Category Archives: History

The Northern Lions

The last micro populations of lions north of the Sahara held out in the North West of Africa (Algeria and Morocco) and in Iraq, Iran and India in the East. Of these, just 400 remain in the Gir Forest with a small number now appear to be established in the Kodinar Coastal strip in southern Gujarat, India.

The last record of lions in Iraq was possibly the two shot by a Turkish governor in 1914 near Mosul and later in 1918 in the lower Tigris . The last Iranian lions had largely dissappeared in the 1940s with sporadic sightings by railway engineers in the years during the second world war. A lion was also thought to have been seen near Quetta in Pakistan in 1935.

In 1963, the last pride of five Persian lions was hunted in the Dasht-i Arzhan districy of Fars Province in Iran. According to Guggisberg, national newspapers and media “celebrated” the killing of these lions with pictures and fanfare. The pride consisted of a female with four cubs in a cave, the male had been shot already. Just as in earlier accounts from Algeria in the 1880s, the female was shot on the spot, and the cubs were taken as trophies. No subsequent sightings have been reported from Iran, although an attempt was made to reintroduce lions into the region in the 1970s, but the animals dissappeared, presumably shot.

Reading:

Divyabhanusinh A. (2008) The Story of Asia’s Lions. The Marg Foundation.

Guggisberg C.A.W. (1963) Simba: the life of the lion. London: Bailey Bros. and Swinfen

Schnitzler, A.E. (2011) Past and Present Distribution of the North African-Asian lion subgroup: a review. mammal Review, 41, 3.

Lion food – try it Tunisian style

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Mosaic of lions eating wild boar, 2nd century AD, Museum of El-Jem, El-Jem Thydrus, Tunisia

This 2nd century Roman mosaic from Tunisia is a fine example of its genre and interesting for its depiction of lions, a not unfamiliar scene in artwork of the era.

The picture manages to look both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. Two lions devouring prey, yet it is two male lions. The prey is relatively large compared to the lions but it is only a pig. The scene is a dry and sparse climate and there are depictions of human presence a temple or palace perhaps… all somewhat fanciful, surely?

Wild boar (Sus scrofa) in India. Photo S Black

There are many pre-Roman artistic depictions of lions devouring prey in Mediterranean art (bulls, deer etc.). Perhaps fewer of lions eating wild boar. We do know that wild boar are the prey of lions in India today and boar would have been prey elsewhere in the former middle eastern range of the species. They would also have been a key prey for lions in North Africa as depicted in the mosaic. If lions were still present in the wilds of Algeria or Morocco today, then wild boar would probably be the best food source (other than domestic flocks).

We know that Barbary lions tended to operate in small family groups rather than the prides familiar in savannah landscapes, so it is interesting to see two males in this depiction – does this offer a clue to how Barbary lions behaved, perhaps?

In reality almost all lion depictions of the classical era show male lions and almost never lionesses, so little can be gained from this depiction. The Tunisian mosaic is most probably a purely artistic interpretation of events. It is satisifying, however, to see the lions depicted with a known wild prey species form the region. In classical European artwork lion prey is more often depicted as domestic cattle, donkeys, horses or wild deer. Interestingly 18th and 19th century art often depicts lions attacking horses and domestic camels.

Old-fashioned human-wildife conflict

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There are very few taxidermy specimens of Barbary Lions. Over the past 15 years my colleague, Dr Nobuyuki Yamaguchi has spent months attempting to locate these treasures, following the footsteps of Vratislav Mazak, the famous biologist who had previously tracked down many specimens in the 1960s. Sadly some of these items have gone missing over the past 40 years.

“The thief of Beja” by V. Simeonovski (click image to see full size version)

Only one specimen, in Leiden’s Naturalis Museum in the Netherlands, includes clear information on its provenance. Leading widlife artist Velizar Simeonovski has recreated the scene, showing the male lion being shot at close range (thumbnail link, right) by a local Tunisian defending his livestock. Velizar also offers an interesting commentary on the story.

