Tag Archives: Moroccan Royal lions

Barbary lion breeding shows improvements

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A recent paper on improving conservation decision making (Black, 2015) includes some of the data used in developing the Moroccan Royal Lion studbook (Black, Yamaguchi, Harland and Groombridge, 2010) as previously gathered by the author with Dr Nobuyuki Yamaguchi (University of Qatar) and Adrian Harland (Aspinall – Port Lympne Wild Animal Park).

Data on productivity (in this case, the number of cubs born) shows that since the initiative to revisit and re-catalogue the lions known to be direct descendents of the King of Morocco’s collection there has been a marked increase in the production of new cubs. The great news is that these are also form well-matched pairs with no further in-breeding.

However the analysis also shows that a greater level of breeding is still needed to bring the  natural regeneration of the population under control. Currently there are practical restrictions to achieving this since clearly there are limits to the capacity that zoos have for increasing lion group sizes and for controlling breeding behaviour.

Further Reading:

Black S.A. (2015) System behaviour charts inform an understanding of biodiversity recovery. International Journal of Ecology http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/787925

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.

Moroccan Royal Lions: “Who’s Who”

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Family tree lions symbolsBy the end of the 1990s efforts by several zoos to engage in a pan-European breeding programme for lions derived from the King of Morocco’s collection was beginning to fade. Only Port Lympne continued with an active breeding group, and a male from Rabat zoo (number 241 on the diagram opposite) was brought in to reinvigorate a pride which was developed from animals imported from Washington zoo in the 1980s. Up until that point they had reached a point of inbreeding within a family group.

Research led by Black and Yamaguchi identified all the remaining animals of known
Moroccan heritage in zoos worldwide. Aside from the animals in Rabat Zoo (Morocco), all the other descendents were is zoos in Europe, plus two animals in Israel. However there had been no transfers since the early 2000s and those which had occurred had not given rise to new cubs.

The family tree derived from this work allowed potentially suitable (unrelated) pairs to be identified and for breeding transfers to be arranged by interested zoos. This has enabled reinvigoration of the zoo stock.

PL-3 Suliman

In the early 200os nearly a quarter of Moroccan Royal lions in European zoos were related to Suliman, the male at Port Lympne (photo: N. Yamaguchi).

Further Reading:

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.

 

 

 

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