{"id":659,"date":"2015-04-22T11:54:19","date_gmt":"2015-04-22T10:54:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/barbarylion\/?p=659"},"modified":"2016-01-13T13:05:50","modified_gmt":"2016-01-13T13:05:50","slug":"room-to-move-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/barbarylion\/2015\/04\/22\/room-to-move-in\/","title":{"rendered":"Room to move in?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Picture a valley in North Africa, described by Yamaguchi &amp; Haddane (2002):<br \/>\n<b><span style=\"font-size: xx-small\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/forests\/forests-02-00777\/article_deploy\/html\/images\/forests-02-00777f3-1024.png\" alt=\"Forests 02 00777f3 1024\" width=\"220\" height=\"143\" \/>&#8220;&#8230;Between the Middle and High Atlas lies a rocky mountainous area where green oaks dominate the landscape&#8230;where the endangered Barbary leopard may still survive&#8230; Barbary macaques (<i>Macaca sylvanus<\/i>), Barbary sheep (<i>Ammotragus lervia<\/i>) and wild boars live there, and Cuvier&#8217;s gazelles (<i>Gazella cuvieri<\/i>) and Barbary red deer (<i>Cervus elaphus barbarus<\/i>) may also be reintroduced&#8230;lions may be released into a securely-fenced semi-natural enclosure&#8230;to live with minimum human intervention&#8230;, releasing them into an open area is out of question&#8230; &#8220;<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">In the North African biosphere, the prey biomass densities are much lower than in the savannahs of Sub-Saharan\u00a0 Africa or the dry forests of western India. The Moroccan Atlas is likely, on average, to be able to support probably less than four lions per 100km<span class=\"st\"><em><sup>2<\/sup><\/em><\/span>. In the Gir Forest in Gujarat, India, where domestic livestock as a supplementary prey base, the carrying capacity of lions is estimated\u00a0 at around 15 lions per 100 km<span class=\"st\"><em><sup>2<\/sup><\/em><\/span> (Banerjee et al., 2013).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Other comparisons with the higher energy, prey dense\u00a0 and open landscape of the Gujarat (where lions can leave the forest for surrounding human-dominated areas in times of food shortfalls) show how constrained the landscape in North Africa would be:<\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify\">\n<li>Gir Forest, Gujarat (1500 km<span class=\"st\"><em><sup>2<\/sup><\/em><\/span>) &#8211; 400 lions<\/li>\n<li>Kodinar coastal forest, Gujarat (60 km<span class=\"st\"><em><sup>2<\/sup><\/em><\/span>) 12+ lions<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Translocation of lions in India has been planned for some time. The planned release site in Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary (an area of 900 km<span class=\"st\"><em><sup>2<\/sup><\/em><\/span>) would involve reintroduction of only 5-8 animals intially (with plans to move 1-2 adult males every 5 years out of the sanctuary). So, even in a relatively large and currently established wildlife habitat with a reasonably dense prey base, only a very small number of lions would be released.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Additional complications of home range size and number of groups would be a major constraint for any lion reintroduction in North Africa. Would North African animals live in large prides as cmomonly encountered on the African savannah, in family groups, or would a single lioness holds resource territory while male coalitions attempt to maximize female groups within their range, as in India? (Black et al., 2013; Yadvendradev et al, 2009)?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Whilst having wild lions back in North Africa is a big dream for some, it has practical limitations. And then there are the significant needs of local people&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Reading:<\/p>\n<p>Banerjee K, Jhala YV, Chauhan KS, Dave CV (2013) Living with Lions: The Economics of Coexistence in the Gir Forests, India. PLoS ONE 8(1): e49457. <a href=\"10.1371\/journal.pone.0049457\">doi:10.1371\/journal.pone.0049457<\/a><\/p>\n<p>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. <a href=\"10.1371\/journal.pone.0060174\">doi:10.1371\/journal.pone.0060174<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Linares, J.C.,\u00a0 Ta\u00efqui, L. and\u00a0 Camarero, J.J. (2011) Increasing Drought Sensitivity and Decline of Atlas Cedar (<span class=\"html-italic\">Cedrus atlantica<\/span>) in the Moroccan Middle Atlas Forests <i>Forests<\/i>, <i>2<\/i>(3), 777-796; doi:<a href=\"http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.3390\/f2030777\" target=\"_blank\">10.3390\/f2030777<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Yamaguchi N, Haddane B. (2002) The North African Barbary lion and the Atlas Lion Project. <i>International Zoo News<\/i> 49 (321): 465-481.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"Author\"><span class=\"AuthorName\">Yadvendradev<\/span><\/span>, V.J. et al. (2009) Home range and habitat preference of female lions (Panthera leo persica) in Gir forests, India. <span class=\"ContextInformationJournalTitles\"><span class=\"JournalTitle\">Biodiversity and Conservation.<\/span><\/span>DOI: <a href=\"http:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s10531-009-9648-9\/fulltext.html\"><span class=\"ArticleDOI\">10.1007\/s10531-009-9648-9<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Picture a valley in North Africa, described by Yamaguchi &amp; Haddane (2002): &#8220;&#8230;Between the Middle and High Atlas lies a rocky mountainous area where green oaks dominate the landscape&#8230;where the endangered Barbary leopard may still survive&#8230; Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus), Barbary sheep (Ammotragus lervia) and wild boars live there, and Cuvier&#8217;s gazelles (Gazella cuvieri) and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2246,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17622,122193],"tags":[129150,5056,129158,129154],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/barbarylion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/barbarylion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/barbarylion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/barbarylion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2246"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/barbarylion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/barbarylion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":678,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/barbarylion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659\/revisions\/678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/barbarylion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/barbarylion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/barbarylion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}