Counting dwindling lions in Africa
LIONS are vulnerable to extinction across Africa, where their numbers have declined by about 36% in the last two decades.
Conservationists like Samantha Nicholson are working hard to prevent this from happening.
This week Nicholson graduated with a PHD from the University of Kwazulu-natal where her thesis focused on providing an up-to-date conservation assessment on the status of lions on the continent.
“I looked at the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) red list status, determining their risk to extinction, which we found to be vulnerable. We looked at the threats to the species across the entire African range, and then also the fragility of the sub-populations across Africa in terms of their vulnerability to extinction,” she said.
Nicholson said South Africa was one of the few countries in Africa where lion numbers were increasing, with between 2 500 and 3 500 lions living in wild environments. The count excluded captive lions.
“That’s in managed meta-population reserves – the smaller fenced reserves, the Kruger National Park and all our larger national parks, where lions can hunt freely and live naturally.
“Generally lion populations are increasing, although some populations are seeing an increase in poaching – whether this is being snared accidentally in snares laid for bushmeat, or whether they’ve been targeted for parts – that is definitely increasing in some areas of South Africa.”
Nicholson has loved wildlife from an early age, nurtured by her parents who took her to the Pilanesberg National Park every year from the time she was born and making zoology an obvious career choice. In 2002 her passion netted her a Mail and Guardian 200 Young South Africans’ award which recognised future leaders who have a positive effect on society.
“My day-to-day job is managing the IUCN Cat Specialist Group’s African lion database. I started at the Endangered Wildlife Trust in 2018 and my project basically consolidates lion population and distribution data from across their range.
“It was while working on this that I saw some of the data and information gaps that existed with regards to the species’ conservation. I decided to pursue a PHD to try to fill some of those gaps and provide a little more information about the continental status and overview of the species.”
Based on her research, one of the key recommendations was that there should be harmonised methodologies to survey lions.
“This ensures that the data we’re collecting around the numbers and distribution of the species across the continent is reliable and comparable across time. We also recommended further monitoring of the species to ensure an accurate and reliable picture is understood on what the species status is.”
One of her chapters also looked at targeted mitigation to address ecological and socio-political issues which contribute to the declining number of lions in Africa.
“That could be the levels of corruption in a country, for example, because countries that potentially have high levels of corruption might not have significant resources for conservation of species. One study looked at how those factors, when looked at together, can increase a species’ fragility.”
Nicholson plans to continue to work in carnivore conservation, with a focus on filling critical research gaps to contribute to their effective conservation.