Most lions now live in eastern and southern Africa, and their numbers there are rapidly decreasing, with an estimated 30–50 percent decline over the last two decades.
Currently, estimates of the African lion population range between 16,500 and 47,000 living in the wild in 2002–2004, down from early 1990s estimates that ranged as high as 100,000 and perhaps 400,000 in 1950.
The cause of the decline is not well-understood, and may not be reversible.
Currently, habitat loss and conflicts with humans are considered the most significant threats to the species.
The remaining populations are often geographically isolated from each other, which can lead to inbreeding, and consequently, a lack of genetic diversity.
Therefore the lion is considered a vulnerable species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, while the Asiatic subspecies is critically endangered.
The lion population in the region of West Africa is isolated from lion populations of Central Africa, with little or no exchange of breeding individuals.
The number of mature individuals in West Africa is estimated by two separate recent surveys at 850–1,160 (2002/2004).
There is disagreement over the size of the largest individual population in West Africa: the estimates range from 100 to 400 lions in Burkina Faso's Arly-Singou ecosystem.
Conservation of both African and Asian lions has required the setup and maintenance of national parks and game reserves; among the best known are Etosha National Park in Namibia, Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, and Kruger National Park in eastern South Africa.
Outside these areas, the issues arising from lions' interaction with livestock and people usually results in the elimination of the former.
In India, the last refuge of the Asiatic lion is the 1,412 km² (558 square miles) Gir Forest National Park in western India which had about 359 lions (as of April 2006).
As in Africa, numerous human habitations are close by with the resultant problems between lions, livestock, locals and wildlife officials.
The Asiatic Lion Reintroduction Project plans to establish a second independent population of Asiatic Lions at the Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.
It is important to start a second population to serve as a gene pool for the last surviving Asiatic lions and to help develop and maintain genetic diversity enabling the species to survive.
The former popularity of the Barbary lion as a zoo animal has meant that scattered lions in captivity are likely to be descended from Barbary Lion stock.
This includes twelve lions at Port Lympne Wild Animal Park in Kent, England that are descended from animals owned by the King of Morocco.
Another eleven animals believed to be Barbary lions were found in Addis Ababa zoo, descendants of animals owned by Emperor Haile Selassie.
WildLink International, in collaboration with Oxford University, launched their ambitious International Barbary Lion Project with the aim of identifying and breeding Barbary lions in captivity for eventual reintroduction into a national park in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco.
Following the discovery of the decline of lion population in Africa, several coordinated efforts involving lion conservation have been organised in an attempt to stem this decline.
Lions are one species included in the Species Survival Plan, a coordinated attempt by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums to increase its chances of survival.
The plan was originally started in 1982 for the Asiatic lion, but was suspended when it was found that most Asiatic lions in North American zoos were not genetically pure, having been hybridized with African lions.
The African lion plan started in 1993, focusing especially on the South African subspecies, although there are difficulties in assessing the genetic diversity of captive lions, since most individuals are of unknown origin, making maintenance of genetic diversity a problem.
Man-eaters
While lions do not usually hunt people, some (usually males) seem to seek out human prey; well-publicized cases include the Tsavo maneaters, where 28 railway workers building the Kenya-Uganda Railway were taken by lions over nine months during the construction of a bridge over the Tsavo River in Kenya in 1898, and the 1991 Mfuwe man-eater, which killed six people in the Laungwa River Valley in Zambia.
In both, the hunters who killed the lions wrote books detailing the animals' predatory behavior.
The Mfuwe and Tsavo incidents bear similarities: the lions in both incidents were larger than normal, lacked manes, and seemed to suffer from tooth decay.
The infirmity theory, including tooth decay, is not favored by all researchers.
An analysis of teeth and jaws of man-eating lions in museum collections suggests that, while tooth decay may explain some incidents, prey depletion in human-dominated areas is a more likely cause of lion predation on humans.
In their analysis of Tsavo and man-eating generally, Kerbis Peterhans and Gnoske acknowledge that sick or injured animals may be more prone to man-eating, but that the behavior is "not unusual, nor necessarily 'aberrant'"
where the opportunity exists; if inducements such as access to livestock or human corpses are present, lions will regularly prey upon human beings.