Th male lion at Beja was shot in 1823, over a hundred years before the last lions dissappeared from the region. Whilst many of the subsequent encounters between people and lions in North Africa include livestock predation by lions it is also true that lions became more adept at withdrawing into remote areas away from human contact. In the 20th century only one third of the 30 encounters with lions resulted in the animal being shot and only two incidents involved livestock attacks.

Reading:

Black SA, Fellous A, Yamaguchi N, Roberts DL (2013) Examining the Extinction of the Barbary Lion and Its Implications for Felid Conservation. PLoS ONE 8(4): e60174. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0060174

Mazak V (1970) The Barbary lion, Panthera leoleo(Linnaeus, 1758);some systematic notes, and an interim list of the specimens preserved in European museums. Z Saugetierkd 35:34-45
https://archive.org/stream/zeitschriftfrsu351970deut#page/34/mode/1up

Simeonovski, V. (2014) “The thief of Beja” 13 February 1823, the vicinity of Beja , Tunisia. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10200278268637339&set=a.1930331635954.58603.1772149103&type=3&theater

Yamaguchi N, Haddane B. 2002. The North African Barbary lion and the Atlas Lion Project. International Zoo News 49 (321): 465-481.

Here, in times past, lions roamed…

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Lion country: Ain Talawan (Photo: N Yamaguchi)

This landscape is more reminiscent of Scotland than Africa, but is a valley in north-eastern Algeria. Accounts of lions in this region continued up to the early 20th century (Black et al 2013). One of the more memorable regular encounters by local people with lions used to occur in this region.

The stream above the valley runs near a track which was frequently used by local people taking goods to market.

However the stream, although fairly unassuming (see the photo below) was an importnat water point for lions. This meant that people regularly had to drive lions away from the area with sticks when travelling through the area. A colleague in Algeria has collected verbal accounts from an old man who used to travel this route in the 1920s.

An unassuming stream in hills above Ain Talawan. (Photo: N Yamaguchi)

The scene is reminiscent of the encounters in the Gir Forest in Gujarat, India which the local Maldhari people experience with the Asiatic lion (Panthera leo persica).

A Maldhari and his livestock in the Gir forest. He has a stick to steer his animals and to protect them and himself against lions.

Black SA, Fellous A, Yamaguchi N, Roberts DL (2013) Examining the Extinction of the Barbary Lion and Its Implications for Felid Conservation. PLoS ONE 8(4): e60174. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0060174

Moroccan Royal Lions http://faculty.qu.edu.qa/yamaguchi/Atlas%20lion.htm

Patterns of lion decline in North Africa

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Map of last sitings of barbary lions in 20th Century

The last pockets of habitat where lions were seen in the mid 20th century (1930s – 40s). Well-known populations in central Morocco (Ifrane) and western Algeria (Oran) had already disappeared.

Although there is no definitve survey data for barbary lion presence in North Africa, it is possible to use the information from reported sightings to map the final decline of the species. A quick summary is given in the figure opposite. The mid-grey expanse is the Maghreb ecosystem which was suitable habitat for lions stretching from south-west Morocco through to north-east Tunisia.

The lightest grey patches in central Morocco and north central Algeria indicate where lions had been present up to the 1920s. The darker grey regions indicate where the last micro-populations survived from the 1930s up to the early 1960s (at the latest). The important last populations may well have been completely isolated in North Setif, Biskra and Batna, the Saharan Atlas, southern Morocco on the Saharan fringe, and the southern High Atlas. It is possible that lions traversed the arid zones between the High Atlas, the Saharan fringe and the Saharan Atlas mountains, but the rest of the Algerian populations in the east were probably quite separate after the early 1900s.

When did the Barbary lion fall extinct in the wild?

The dates of final extinction of the Barbary Lion have been a favourite topics of speculation for many commentators big cat decline in recent decades. Typical dates encountered in books and on the web include

Giser 1875 young lion by tree and cenetery

An authentic sighting?

