males).
In general, female lions are smaller than males.
Lifespan: 10-14 years.
Top speed: 50 mph (81 km/hr), for short distances

Diet

Lions consume a wide variety of prey, from wildebeest, impala, zebra, giraffe, buffalo and wild hogs to sometimes rhinos and hippos. They will also feed on smaller animals such as hares, birds and reptiles. Lions are also known to attack elephants when food is scarce.

Population

The lion population in Africa has been reduced by half since the early 1950s. Today, fewer than 21,000 remain in all of Africa.

Range

Though lions used to live in most parts of Africa, they are now found only in the south Sahara desert and in parts of southern and eastern Africa. Historically, in addition to Africa, lions were found from Greece through the Middle East to northern India.

Behaviour

Did You Know?

Both male and female lions roar, and that roar can be heard over five miles away!

The only social member of the cat family, lions live in large groups called "prides," consisting of about 15 lions. Related females and their young make up the majority of the pride. A single male, or sometimes a small group of 2-3 males, will join a pride for an indefinite period, usually about 3 years or until another group of males takes over.

Lions within a pride are often affectionate and, when resting, seem to enjoy good fellowship with lots of touching, head rubbing, licking and purring. The males are territorial, and will roar and use scent markings to establish their domains.

Females do almost all of the hunting. They are mainly nocturnal and work in teams to stalk and ambush prey. Lions inhabit grassy plains, savannahs, open woodlands and scrub country. These landscapes allow the hunters to creep stealthily through vegetation and leap upon their unsuspecting prey.

Reproduction
Mating Season: Throughout the year.
Gestation: Around 110 days.
Litter size: 3-4 cubs.
Young cubs are vulnerable to predation by hyenas, leopards and black-backed jackals. The cubs begin hunting at 11 months but remain with their mother for at least two years.

Climate Change and Other Threats

Did You Know?

Lions are the second largest living feline species, second only to the tiger.

Lions are facing an indirect threat from climate change called co-infection. Lions periodically face outbreaks of the disease distemper, and usually weather them with little mortality. However, distemper outbreaks in 1994 and 2001 caused massive die-offs. Researchers found that the key environmental factor in the 1994 and 2001 epidemics was the occurrence of a severe drought.

One result of this drought was that both the lions’ prey, weakened with malnutrition, became heavily infested with ticks, which in turn infested the lions as they fed. The ticks, it turned out, carried a blood parasite that rendered the less able to cope with canine distemper virus, and the combination of the two diseases killed many more lions than either disease commonly would acting on its own. Droughts such as the ones that led to deadly co-infection in lions are predicted to become more commonplace as the climate warms.

Lions are also facing many human threats such as population growth and agricultural expansion resulting in loss of natural habitat, as well as hunting, poisoning and poaching by livestock ranchers.

Reasons for Hope

Defenders at Work

Defenders of Wildlife are working to pass legislation that would help conserve 15 species of great cats and rare canines that exist outside the U.S. In April 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives approved the Great Cats and Rare Canids Act (HR 411) aimed at conserving 15 of the world’s rarest wild cats and canids, including lions. The bill now needs approval by the Senate before being made law.

The steepest challenge that lions currently face is that farmer and ranchers have no economic reason for not poisoning or killing them. Conservation groups are working to develop strategies such as lion proof bomas, which are natural thorny enclosures where ranchers keep their livestock at night, and prevent livestock deaths, reducing or eliminating the need to kill lions because of livestock depredation.

Lions are also becoming more economically viable as a tourist attraction, bringing in revenue to these countries. Conservation groups are using the rising tourism to see if they are able to allocate ranchers a percentage of this tourist money as an incentive to let lions continue to roam and flourish once again.

video