The authors note that the relationship is well-attested amongst other pantherines and primates in the paleontological record.
The lion's proclivity for man-eating has been systematically examined.
American and Tanzanian scientists report that man-eating behavior in rural areas of Tanzania increased greatly from 1990 to 2005.
At least 563 villagers were attacked and many eaten over this period—a number far exceeding the more famed "Tsavo"
incidents of a century earlier.
The incidents occurred near Selous National Park in Rufiji District and in Lindi Province near the Mozambican border.
While the expansion of villagers into bush country is one concern, the authors argue that conservation policy must mitigate the danger because, in this case, conservation contributes directly to human deaths.
Cases in Lindi have been documented where lions seize humans from the center of substantial villages.
Author Robert R.
Frump wrote in The Man-eaters of Eden that Mozambican refugees regularly crossing Kruger National Park at night in South Africa are attacked and eaten by the lions; park officials have conceded that man-eating is a problem there.
Frump believes thousands may have been killed in the decades after apartheid sealed the park and forced the refugees to cross the park at night.
For nearly a century before the border was sealed, Mozambicans had regularly walked across the park in daytime with little harm.
Packer estimates more than 200 Tanzanians are killed each year by lions, crocodiles, elephants, hippos, and snakes, and that the numbers could be double that amount, with lions thought to kill at least 70 of those.
Packer and Ikanda are among the few conservationists who believe western conservation efforts must take account of these matters not just because of ethical concerns about human life, but also for the long term success of conservation efforts and lion preservation.
A man-eating lion was killed by game scouts in Southern Tanzania in April 2004.
It is believed to have killed and eaten at least 35 people in a series of incidents covering several villages in the Rufiji Delta coastal region.
Dr Rolf D.
Baldus, the GTZ wildlife programme coordinator, commented that it was likely that the lion preyed on humans because it had a large abscess underneath a molar which was cracked in several places.
He further commented that "This lion probably experienced a lot of pain, particularly when it was chewing."
GTZ is the German development cooperation agency and has been working with the Tanzanian government on wildlife conservation for nearly two decades.
As in other cases this lion was large, lacked a mane, and had a tooth problem.
The "All-Africa"
record of man-eating generally is considered to be not Tsavo, but the lesser-known incidents in the late 1930s through the late 1940s in what was then Tanganyika (now Tanzania).
George Rushby, game warden and professional hunter, eventually dispatched the pride, which over three generations is thought to have killed and eaten 1,500 to 2,000 in what is now Njombe district.
In captivity
Widely seen in captivity, lions are part of a group of exotic animals that are the core of zoo exhibits since the late eighteenth century; members of this group are invariably large vertebrates and include elephants, rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses, large primates, and other big cats; zoos sought to gather as many of these species as possible.
Though many modern zoos are more selective about their exhibits, there are over 1000 African and 100 Asiatic lions in zoos and wildlife parks around the world.
They are considered an ambassador species and are kept for tourism, education and conservation purposes.
Lions can reach an age of over 20 years in captivity; Apollo, a resident lion of Honolulu Zoo in Honolulu, Hawaii, died at age 22 in August 2007.
His two sisters, born in 1986, are still living.
A zoo-based lion breeding programme usually takes into account the separation of the various lion subspecies, while mitigating the inbreeding that is likely to occur when animals are divided by subspecies.
Lions were kept and bred by Assyrian kings as early as 850 BC, and Alexander the Great was said to have been presented with tame lions by the Malhi of northern India.
Later in Roman times, lions were kept by emperors to take part in the gladiator arenas.
Roman notables, including Sulla, Pompey, and Julius Caesar, often ordered the mass slaughter of hundreds of lions at a time.
In the East, lions were tamed by Indian princes, and Marco Polo reported that Kublai Khan kept lions inside.
The first European "zoos"
spread amongst noble and royal families in the thirteenth century, and until the seventeenth century were called seraglios; at that time, they came to be called menageries, an extension of the cabinet of curiosities.