The Barbary lion was known to range Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. Any other populations in the Libyan desert and into Egypt were very sparse and probably disappeared in ancient times, probably before the rise of human civilisation in the region (Yamaguchi and Haddane, 2002). Although hundreds of lions were exported for the Roman Games and Berber tribes took cubs as gifts in the 1600s through to the 1800s, the major culls of the population occurred in the 1800s as part of a colonial pest control programme (particularly in Algeria). Later in the century encounters were generally made by hunters or farmers.

Typically, the story goes that the last lion was shot in Morocco in 1927 (or 1921), but this date is based on rather superficial knowledge of available accounts (someone said ‘the last lion was shot on that date’, so that must mean the last lion was shot on that date, and so on). Some accounts are based on a proposal (perhaps by a local personality) as an assertion of knowledge, rather than on a detailed cataloguing of specific sightings.

A dig into the literature reveals suggestion of later dates by well-established scholars including Cabrera (1932), Guggisberg (1963) Hemmer (1978) each of whom made well-researched projections on the dates for likely extinction of lions based on collations of accounts in previous decades. All three of these commentators suggest survival of lions in North Africa into the 1930s.

However any of ‘best judgement’ is inevitably compromised by (i) the ranging of populations across national boundaries, (ii) the remoteness of available habitat areas (and therefore likelihood that narrative accounts will be recorded for such localities), (iii) confounding factors such as reported sightings of domesticated animals or confusion with other wild species, and (iv) the reputability of the eyewitness account. Even a cursory glance at the two maps produced by Black et al (2013) illustrates that sightings of lions ‘shifted’ from the northern coastal regions (up to 1900) broadly southwards to the remote regions bounding the Sahara. Of course, this shift is a combination of removal of lions from Northern areas and (prior to 1900) a lack of visitors to the remoter southern fringes fo the Maghreb (due to war, lack of road access and relatively inhospitable terrain).

A number of researchers working in North Africa over the past 20 years, particularly Dr Amina Fellous, Dr Fabrice Cuzin and Prof Mohan Haddadou have encountered testimonies by local people during interviews which describe fairly recent encounters with lions in remote areas. Recent research using both the historical record and new interview evidence combined with probability modelling has identified that lions disappeared from Morocco and Algeria around the late 1950s /early 1960s. Over 50 years earlier the population had shrunk from its former range spanning both Tunisia and Algeria – and no lions have roamed in Tunisia since the 1890s.

Big shaggy beast & other myths

Contemporary descriptions of the fabled Barbary Lion tend to emphasise the size, hairiness and ferocity of the sub-species. It would seem that these views are a mix of ancient historical accounts (for example use of the lions in the Roman Coliseum Games), descriptions of the animals as ‘large maned’ and perhaps some exaggerated hunting records.

Scientific accounts give a more sober view. Both Guggisberg (1963) and Hemmer (1978) describe the animal as a medium sized lion. However it did perhaps have a thickset build, emphasised by a relatively short leg length and deep body when compared with lions on the African savannah. These features may have been an adaptation to a mountainous habitat, with a different mix of prey species and are reflected in some of the artistic images of the animal.

One of the most striking depictions is the Arab Courier taxidermy by Jules Verreaux, arguably the most spectacular (and at one time controversial) taxidermy ever created and which is now housed in the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburg. This diorama includes two mounted lions thought to be of North African origin (but not yet genetically tested), collected as wild shot individuals in the mid 1800s, certainly no later than its creation in 1867 for the Paris Exposition. Interestingly the attack on the camel is by a pair – male and female, suggesting, if collected together, they were both sexually mature adults (however dozens of barbary lions were shot by French colonial hunters in Algeria around this period, so we cannot be sure that they are a true pair).

The ferocity of the attack is evident in the diorama, but interestingly, both animals are of relatively modest size. The medium sized animals described by science, perhaps?

