Houston Zoo is taking a leadership role in global wildlife conservation.

Houston’s zoo is making a difference in global wildlife conservation.

While our city is wellknown for its role in the global energy market, Houston’s leadership in the arena of global wildlife conservation is not on most radar screens. It should be. Over the past decade, the Houston Zoo — which draws on this region for financial support — has assumed a leadership role in global wildlife conservation.

Through a deep and thoughtful partnership with Baylor College of Medicine, the zoo has saved elephants’ lives through the early detection of elephant herpes. Partnering with Gorilla Doctors, it provides care to gorillas in their native habitats. And on Wednesday, it launched its largest conservation project to date aimed at helping carnivores in the wild.

Conservationists around the world need to work together if carnivores, particularly lions, are to be saved. The zoo’s collaboration — known as PRIDE — models best practices by bringing together four projects spread across three countries in East Africa.

Lions are currently listed as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature; however, the decline in lion populations leads biologists to believe these cats are more rare. The total African lion population has been cut in half since the 1950s, with 20,000 to 25,000 lions remaining today.

On the same day in July that the Minnesota dentist and big-game hunter killed Cecil the lion on a hunting expedition, probably 100 lions were killed legally and illegally, according to Peter Riger, vice president of wildlife conservation for the Houston Zoo.

If the population drops much lower, it will no longer be genetically stable, Riger told the Houston Chronicle editorial board. The lions are dispersed throughout different parts of Africa with no access to each other. PRIDE operates in Mozambique, Kenya and Tanzania, which contain an estimated one-fourth to one-third of all the remaining lions in the world.

While the focus of PRIDE is animals, the native people need much support. Someone who is hungry is going to kill wildlife, and there is only so much triage that nonprofit groups can do. The ultimate goal of conservation groups is to reduce conflict between humans and wildlife.

To that end, PRIDE offers points to people who take photos of wildlife. The points are redeemable for cattle, goods and services. This innovative system gives people living in neighboring communities a reason to protect wildlife.

We probably can’t bring back the lesser or Attwater prairie chicken, the red wolf or the Houston toad that used to populate Houston — even though the zoo is trying. But Houstonians should roar their thanks to the Houston Zoo, for the key role it’s playing in global wildlife conservation.