Barbary lions: an opportunity for significant zoo-based conservation

The barbary lion is extinct in the wild, most probably since the early 1960s.

Up until that fairly recent time the Sultans of Morocco, followed by the Kings of Morocco after constitutional changes in the 1950s, kept lions in private menageries. These animals had been bred from cubs which were presented as tributes by Berber Tribes of the Atlas Mountains.

In the late 1960s the remaining lions were still in the King of Morocco’s lion garden at the palace of Fez, then later Rabat. After an outbreak of respiratrory disease in the collection in the late 1960s, the lions were then moved to a new purpose built zoo in Rabat in 1973 (Yamaguchi and Haddane, 2002).

The importance of this is that since that first transfer of animals, it has been possible to trace all lions of pure ancestry alive today back to their ancestors – these animals originally in the Moroocan Royal palace collection. This means that zoos holding these descendents have a unique opportunity to keep the bloodline pure, and alive. Efforts by a number of zoos in recent years (Port Lympne, Olomouc, Belfast, Hannover, Madrid) to make breeding transfers and to increase the number of cubs has enabled the population to recover. As recently as 2008 it looked like breeding of these animals was likely to cease and at least one unique bloodline from the original 27 animals moved from the Royal Palace to Rabat zoo was lost at this time when an old non-breeding female in Germany died.

A rejuvinated zoo population with active, well managed transfers of animals between collectiosn will geive enough time for deeper scinetific and genetic analysis to determine the uniqueness and deeper ancestry of these Moroccan animals and their significance to lion conservation.

Black S, Yamaguchi N, Harland A, Groombridge J (2010). Maintaining the genetic health of putative Barbary lions in captivity: an analysis of Moroccan Royal Lions. Eur J Wildl Res 56: 21–31. doi: 10.1007/s10344-009-0280-5

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

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8109000/8109945.stm

Large carnivores of North Africa

Only the leopard still survives in North Africa, although its presence has been very rarely encountered since the 1990s

Perhaps just a few hundred years ago (and even as late as the 1860s by some reports) North Africa was still home to three large predators, the Barbary lion, the Barbary leopard and the Atlas bear.

The Maghreb of North Africa (i.e. the area north of the Sahara, up to the Mediterranean coastline westwards from Libya, through Tunisia, Algeria along to the Atlantic coastline of Morocco) boasts a diverse range of species packed into ecosystems ranging from Mediterranean coastal scrub, juniper steppe, oak and cedar forest, conifer forest. In addition there are high altitude montane landscapes, semi-arid regions and desert. The major carnivores of the Maghreb preyed on a variety of species including the wild boar, barbary sheep, red deer, gazelles, addax, scimitar horned oryx, bubal hartebeest, domestic livestock (goats, sheep, cows, horses and camels) as well as smaller animals from barbary apes, to rodents, reptiles, birds and insects. The closest comparison to the historic landscape would perhaps be present day western India and (perhaps) Pakistan, still home leopard, bear and lion.

The most significant change which has impacted upon the decline of large carnivores is the transformation of the Maghreb landscape in recent decades through land use change, desertification and increased human habitation. Many of the wild prey species were hunted out during the 19th century; only wild boar remain in any significant numbers. although other ungulates still persist. By the early 20th century it appears that remaining Barbary lions became more reliant on hunting livestock, so more persecution from humans followed until its eventual, final extirpation.

Reading:

Naquash, T. (2014) Asiatic lion spotted inAJK national park, Dawn News, 5 February. http://www.dawn.com/news/1085010

Hamdinea, Watik; Thévenotb, Michel; Michaux, Jacques (1998). “Histoire récente de l’ours brun au Maghreb“. Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Sciences 321 (7): 565–570. doi:10.1016/S0764-4469(98)80458-7

Nawaz, M.A. (2007) Status of the Brown Bear in Pakistan. Ursus 18(1): 89-100

Slimani, H. and Aidoud, A. (2002) Desertification in the Maghreb: A Case Study of an Algerian High-Plain Steppe. in Environmental Challenges in the Mediterranean 2000–2050. Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Environmental Challenges in the Mediterranean 2000–2050 Madrid, Spain 2–5 October. pp 93-108 DOI: 10.1007/978-94-007-0973-7_6.

West African lion decline mirrors the loss of the Barbary lion

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The last lions in North Africa ended up in isolated micro populations in Morocco and Algeria (Black et al 2013). Some of these tiny groups quite likely survived for a decade or more in southern Morocco (certainly from the mid 1930s onwards) and North Eastern Algeria (from the 1940s onwards).