They spread from France and Italy during the Renaissance to the rest of Europe.
In England, although the seraglio tradition was less developed, Lions were kept at the Tower of London in a seraglio established by King John in the thirteenth century, probably stocked with animals from an earlier menagerie started in 1125 by Henry I at his palace in Woodstock, near Oxford; where lions had been reported stocked by William of Malmesbury.
Seraglios served as expressions of the nobility's power and wealth.
Animals such as big cats and elephants, in particular, symbolized power, and would be pitted in fights against each other or domesticated animals.
By extension, menageries and seraglios served as demonstrations of the dominance of man over nature.
Consequently, the defeat of such natural "lords"
by a cow in 1682 astonished the spectators, and the flight of an elephant before a rhinoceros drew jeers.
Such fights would slowly fade out in the seventeenth century with the spread of the menagerie and their appropriation by the commoners.
The tradition of keeping big cats as pets would last into the nineteenth century, at which time it was seen as highly eccentric.
The presence of lions at the Tower of London was intermittent, being restocked when a monarch or his consort, such as Margaret of Anjou the wife of Henry VI, either sought or were given animals.
Records indicate they were kept in poor conditions there in the seventeenth century, in contrast to more open conditions in Florence at the time.
The menagerie was open to the public by the eighteenth century; admission was a sum of three half-pence or the supply of a cat or dog for feeding to the lions.
A rival menagerie at the Exeter Exchange also exhibited lions until the early nineteenth century.
The Tower menagerie was closed down by William IV, and animals transferred to the London Zoo which opened its gates to the public on 27 April 1828.
Animal species disappear when they cannot peacefully orbit the center of gravity that is man.
Pierre-Amédée Pichot, 1891
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The wild animals trade flourished alongside improved colonial trade of the nineteenth century.
Lions were considered fairly common and inexpensive.
Although they would barter higher than tigers, they were less costly than larger, or more difficult to transport animals such as the giraffe and hippopotamus, and much less than pandas.
Like other animals, lions were seen as little more than a natural, boundless commodity that was mercilessly exploited with terrible losses in capture and transportation.
The widely reproduced imagery of the heroic hunter chasing lions would dominate a large part of the century.
Explorers and hunters exploited a popular Manichean division of animals into "good"
and "evil"
to add thrilling value to their adventures, casting themselves as heroic figures.
This resulted in big cats, always suspected of being man-eaters, representing "both the fear of nature and the satisfaction of having overcome it."
Lions were kept in cramped and squalid conditions at London Zoo until a larger lion house with roomier cages was built in the 1870s.
Further changes took place in the early twentieth century, when Carl Hagenbeck designed enclosures more closely resembling a natural habitat, with concrete 'rocks', more open space and a moat instead of bars.
He designed lion enclosures for both Melbourne Zoo and Sydney's Taronga Zoo, among others, in the early twentieth century.
Though his designs were popular, the old bars and cage enclosures prevailed until the 1960s in many zoos.
In the later decades of the twentieth century, larger, more natural enclosures and the use of wire mesh or laminated glass instead of lowered dens allowed visitors to come closer than ever to the animals, with some attractions even placing the den on ground higher than visitors, such as the Cat Forest/Lion Overlook of Oklahoma City Zoological Park.
Lions are now housed in much larger naturalistic areas; modern recommended guidelines more closely approximate conditions in the wild with closer attention to the lions' needs, highlighting the need for dens in separate areas, elevated positions in both sun and shade where lions can sit and adequate ground cover and drainage as well as sufficient space to roam.
There have also been instances where a lion was kept by a private individual, such as the lioness Elsa, who was raised by George Adamson and his wife Joy Adamson and came to develop a strong bonds with them, particularly the latter.
The lioness later achieved fame, her life being documented in a series of books and films.
Baiting and taming
Lion-baiting is a blood sport involving the baiting of lions in combat with other animals, usually dogs.
Records of it exist in ancient times through until the seventeenth century.
