Over the next 25 years, our goal is to increase lion populations by 50% in all of the WCS sites where lions occur. Without urgent and concerted action lions will continue to decline and may in time disappear from Nigeria completely. Lions may also be killed for cultural reasons, including traditional use of lion parts for medicinal use in northern Nigeria. During aerial censuses of Yankari in 20 cattle were by far the most abundant species recorded although the situation has improved considerably since WCS signed a co-management agreement with Bauchi State Government in 2014. At the same time, human population growth and agricultural expansion is causing an unprecedented influx of nomadic livestock into protected areas as alternative grazing reserves disappear. With the loss of their natural prey lions have little option but to feed upon domestic livestock, the increase in human-lion conflict inevitably results in their direct persecution – typically by poisoning livestock carcasses. In Nigeria this precipitous decline is linked to severe depletion of their natural prey base due to hunting and habitat loss. ![]() This has led to some populations becoming small and isolated, especially in West Africa. This decline is due to increasing human populations, and the spread of subsistence and commercial-scale agriculture latterly, climate change is also playing a role, and corridors connecting populations are being lost due to the spread of development, agriculture, and of large infrastructure projects. It is estimated that fewer than 50 lions survive in Nigeria. Habitat loss has led to some populations becoming small and isolated, especially in West Africa. The main threats facing lions today are: habitat loss and degradation, reduction of wild prey and retaliatory and other illegal killing of lions. More than 90% of the lion’s original range has now been lost across Africa. Formerly widespread across northern Nigeria, today lions survive in only two sites in the country: Kainji Lake National Park and Yankari Game Reserve. Recent genetic studies have highlighted the difference between lions in West and Central Africa from those in southern and East Africa, suggesting that lions in West and Central Africa may merit distinct taxonomic status. Although lions are classified as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, lion populations in West Africa are particularly small and fragmented and have been recently classified as Critically Endangered. We envision the lion playing its full ecological role as a top predator across a significant part of its original range, and continuing to serve as an icon for Africa’s wild places. WCS’s long-term vision is for lions to be at carrying capacity in all of the sites where we are working to conserve them. As an apex predator, it is a keystone species ecologically, and its population status in an area is indicative of the health of the ecosystem as a whole. ![]() The lion Panthera leo is one of the world’s best known and most charismatic species.
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