Today the picture in West Africa is startlingly similar. In a recent survey, of 21 sites previously considered as known habitat for lions, only four sites still had confirmed presence of lions (indicated in dark orange in the map above).

Our research into North African populations suggests that these tiny groups may survive another few years, maybe a decade, perhaps unnoticed even by local people, but will then rapidly decline into oblivion. The sites shown yellow are likely to have micro-populations of lions exisitng at this point already.

Unlike wildife experts at the time of the Barbary lion’s final demise, we are now much better informed about what this decline would mean and can make choices about how to prevent it.

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

Bauer, H. & Nowell, K. (2004) Endangered Classification for West African lions. Cat News, 41, 35-36. http://www.catsg.org/catsgportal/red-list/03_cats-and-red-list/classification-of-west-african-lions.pdf

The Geography of the Atlas Mountains

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Lions inhabited north Africa from the Mediterranean coasts of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia up to the mountain slopes of the Atlas ranges which fringe the northern of the Saharah. The shaded areas of the map (right) show the most suitable habitats across the region. Lions observed traversing semi-arid areas kept close to water points.

The High Atlas range runs west-east from Morocco’s atlantic coast (north of Agadir) into the Morocco/Agleria Border. Lions could be tracked in the snow of the High Atlas mountains.

The Middle Atlas in Morocco (around cities such as Fez) run northeastwards towards the coast. Sightings were common in the forests of these regions. North of the middel Atlas are the coastal Rif mountains which spread up towards Tanger (Tangiers) overlooking the Mediterranean towards Gibraltar and Spain (the Rif are geologically similar to Spain’s Sierra Nevada, rather than being part of the Atlas chain).

The Anti Atlas in Morocco run from the Saharah in the south up towards Agadir and the High Atlas range.Lions were not commonly seen in this region, although several later sightings in the 1930s suggest small populations had been marginalised to these remote semi-arid areas.

Photo: N. Yamaguchi

The Tell Atlas run for 1500km from Morocco’s Middle Atlas along a line west-east, passing south of the Algerian cities of Oran and Algiers, parallel to the Mediterranean Coast. Further shouth, the Saharan Atlas are the boundary of the Sahara itself (shown by the areas around Ain Sefra and Djebel Amour in the map).

The Aures mountains are the easternmost part of the Atlas range, crossing the northern Algeria-Tunisia border. The western Aures intersect the Saharan and Tell Atlas at the Belezma range (which hold important cedar forests). The forested mountain areas around Setif (see photograph, left) contrast strongly with the drier regions south towards the oases such as Biskra.

Wolf and bear movements and behaviour offer clues to challenges of future carnivore conservation

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If you reintroduce a large carnivore into a location adjacent to human population centres then human-wildlife conflict is likely. It also raises some important questison – what is ‘adjacent’ and what is ‘human wildlife conflict’.

The first bear to appear in Germany in over 170 years (a migrant who had left Italy, crossed Austria into Bavaria, was deemed to be behaving in a threatening manner by (purportedly) raiding bee-hives, killing 30 sheep, devouring pet rabbits and a guinea pig and raiding wastebins, as well as ‘rearing on his hind legs’ when approached too closely by some over-curious hikers. The latter incident doomed him to the decision by local authorities that he should be shot by a hunter – his body is now displayed as a taxidermy in a Munch museum.

Only this year a female bear with cubs was disturbed by a local cable-car worker as he searched for mushrooms and unsuprisingly she attacked him although left him with injuries without appearing to attempt to kill him. The outcome was an attempt by the authorities to capture her and remove her from the area (where she had been living peacefully in the wild for 13 years). The animal died during the capture.

A wolf’s Journey: In zig-zagging his way from Slovenia to Italy, Slavc is estimated to have travelled some 2000 km. Photograph: Hubert Potočnik, University of Ljubljana

Experiences with reintroduced wolves has highlighted how far-ranging these animals become. Dispersion from release sites over thousands of kilometers is now being observed, although in these cases without apparent conflict issues despite proxmity to human habitation and infrastructure. Even the Netherlands hosted its first wolf in 150 years during 2013, just 30 miles from the densley populated North East coast, sparking alarmist headlines (although the animal that was found, was dead by a roadside).

So, proximity to humans becomes inevitable. Natural behaviour (investigating bee-hives, attacking vulnerable livestock, defending cubs or warding off potential threats) becomes unacceptable aggression. What are the acceptable limits? What does this mean for lions?