It was finally banned in Vienna by 1800 and England in 1825.
Lion taming refers to the practice of taming lions for entertainment, either as part of an established circus or as an individual act, such as Siegfried & Roy.
The term is also often used for the taming and display of other big cats such as tigers, leopards, and cougars.
The practice was pioneered in the first half of the nineteenth century by Frenchman Henri Martin and American Isaac Van Amburgh who both toured widely, and whose techniques were copied by a number of followers.
Van Amburgh performed before Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom in 1838 when he toured Great Britain.
Martin composed a pantomime titled Les Lions de Mysore ("the lions of Mysore"), an idea that Amburgh quickly borrowed.
These acts eclipsed equestrianism acts as the central display of circus shows, but truly entered public consciousness in the early twentieth century with cinema.
In demonstrating the superiority of man over animal, lion taming served a purpose similar to animal fights of previous centuries.
The now iconic lion tamer's chair was possibly first used by American Clyde Beatty (1903–1965).
Cultural depictions
The lion has been an icon for humanity for thousands of years, appearing in cultures across Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Despite incidents of attacks on humans, lions have enjoyed a positive depiction in culture as strong but noble.
A common depiction is their representation as "king of the jungle"
or "king of the beasts"; hence, the lion has been a popular symbol of royalty and stateliness, as well as a symbol of bravery; it is featured in several fables of the sixth century BC Greek storyteller Aesop.
Representations of lions date back 32,000 years; the lion-headed ivory carving from Vogelherd cave in the Swabian Alb in southwestern Germany has been determined to be about 32,000 years old from the Aurignacian culture.
Two lions were depicted mating in the Chamber of Felines in 15,000-year-old Paleolithic cave paintings in the Lascaux caves.
Cave lions are also depicted in the Chauvet Cave, discovered in 1994; this has been dated at 32,000 years of age, though it may be of similar or younger age to Lascaux.
Ancient Egypt venerated the lioness (the fierce hunter) as their war deities and among those in the Egyptian pantheon are, Bast, Mafdet, Menhit, Pakhet, Sekhmet, Tefnut, and the Sphinx; Among the Egyptian pantheon also are sons of these goddesses such as, Maahes, and, as attested by Egyptians as a Nubian deity, Dedun.
Careful examination of the lion deities noted in many ancient cultures reveal that many are lioness also.
Admiration for the co-operative hunting strategies of lionesses was evident in very ancient times.
Most of the lion gates depict lionesses.
The Nemean lion was symbolic in Ancient Greece and Rome, represented as the constellation and zodiac sign Leo, and described in mythology, where its skin was borne by the hero Heracles.
The lion is the biblical emblem of the tribe of Judah and later the Kingdom of Judah.
It is contained within Jacob's blessing to his fourth son in the penultimate chapter of the Book of Genesis, "Judah is a lion's whelp; On prey, my son have you grown.
He crouches, lies down like a lion, like the king of beasts—who dare rouse him?"
(Genesis 49:9).
In the modern state of Israel, the lion remains the symbol of the capital city of Jerusalem, emblazoned on both the flag and coat of arms of the city.
The lion was a prominent symbol in both the Old Babylonian and Neo-Babylonian Empire periods.
The classic Babylonian lion motif, found as a statue, carved or painted on walls, is often referred to as the striding lion of Babylon.
It is in Babylon that the biblical Daniel is said to have been delivered from the lion's den.
Such symbolism was appropriated by Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq for their Lion of Babylon tank, with the technology adapted from a Russian model.
Narasimha ("man-lion") is described as an incarnation (avatara) of Vishnu within the Puranic texts of Hinduism; who takes the form of half-man/half-lion, having a human torso and lower body, but with a lion-like face and claws.
it is worshiped as "Lion God."
Singh is an ancient Indian vedic name meaning "lion"
(Asiatic lion), dating back over 2000 years to ancient India.
It was originally only used by Rajputs a Hindu Kshatriya or military caste in India.
After the birth of the Khalsa brotherhood in 1699, the Sikhs also adopted the name "Singh"
due to the wishes of Guru Gobind Singh.
