African lions are one step from extinction after losing 90% in a century and becoming extinct in 26 countries, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) warned on World Lion Day, which is celebrated this Thursday.
According to the WWF, African lion numbers have halved in the past 25 years, leaving between 20,000 and 30,000 in the wild, spread over only one-tenth of their historical range.
This big cat has been listed as “Vulnerable” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List, the step before it was included in the “Endangered” category.
Among the biggest threats to these animals, WWF points to habitat loss, illegal trafficking and trafficking, lack of food and competition with humans for wild prey, as well as poaching and conflict with local herders.
The African lion plays a key role in balancing biodiversity as an apex predator, maintaining healthy populations of herbivores such as zebras and giraffes.
According to the WWF, as control over the trade of other animals, such as tigers and elephants, increases, the lion is becoming a new victim of poaching and illegal trade.
The illegal trade and trafficking of species led WWF to launch the “Stop Species Trade” campaign in 2017, aiming to raise awareness of the situation and engage citizens in the fight against this crime against nature.
The NGO warns that these felines are “persecuted, poisoned, cornered, hunted to be sold in clandestine markets for the sale of their skulls, skins, teeth or their fat, as well as their claws as jewelery elements”.
They also point out that in some Asian countries “wine is made from lion bones, as a symbol of social status”.
Species trafficking “is equivalent” to drug and arms trafficking and “could be worth between €10 and €20 billion a year”, but is “much less risky and persecuted”, they say, although it has social and economic consequences as well as the associated impact on biodiversity.
With the creation of reserves and protected areas for lions and all the game they live with, WWF is trying to protect biodiversity, such as in Soknot (southern Kenya and northern Tanzania), where they launched a project to reverse the situation and double the number of lions. lions in 2050.
In addition, WWF points out that in Namibia’s protected areas, they are developing, together with various partners, various programs to allow African lions to live in the wild, projects in which they work with local communities to raise awareness among pastoralists. rangers and researchers for the life of cats.
This conservation organization also fights against poachers and has set up several awareness-raising projects that have led some of them to become forest rangers.
Source: DN
