The Lion Project

Lion occupies a major place in ecological processes and is an iconic species for society, which makes it a major conservation issue. Although globally declining in its natural habitat, the population seems to increase in southern Africa where it is protected in usually small and fenced reserves. But contrary to open reserves, this safer (in terms of wildlife-human interactions) and cost-effective tool nevertheless leads to well documented extrinsic costs for lion meta-population, such as ecosystem fragmentation, loss of dispersal, genetic isolation and reduced conservation value of buffer zones. Furthermore, intrinsic costs associated with living in small, fenced reserves undoubtedly also affect the fitness of lions and have been overlooked so far.

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Lions prides in small, fenced reserves face limitations in their natural behaviours due to their constrained environment. They are subject to management practices which artificially manipulate their density and structure (e.g. via hunting, contraception, live introductions) to prevent from exceeding carrying capacity. This modifies neighbouring pride encounter probability and intra pride interactions. As the only cat species characterised by a clan-territory system, lions are often involved in aggressive encounters with neighbouring groups to gain or maintain territories. The intensity of such behaviours depends on a wide range of parameters, such as lions density, prey distribution and abundance and resource availability, which are also artificially shaped in small, fenced reserves. This could in turn affect reproductive behaviours and performances of the prides.

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The project aims at exploring and deciphering the intrinsic costs associated with living in small, fenced reserves to help understanding the role each type of protection measure (large open vs. small fenced reserves) can play in African lion conservation.

 

Source: Lion project, Jan Venter & Lucie Thel

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Associated publications