Reading:

BBC (2008) Notorious bear ends up in museum. BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7314724.stm

Daily Mail (2013) The wolf’s at the door: first killer beast turns up in Holland for 150 years http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2361758/The-wolfs-door-Killer-beasts-roaming-Western-Europe-time-100-years.html

Davies E. (2014) Wild Bear Danzia dies after attempt to capture her faisl in Italy. The Guardian World News http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/11/daniza-wild-bear-dies-attempt-capture-italy

Nicholls, H. (2014) Incredible journey: one wolf’s migration across Europe. The Guardian Science http://www.theguardian.com/science/animal-magic/2014/aug/08/slavc-wolf-migration-europe?CMP=twt_gu

Whitlock, C. (2006) Feb up Germany kills its only wild bear. Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/26/AR2006062600130.html

The realities of life with large carnivores

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For those of us with little experience of living alongside wild populations of large carnivrores it can be tempting to assume that such beasts would keep well clear of human habitation for fear of reprisal.

However animals are not programmed to recognise boundaries between the ‘wild’ and human populated parts of the landscape; there may be no reason to recognise an agricultural area or a road as a ‘no go’ as opposed to forest, scrub or other more suitable habitat. Additionally many of the large carnivores have extensive home ranges or are habituated to wander or migrate, wolves being a well documented example.

The other side of things is equally true; in many environemtns humans expect free access and the opportunities to exploit resources, whether on a personal, family, social or industrial level.

The image below highlights the potential dangers of this mutually exclusive, but spatially overlapping expectation. In the Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve there are still a few villages, so people’s day to day lives can unexpectedly cross the lives of tigers. A bad outcome for either species following any interaction is unlikely to be a good outcome for conservation.

A tiger walks on the main road in Mohurli Range in the Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR) completely oblivious to the humans and vice versa!

Reading:

Conservation India (2011) Tiger Road, Tadoba. http://www.conservationindia.org/gallery/tiger-road-tadoba

Fabbri, E., C. Miquel, V. Lucchini, A. Santini, R. Caniglia et al., (2007). From the Apennines to the Alps: colonization genetics of the naturally expanding Italian wolf (Canis lupus) population. Mol. Ecol. 16 1661–1671.

Spot the ‘wannabees’: are they Barbaries?

There are plenty of animals in zoos and private collections which the proprietors claim to be ‘barbary lions’. In the early 1970s during work at Rabat Zoo, Leyhausen and Hemmer set out a list of characteristics to sift out animals with possibly Barbary lion ancestry using the following criteria:

A captive male Indian lion (P.l. persica) grows a luxuriant dark mane in Berlin zoo (top), whilst his wild counterpart has a much more modest offer (photos N Yamaguchi)

1. longer, shaggy fur
2. huge mane (head to belly)
3. mane darker to the rear
4. a greyish colour to coat
6. well-developed tail tuft
5. long hair (♀ & juvenile ♂)
(neck/throat/front legs/belly)
7. high crown (so a straight line from nose to top of head)
8. rounded cheek and narrow muzzle
9. concave profile to front of skull
10.prominent anterior edge of the pelvis
11. pale yolk yellow iris (not dark yellow or olive)
12. narrow post-orbital constriction of skull

Many observers distill this list down to the first three items – the shaggy fur, mane size and mane colour.

Unfortunately these three characteristics are affected by climatic considerations. If you put a lion in a colder climate it grows a shaggier mane. This means that shaggy lions in zoos in Europe and North America are no more likely to be of Barbary ancestory than anywhere else.

A view through time: the Atlas mountain landscape

The evocative image by french watercolour artist Georges Frederic Rotig (1925) captures a pair of lions overlooking a small herd of prey, possibly barbary sheep, in a mountainous valley. Below is a blending of Rotig’s image with a view across a valley in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. It is interesting that this depiction of the lions the somewhat modest mane in the male . It is also notable that there is just a pair of animals in the hunt, reflecting stories of sightings of lions in North Africa in the late 1800s and early 1900s involving small groups of animals rather than the prides familiar in sub-Saharan Africa.

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.

Rapid decline of North African lion populations from 1500AD

Here is a quick snapshot of historical sightings of lions in North Africa, as documented since the 1500s. This figure shows the shrinking presence of the species shown as dots and triangles across the Maghreb (shaded region in the maps below). By the 1900s the population was effectiely split into a western (Morocc0) and eastern (north east Algeria) sub-populations (Black et al 2013).

At best, the only lions left are the residents in Rabat Zoo, derived from the King of Morocco’s private collection.

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