Further Reading:

Guggisberg C.A.W. (1963) Simba: the life of the lion. London: Bailey Bros. and Swinfen

Hemmer H. (1978) Grundlagen und derzeitiger Stand des Zuchtprogrammes zur Rückerhaltung des Berberlöwen (Panthera leo leo). In: Seifurt S, Müller P, editors. Congress Report, 1st International Symposium on the Management and Breeding of the Tiger, 11^th and 12^th October 1978 in Leipzig, Abb. 1. Zoological Garden. Leipzig: International Tiger Studbook. 65–72.

Yamaguchi N, Haddane B. (2002) The North African Barbary lion and the Atlas Lion Project. International Zoo News 49 (321): 465-481.

History of Moroccan Royal Lions

Lions in the Sultan’s palace at Fez circa 1920

The traditional royal collection of lions in Morocco is an important part of the Barbary lion story. The sultans of Morocco kept animals in palace gardens for centuries and lion cubs were offered by tribes from the Atlas mountains as tributes to the ruler. In the 1500s and 1600s prisoners were reputedly thrown in with the beasts; artwork produced at the time alludes to this practice. By the 1800s the collection had become more benign and the lions in the palace at Fez were eventually transferred to a purpose built Rabat Zoo in the late 1960s.

The label “Moroccan Royal Lion” was revived in the paper by Yamaguchi and Haddane (December, 2002) which revisited the history of the animals of the royal collection in Morocco and links to certain lions in zoos today.

The television series ‘Museum Secrets’ series included some background on the Barbary lion in an early episode on London’s Natural History Museum, the home of lion skulls discovered in the Tower of London in the 1930s. The following clip includes a short historical overview of the potential link between the Moroccan Royal lions found in zoos and the Barbary lion.

Museum Secrets Season 1 (Natural History Museum

The Mediterranean Maghreb

The Barbary lion lived in the Mediterranean Maghreb, the northern, mountainous area separated from the rest of Africa by the Sahara, with the Atlantic coastline to the West and the Mediterranean sea to the north. Historically the species was seen in the lowlands to the coast right up to the High Atlas (at 4000m). This varied ecosystem included snow in the winter months in the Atlas mountains, dry forests in the lower valleys and arid plains south of the Atlas edging the desert.

The following figure shows the distribution of lions as sighted between the years 1500 and 1900 (see Black et al 2013). Light green shading indicates Mediterranean scrubland ecosystems running from Morocco in the west along North Africa, north of the Atlas, Saharan Atlas and Tell Atlas mountain ranges into Tunisia. Few if any lions survived east of this region (in Libya) after 1700.

Earliest accounts in the western Maghreb from 16^th to the 18^th century are indicated as open circles, whilst documented sightings from 1800 to 1900 are indicated as black circular markers in the western Maghreb and as triangular markers for sightings in eastern Maghreb. Asterisks (*) denote locations of human population centers. Dashed lines indicate national boundaries.

Recent extinction of lions from North Africa

Popular consensus is that the last lions disappeared from Morocco nearly one hundred years ago, clinging on in the remote Atlas mountains up to the 1920s, but exterminated from the rest of North Africa much earlier and certainly by the 1890s. However recent research has challenged this view.

The established consensus was previously, based largely on the historical accounts of colonial travelers and European big game hunters. Although Ángel Cabrera (1932), Charles Guggisberg (1963) and Helmut Hemmer (1978) recognised the possibility of later survival in remote areas, Yamaguchi and Haddane (2002) were the first to identify reports of a specific sighting later than 1930. Separate to this, in Algeria, ongoing research over recent years has uncovered an extensive set of eyewitness accounts from local people. A deeper examination of historical and first hand oral reports by local people in Morocco and Algeria identified how micro populations of lions survived in remote regions across the North African Maghreb. The study (Black, Fellous, Yamaguchi and Roberts, 2013) uses recently gathered data on the last sightings of the Barbary lion in Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco makes for interesting reading:

See: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0060174

The research has prompted a number of interesting summaries for example John Platt’s blog article in Scientific American.