Along with millions of Hindu Rajputs today, it is also used by over 20 million Sikhs worldwide.
Found famously on numerous flags and coats of arms all across Asia and Europe, the Asiatic lions also stand firm on the National Emblem of India..
Farther south on the Indian subcontinent, the Asiatic lion is symbolic for the Sinhalese, Sri Lanka's ethnic majority; the term derived from the Indo-Aryan Sinhala, meaning the "lion people"
or "people with lion blood", while a sword wielding lion is the central figure on the national flag of Sri Lanka.
The Asiatic lion is a common motif in Chinese art.
They were first used in art during the late Spring and Autumn Period (fifth or sixth century BC), and became much more popular during the Han Dynasty (206 BC – AD 220), when imperial guardian lions started to be placed in front of imperial palaces for protection.
Because lions have never been native to China, early depictions were somewhat unrealistic; after the introduction of Buddhist art to China in the Tang Dynasty (after the sixth century AD), lions were usually depicted without wings, their bodies became thicker and shorter, and their manes became curly.
The lion dance is a form of traditional dance in Chinese culture in which performers mimic a lion's movements in a lion costume, often with musical accompaniment from cymbals, drums and gongs.
They are performed at Chinese New Year, the August Moon Festival and other celebratory occasions for good luck.
The island nation of Singapore (Singapura) derives its name from the Malay words singa (lion) and pura (city), which in turn is from the Tamil-Sanskrit சிங்க singa सिंह siṃha and पुर புர pura, which is cognate to the Greek πόλις, pólis.
According to the Malay Annals, this name was given by a fourteenth century Sumatran Malay prince named Sang Nila Utama, who, on alighting the island after a thunderstorm, spotted an auspicious beast on shore that his chief minister identified as a lion (Asiatic lion).
Recent studies of Singapore indicate that lions have never lived there, and the beast seen by Sang Nila Utama was more likely to have been a tiger.
"Aslan"
or "Arslan (Ottoman ارسلان arslān and اصلان aṣlān) is the Turkish and Mongolian word for "lion".
It was used as a title by a number of Seljuk and Ottoman rulers, including Alp Arslan and Ali Pasha, and is a Turkic/Iranian name.
"Lion"
was the nickname of medieval warrior rulers with a reputation for bravery, such as Richard I of England, known as Richard the Lionheart,, Henry the Lion (German: Heinrich der Löwe), Duke of Saxony and Robert III of Flanders nicknamed "The Lion of Flanders"—a major Flemish national icon up to the present.
Lions are frequently depicted on coats of arms, either as a device on shields themselves, or as supporters.
(The lioness is much more infrequent.) The formal language of heraldry, called blazon, employs French terms to describe the images precisely.
Such descriptions specified whether lions or other creatures were "rampant"
or "passant", that is whether they were rearing or crouching.
The lion is used as a symbol of sporting teams, from national soccer teams such as England, Scotland and Singapore to famous clubs such as the Detroit Lions of the NFL, Chelsea and Aston Villa of the English Premier League, (and the Premiership itself) to a host of smaller clubs around the world.
Villa sport a Scottish Lion Rampant on their crest, as do Rangers and Dundee United of the Scottish Premier League.
Lions continue to feature in modern literature, from the messianic Aslan in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and following books from the Narnia series written by C.
S.
Lewis, to the comedic Cowardly Lion in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
The advent of moving pictures saw the continued presence of lion symbolism; one of the most iconic and widely recognised lions is Leo the Lion, the mascot for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) studios, which has been in use since the 1920s.
The 1960s saw the appearance of what is possibly the most famous lioness, the Kenyan animal Elsa in the movie Born Free, based on the true-life international bestselling book of the same title.
The lion's role as King of the Beasts has been used in cartoons, from the 1950s manga which gave rise to the first Japanese colour TV animation series, Kimba the White Lion, Leonardo Lion of King Leonardo and his Short Subjects, both from the 1960s, up to the 1994 Disney animated feature film The Lion King, which also featured the popular song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"
in its soundtrack.