- New video of a West African lioness and her three cubs is thrilling information for conservation because it sparks hope for the restoration of a inhabitants perilously near extinction in Senegal’s Niokolo-Koba Nationwide Park.
- The lioness within the video, named Florence or Flo by researchers, was the primary lion fitted with a monitoring collar in Senegal by Panthera and is taken into account NKNP’s matriarch. She had given start to 3 wholesome cubs whereas denning within the dense forest.
- West African lions are critically endangered, with solely 120 to 374 remaining within the wild. Florence is the mom of an estimated 9 cubs, together with the primary males in NKNP.
- Panthera and Senegal’s Division of Nationwide Parks have been monitoring the small West African lion inhabitants in Senegal since 2011, and after hiring anti-poaching brigades, the lion inhabitants has greater than doubled from 10-15 people to 30. Their objective is to achieve 100 lions by 2030.
New video of a West African lioness and her three cubs is thrilling information for the conservation group, sparking hope for the gradual restoration of a inhabitants perilously near extinction in Senegal’s Panth (NKNP).
The lioness featured within the clips is thought to researchers as Florence or “Flo.” She was the primary lion fitted with a monitoring collar in Senegal by Panthera, a world wild cat conservation group, and Senegal’s Division of Nationwide Parks (DPN). At round 10 years outdated, she’s thought of NKNP’s matriarch.
Scientists have been monitoring Flo for a number of years. So when her GPS collar stopped working, they had been involved she may need been killed by poachers or predators.
The group positioned digital camera traps close to Flo’s final recognized location in an try to find her. Pictures and movies from the cameras later revealed that not solely was Flo nonetheless alive, however that whereas denning within the dense forest, she had given start to 3 wholesome cubs.
Smaller in measurement and genetically distinct from different lions, West African lions are thought of critically endangered. Solely an estimated 120 to 374 West African lions stay within the wild. Florence is the mom of an estimated 9 cubs, together with the primary males in NKNP.
“When the historical past of Niokolo Koba’s restoration is written, this second will mark a turning level and Florence above all others will doubtless be acknowledged because the essential driver of West African lion restoration in considered one of this huge cat’s final strongholds,” Panthera regional director Philipp Henschel stated in a assertion.
Flo the West African lioness and her cubs in Niokolo-Koba Nationwide Park, Senegal. Footage courtesy of Panthera.
Together with Flo, scientists discovered one other lioness on their digital camera traps, a lone feminine rescued by the Panthera-DPN group in 2022. Thick porcupine quills had injured this lioness in her face, which had made it laborious for her to eat and will have ultimately killed her. The scientists and a vet anesthetized her and took out the quills, giving her one other likelihood at life.
West African lions have skilled extreme inhabitants declines because of unlawful looking of their prey, poaching for the unlawful wildlife commerce, direct killing resulting from livestock depredation, and habitat loss. Right now, lions are present in just one% of their authentic vary in West Africa. Their final stronghold, Niokolo-Koba, is a UNESCO World Heritage Website close to Senegal’s border intersection with Burkina Faso, Niger and Benin.
Panthera started monitoring the small West African lion inhabitants in Senegal in 2011. Because it employed extremely educated anti-poaching brigades, it has seen the lion inhabitants greater than double, from 10-15 people to 30.
“Poachers enter the park with firearms and bicycles to focus on wildlife for meat or physique components — and within the absence of a correctly funded ranger power, had been in a position to regularly whittle wildlife populations all the way down to a fraction of their former densities,” Peter Lindsey, director of the Lion Restoration Fund, wrote in a 2022 submit for Panthera.
Panthera and Senegal’s DPN say they’ve expanded counter-poaching operations up to now two years, focusing particularly on the southeastern portion of NKNP. Their hope is that the nationwide park’s lion inhabitants will attain 100 people by 2030, and will probably be sturdy sufficient to persist into the longer term.
Banner picture: West African lioness Florence with considered one of her cubs. Picture courtesy of Panthera.
Liz Kimbrough is a employees author for Mongabay. Discover her on Twitter @lizkimbrough
Final likelihood: Research highlights perilous state of ‘extinct within the wild’ species
Quotation:
Smith, D., Abeli, T., Bruns, E. B., Dalrymple, S. E., Foster, J., Gilbert, T. C., … Ewen, J. G. (2023). Extinct within the wild: The precarious state of Earth’s most threatened group of species. Science, 379(6634), eadd2889. doi:10.1126/science.add2889
FEEDBACK: Use this way to ship a message to the creator of this submit. If you wish to submit a public remark, you are able to do that on the backside of the web page.
